He smiles. A little hobby to slot in is the last thing he needs, but still …
Without considering what he’s doing, James slips the loop of Buddy’s lead over the bollard at the end of the alley and delves into his jacket pocket. He’s forgotten his phone, but he does have a crumpled shopping list scrawled on a paper napkin. He pulls out the tiniest stub of a pencil and scribbles down the number, thinking how mad it is, assuming he’d be capable of learning anything new at forty-three years old. Anyway, hadn’t he planned to sell Amy’s piano, seeing as she clearly doesn’t want that either?
Another barking outburst interrupts his thoughts as Buddy starts leaping wildly, clearly furious at being tied up. The sight of a small dog across the street – one of those poochy creatures with a bow at its fringe – has sent him into a frenzy. James hurriedly lifts his lead off the bollard, simultaneously making apologetic gestures to the dog’s owner in her prim floral dress while snapping, ‘That’s enough, Buddy. Calm down.’ Shooting him a furious look, the woman scoops up her quivering pet, as if fearful that Buddy might savage it. About to explain that he’s just nervous, defensive, or whatever you want to call it, James momentarily loses concentration, enabling Buddy to break free from his grasp and charge across the road in a blur of black and white fur, red leather lead flying behind him. The woman shrinks back in fear, but Buddy is no longer interested in her yapping hound. He’s now pelting down towards the beach with a cursing James in pursuit.
To his horror, Buddy is heading straight for the sandcastle competition, paying no heed to the fact that most of these structures have clearly required weeks of careful planning and complex architectural plans.
‘Buddy!’ James cries, carefully stepping around what looks like a scale model of the Sagrada Família with wet sand dribbled over its majestic spires. ‘Come here right now.’
Buddy stops for a moment, investigating the remains of a picnic spread out on a rainbow-striped blanket. A bearded man who might have stepped out of the Toast catalogue shoos him away, and a bunch of children yell in protest as Buddy scampers over a mound of sand with little flags stuck all over it, like some kind of gigantic pin cushion.
‘It’s ridiculous!’ someone cries. ‘That dog’s out of control.’
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ James mutters as he tears after his dog, who has now cocked his leg against the judges’ trestle table for a hasty pee before continuing his explorations of the beach.
‘Could the owner of this dog please remove him from the area,’ a male voice booms over the PA system. ‘A Beach Buddy has already been informed …’
Ah, the illustrious BBs, jumped-up volunteers in lilac T-shirts who appear out of thin air on the rare occasion that someone dares to stub out a fag in the sand. They don’t take kindly to dogs venturing into the wrong zone – as James has been reminded on several occasions by a zealous-dad type with a shiny ‘BB’ button badge, who clearly derived great pleasure from having the authority to tell people off.
At least Buddy has left the competition now, and is prancing delightedly in the shallow waves. James marches towards him, not realising that the paper napkin with the piano teacher’s number has fluttered away behind him and is being carried away by the light breeze. By the time he’s marched Buddy back to the promenade, wondering if 3 p.m. is too early for strong alcohol, he has forgotten that he even wrote it down.
Chapter Twelve
Kerry had always assumed that a mid-life crisis involves the purchase of an enormous motorbike and ill-advised leather trousers. But now she thinks maybe they’re more complicated than that. More like a forty-year-old man gets monumentally pissed with younger colleagues, stays over at the flat of some little princess, then announces that perhaps moving to the south coast wasn’t such a great idea after all, despite being one hundred percent certain that blissful day with the kite. And that now he’s had time to ‘really think things through’, and despite the fact that they have an offer on the house, maybe they should hang onto their London home for a while longer, as a sort of … ‘base’.
‘What d’you mean, a “base”?’ Kerry asks. She and Rob have left the tearoom and are waiting at the pedestrian crossing to cross the road to the beach.
‘Just … somewhere I’d stay,’ Rob says, ‘one or two nights a week instead of commuting every day, until we’re sure about selling it.’
‘But I thought we were certain,’ she points out. ‘I seem to remember you saying, “Let’s do it, tell Maisie we want to go ahead.”’ She looks at him expectantly, baffled by this new development. ‘And now you’re completely backtracking,’ she adds. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on with you, Rob.’
For some reason, Kerry is finding it hard to breathe. Aware that in just a few minutes she’ll be required to be all perky and smiley in front of hordes of mothers at the sandcastle competition, she exhales fiercely and starts to cross the road.
‘I’ve just been mulling things over,’ Rob says, hurrying to keep up with her.
‘Well, I don’t see how we can afford to run two homes – not with your job being so precarious and me just starting freelancing. We’ve got to buy Maisie’s place sometime. We can’t expect to live rent-free forever.’
Rob presses his lips together as they reach a group of shiny blonde teenage girls dressed in skimpy shorts and Abercrombie sweatshirts, talking in loud, braying voices.
‘Anyway, when you say you want a “base”,’ Kerry adds as they make their way along the seafront, ‘do you mean a shag pad?’
‘Of course I don’t mean that. For God’s sake, that’s ridiculous.’
‘So why would you need it, unless this thing with Nadine—’
‘There’s no thing,’ he snaps. ‘I thought I’d finally managed to get that across to you …’
She glares at him, wishing she wasn’t obliged to spend another moment in his company. ‘Why d’you want to keep the house, then?’
‘I’m just trying to think practically,’ he mutters. ‘It is quite a schlep every day …’
Kerry throws him a baffled look. ‘But you said you’d be fine with the train, and you can always stay over with Simon or Phil if there’s something on after work …’
‘I … I just think,’ Rob starts, ‘maybe we’re being a bit hasty in selling it. It all feels a bit sudden, that’s all. Maybe we’d be better renting it out instead?’
‘I wish you’d have the courage to admit you’re having cold feet about moving,’ she replies bitterly.
‘No, I’m not. I just think … this might be a more sensible option, for us not to burn our bridges, you know? You’ve said yourself how you haven’t managed to make any friends yet, and I was thinking, perhaps that’s why last Saturday happened. I’m not making excuses, but maybe I’m not quite ready to make a complete break, and that’s why I went out and drank too much and crashed out at Nadine’s like a fucking idiot. Maybe it’s just been building up and I needed to let it all out …’
‘What did you need to let out?’ Kerry barks. ‘Your sperm?’
The woman in the creperie kiosk stares at them, brandishing her spatula in mid-air.
‘I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this,’ Rob hisses, quickening his pace. ‘That’s really going to help us settle in around here, isn’t it, shouting about sperm in public?’
‘Well, you obviously don’t want to settle in, so what does it matter?’
‘Kerry, listen to me.’ He grabs her arm and they stop