Page 14 of Carry Me Home

‘I’ll send one after.’

‘Send one now.’

‘I’m on the phone to you now. I can’t do both.’

‘You absolutely can. You’re just being difficult.’

‘I’m holding the phone to my ear like a civilised person. If you wanted photo service, you should have texted.’

‘Send. The. Photo.’

‘After.’

She gives a tsk that turns half laugh, and I hold the phone a fraction closer.

‘So it was just … stuck in the gorse? How does a dog get stuck in gorse?’

‘Chasing something, probably. Rabbit, maybe. There are more warrens up near the Treloars than I care to think of. My theory is it went in confident and discovered halfway through that gorse is not as forgiving as it looks.’

‘Your theory.’

‘I’ve had a lot of time to develop theories while it’s watched me from my spot on the sofa.’

Nina laughs again, a belly rumble, and I let it run through me and fill the flat until it’s lighting the corners. The evening light has shifted while we’ve been talking, the cool pale turning honeyed.

‘So what are you going to do with it?’ she asks.

‘Keep putting up notices. Check the lost-dog pages. Wait for someone to claim it.’

‘And if no one does?’

‘Then I suppose I have a dog.’

‘Tom Darcy with a dog.’ She sounds it out. ‘That actually makes a lot of sense. You’d be good at having a dog.’

‘Would I?’

‘You’re very dependable. Dogs like dependable. They like routine and knowing where they stand and someone who’ll show up every day without making a fuss about it. That’s basically your whole personality.’

I press my thumb into the cracked leather of the armchair.

‘Speaking of,’ I say, ‘how’s your mum?’

‘Driving me slowly insane, but in a loving way.’ The jangle of her bangles – that sound I’d know in a crowd of thousands, in the dark, underwater. ‘She’s convinced I’m not eating properly, which is objectively hilarious given that I run a café and have lived off scones since I got here.’

‘Ran.’

The word is out before I catch it. There’s a beat. Silence.

‘Run,’ she says. Quiet. Firm. ‘Present tense.’

‘Present tense. Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. Just don’t bury me while I’m still trying to breathe.’

I want to apologise. Grovel. But I hear the cupboard open again. Nina in motion, Nina filling the silence with activity because stillness is the thing she can’t afford. ‘I’m eating constantly. Her fridge is a war zone. She keeps buying things and I keep cooking them and then she tells me I look tired and buys more things.’ A pause. ‘I’m fine, Tom.’

‘I didn’t say you weren’t.’ I know she’s not. But I don’t push it because, over the years, I’ve learned where the edges are. I’ve spent a long time mapping them.