An hour. That’s how long Gram normally walks Lady for. Down the street, across the Links, down onto the beach, along to the lighthouse and back. You can do it in less. A lot less. But with ball chucking, letting her play with other dogs and so on, it’s about an hour usually.

But who knows? She might go with this bloke down to the bandstand and turn round. Or might continue on to Seaton Sluice and be gone all afternoon.

I’m telling myself this to distract from the pain in my fingers.

5004 tug

5005 tug

5006 tug

Then there’s the man himself.

I’ll come straight to the point. And I know it seems like a strange conclusion and it’s not even a conclusion, but …

Is Gram dating him?

The thought makes me shudder. For a start, he’s years younger than she is. I do not like to think of Gram as some elderly lady with a toyboy. To be honest, I wouldn’t be keen even if he was the same age as her. It just wouldn’t be right.

And he’s a smoker. Gram would never date a smoker.

(I once asked her if smoking was common. She thought for a while and then said, ‘When it was very common, it wasn’t actually “common”. Now that it’s less common, it’s actually much more “common”.’ She smiled at her own joke, and so did I. I understood what she meant.)

Thing is: Gram is Gram. Strait-laced, strict, very proper. And, importantly, single.

6445 tug

6446 tug

6447 tug

I’m trying to piece together all the instances of Strange Things That Don’t Add Up. The thing with Great-gran, the lie about being at the bazaar meeting at the vicarage when she wasn’t, and coming home looking as though she had been crying, the date with a younger man and this flippin’ flamin’ box that JUST WILL NOT OPEN.

7112 tug

7113 tug …

Pop!

It opens. On the seven thousand, one hundred and thirteenth try.

My throat is dry. My hands are even shaking a little bit as I pull the padlock out of the latch, and open up the lid.

If you’d asked me before what I expected to see, I would not in a million years have said, ‘A photograph of the pop star Felina’. Yet that’s what it is, staring right at me.

A colour picture of a dead pop star, in all her cat make-up, hands held up like a cat’s claws, but with a sneaky glint in her eyes and a cheeky smile.

Felina.