‘I’m sorry,’ I start, ‘but who is this?’
‘Irene Craven.’ She doesn’t elaborate.
‘And who said to call me?’
‘Tony. Tony Lomax.’ As if I’m incredibly dim not to have realised.
‘Tony said to call me?’ I ask.
‘Yes, before he went into hospital. He said you’d sort things out …’
‘Why’s Tony in hospital? What’s happened?’
‘He had a stroke,’ she replies. ‘A bad stroke—’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’
‘I live across the road,’ she continues. ‘I took Bob in when Tony went off in the ambulance, thinking it’d just be a couple of days. But it’s gone on and on, and I can’t—’
‘D’you know how he is?’ I cut in. ‘How he’s doing?’
‘I think he’s a bit better now,’ she says. ‘He called me anyway so that’s a good sign, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose it must be …’
‘But he doesn’t know when he’s coming out,’ she goes on, ‘and I can’t keep Bob here much longer. I can’t manage the walks with my legs. I don’t want to put him with a rescue centre or anything, but there’s no one I can ask—’
‘No, please don’t do that,’ I say quickly. ‘I’ll sort something out. Which hospital is Tony in?’
As she tells me I try to shake off a needle of guilt over that time I saw him, when he was all shaken up about the attempted burglary. Should I have spent more time with him? Perhaps tried to find out if he has anyone he could call upon, if it ever happens again? I have no idea. This is way beyond my remit. But I know he’s a worrier and that he just needs to offload sometimes – in the way that Esther does, I suppose, with her therapist.
But I’m not a therapist. I’m a vet. So, having noted down Irene Craven’s address, I decide that first I’ll go round and take Bob off her hands. He can stay with me for the time being until Tony is well enough to come home. Esther can walk him during the day while I’m at work. It’ll be good for her, I figure, being out in the fresh air, getting some exercise and having Bob for company. Plus, when I visit Tony I’ll be able to show him some pictures of Bob in our care and report how well he’s doing. Hopefully, that’ll reassure him. It might even help his recovery.
It’s the perfect plan, I decide, with the added bonus that hospital visits will also act as a distraction from the almighty fuck-up I’ve made of things with Lauren. I picture Tony alone in his flat, with only Bob for company. Am I that different really? Yes, I’m a fair bit younger but I’ve also spent an awfully long time on my own. It’s well documented in my family how Polly ‘ran away’ to Peru in order to get away from me. ‘It could’ve been worse,’ Luc joked one night over drinks. ‘If she’d wanted to put maximum distance between you she would have gone to New Zealand, eh, James?’
Trying to banish thoughts of myself at Tony’s age (lonely cat man watching far too much TV on my own) I cycle home to pick up my car, and also to check on Esther and quickly explain the Bob situation to her. After all, she’ll have to be a willing participant in this. I’ll need to be able to count on her.
‘So are you okay with that?’ I ask.
‘Mmm-hmm.’ She’s engrossed in something on her phone.
‘I mean, you’d need to walk him in the day – would that be all right? Just until Tony’s back home and well enough to take him out?’
‘Will Walter be okay with Bob?’ she asks distractedly.
‘I think so. We’ll have to see. I can’t think of any other solution at the moment.’
She turns, finally, eyes bright and a big smile on her face. ‘I’m just chatting to someone.’
By this she means messaging – no one talks on the phone anymore, I realise that – and something plummets inside me. Not Miles again. Here we go, I think, already bracing myself mentally. He’s been simmering away in his bat cave, plotting how to win her back. ‘Don’t look like that,’ Esther teases. ‘It’s not Miles, Dad.’
‘Who is it, then?’
‘Charlie.’
‘You mean, Lauren’s Charlie?’
‘Who else?’ she asks with a grin. ‘I mean, what other Charlie would I be messaging?’
‘I just didn’t know you were still in touch,’ I start.
‘You know he sent me a sweet message after the chicken thing …’
‘Yes, but I just thought that was a one-off.’
‘No, Dad.’ She looks at me, the unspoken subject of Lauren and me hovering like a cloud over us now. Are you two on a break? Esther had asked a couple of weeks ago. As if we were teenagers.
‘It’s not really happening at the moment,’ I’d said. She’d tried to probe some more, perhaps not understanding that chickengate was the reason I hadn’t gone to Cornwall, which had killed off the lovely thing we’d had. I didn’t blame her exactly. But I wasn’t prepared to delve into it with her.
Even so, the fact that she and Charlie are still in contact has slightly lifted my gloom as I drive over to Irene Craven’s. I could grab at this as reason to send Lauren a message: It was nice of Charlie to contact Esther. She was really happy to hear from him. But should I even discuss the comings and goings of our kids? Would both of them resent it? They’re human tripwires, highly tuned to parental interference or even comment. I thought the toddler stage was confusing, when you made them scrambled egg because they loved scrambled egg, then one day they pushed it away, scowling, as if you’d presented them with vomit on toast. One minute they’d be clamped to you like a baby monkey; the next they’d bristle with irritation when you happened to enter the room they were in.
But really, all that was a walk in the park compared to the workings of a young adult’s mind.
I’m turning all of this over as I park up in Irene Craven’s street. They’re neatly kept terraces with tiny front patio gardens. Hers, it turns out, is home to countless ornamental creatures arranged on the flagstones: foxes, badgers and a not exactly lifelike, but admittedly striking iridescent metal stork.
I press the doorbell, happy now at the thought of Bob coming to us for a temporary stay. It’ll be fun, I think, to have him around. He’s an affectionate old boy, and it’ll be something else to take my mind off the glaring void in my life where Lauren used to be.
The door opens and a tall, thin elderly woman in checked trousers and a peach sweater greets me with a look of disappointment, as if she’d expected something better. ‘Mrs Craven? I’m James,’ I start, aware now of the scramble of Bob approaching. He tumbles out of the door and fusses around my legs. ‘Hello, boy!’ I crouch down to greet him. At least someone seems happy to see me.
‘I don’t know what you’re going to do with him,’ Irene says, shaking her head.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I say, straightening up. ‘He can come and stay with me until Tony’s home—’
‘That’s the thing,’ Irene cuts in, frowning now. ‘They called a little while ago. The hospital, I mean. Tony died this afternoon.’