Pets in Prospect - Malcolm D. Welshman [67]
I got all huffy. Petulant. If she was going to act like that, well bye-bye, Julie Andrews. See if I cared.
She was no longer one of my favourite things.
LUCY PROVES A POINT
By the time summer slipped into early autumn, Lucy and I had slipped into a comfortable routine of living together. We were lucky to have Willow Wren with its long, snaking back garden, the picturesque village setting and the kindly neighbours – Joan and Doug Spencer next door and, across the way, the well-meaning reverend, James Matthews and his wife, Susan. She’d been very understanding about the demise of her sponge cake. ‘It was obviously not meant to be,’ she’d said, casting her eyes heavenwards.
Work, too, was a factor which drew Lucy and me closer together. Though often hectic, chaotic and traumatic, our mutual love of animals and concern for their welfare was a common bond. If ever the pressures of working at Prospect House seemed to be reaching boiling point in one of us, the other was there to talk it through, help ease the tension, get things back on an even keel.
But in the last few weeks, there’d been something on Lucy’s mind. She’d been distinctly less chirpy and somewhat snappy, flaring up at the slightest thing. It was so unlike her.
‘What’s wrong, Luce?’ I’d asked on several occasions. But each time it was met with a shrug, a ‘Nothing’, and a quick change of subject; or worse – a stony silence.
This afternoon was a good example. Earlier, even though I’d just got back from a busy morning surgery, I’d offered to prepare lunch. There was an Italian ready meal in the freezer which needed eating up.
‘Why is it when you offer to do lunch, it’s a ready meal?’ Lucy complained. Ah – fair point, I suppose. Echoes of my days at Mrs Paget’s when my time in her kitchen was strictly limited and ready meals were the only option.
‘Well, I’ll rustle up an omelette then,’ I’d said to Lucy. We usually had a small but steady supply of eggs from Bertha and Belinda, our two Rhode Island Reds that Lucy had acquired as part of out burgeoning menagerie.
‘They’ve just gone off lay, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ she replied. ‘We’ve no eggs unless someone bothers to go to the supermarket.’ The ‘someone’ was clearly emphasised – the inference that it would be her was yet again obvious. Tetchy, without a doubt. I don’t know about chickens being off lay, but I was certainly feeling distinctly hen-pecked.
Ah, yes, Paul, I remonstrated to myself, should have looked in the fridge first. Careful now. Better watch my step – seems I might be treading on eggshells even if there aren’t any eggs.
A compromise was eventually reached – spaghetti bolognese. At least it showed more effort on my part; the spaghetti and mince needed cooking, even if the sauce did come out of a jar. The meal was eaten in silence.
That silence continued during the afternoon as we took the opportunity of savouring the warmth of the September sunshine, lying on loungers in the back garden. But it did nothing to dispel the chill between us. Pity, as it really was a glorious day. One of those early autumn days, misty in the morning, a touch of mellowness in the air, a hint of gold and red in the trees and colour still in the borders. We had clumps of purple Michaelmas daisies over which the occasional Red Admiral flitted, a second flush of yellow roses over the back door, and a tree still laden with rosy apples, many of which had dropped and on which wasps were feeding, getting drunk on the juice.
One such inebriated insect was now spiralling over me in ever-decreasing circles, likely at any moment to land in a drunken sprawl on my head. I flicked it away. It headed across to Lucy, who was sitting a few feet from me, legs tucked under her, staring into space. She was like a coiled spring awaiting release. The tension was almost palpable.
Suddenly, she broke the silence. ‘Where did that come from?’
For a moment, I thought she was referring to the wasp and was tempted to say, ‘From the apples’, but checked myself.