‘If he sees sense, and I’m not convinced he ever will. But one thing I am certain of is that I’m home for good, so even if we did have a future together, he’d be the one making the concessions and moving up here.’
‘Attagirl,’ Debo said. ‘All those years of negotiating with stubborn village elders and minor officials has given you a bit of attitude!’
‘And I want you to have the money, Debo – think of it as a loan.’
‘A loan I’d probably never be able to pay back,’ she said honestly.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Just think how much they paid you for that cameo part in a blockbuster film a couple of years ago! That would have practically been enough on its own. But I do have one or two conditions for lending you the money …’
‘Conditions?’ Debo echoed, her large grey eyes widening.
‘Yes. I know that Judy runs the household affairs and pays those bills, and I don’t want to mess with that – though I’d like to know where she gets the money from,’ I added, the thought only just occurring to me.
‘Oh, Debo puts a bit into the joint household account whenever she earns anything,’ Judy said. ‘We’ve got to try and keep a roof over our heads and eat, after all. But I’ve got a small income and my pension too, though it never seems to go far enough.’
‘You shouldn’t have to put all your own money in! Wasn’t Debo paying you a wage at one time?’ I asked.
Judy shrugged. ‘At first, when you were a baby and I looked after you full time, but later … well, I live here too, so it was share and share alike.’
‘But if anything happens to Debo, you won’t even have a roof over your head now, have you thought of that?’
‘I hadn’t!’ Debo exclaimed. ‘How awful of me! Judy darling, we should be paying into a pension for you, or something, just in case!’
‘Too late, and in any case, you’re the thin, rangy sort who’ll live for ever, while by now my heart is probably totally encased in fat,’ Judy said. ‘Anyway, leaving aside the household expenses, what are your conditions, Izzy?’
‘That I take over the kennels paperwork,’ I said. ‘The office looks as if someone removed the ceiling and tipped in a lorry-load of scrap paper. I know the only thing Debo’s kept in order are the dogs’ records, and those are out in the shed, so that’s probably partly Sandy’s doing.’
‘She does keep them updated and runs a tidy shed,’ Judy agreed.
Sandy Lane, a local farmer’s daughter, was by nature taciturn and solitary, apart from the dogs, and liked to eat her lunch, drink her tea and do her paperwork in a converted shed, where she had a comfy chair, radio, table and smelly paraffin stove.
It was there, when they did manage to rehome a dog, that she made the new owner pay a small fee and buy a suitable collar and lead before letting them leave.
‘I don’t mind in the least if you want to take the office side over, because it’s a nightmare – I mean, I’m a charity,’ Debo said, as if that excused her from any form of paperwork. ‘I shove all the receipts into a box and once a year the accountant comes here and sifts through them, but he says he despairs of me.’
‘I’m not surprised. If ever the taxman decides to do a complete inspection of the books, they’ll wipe the floor with you.’
‘Is that it – you just want to help me with the paperwork?’ asked Debo.
‘Pretty much. I think we need to find better ways of ordering things and making ends meet, but I’ll work on it. And you have to admit you have way too many dogs!’
‘I don’t like to turn them down,’ she said sheepishly.
‘I know, but some of them are not desperate dogs at all, they just need rehoming, so you could pass those on to larger rescue places where they can find new owners more easily.’
‘Sandy and I have both told her that,’ Judy said. ‘We have contacts who could help, and they could always return the dogs if they can’t rehome them.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Debo conceded reluctantly.
‘If we do end up having to remove all the kennels outside the garden boundary, it’s going to be the only way we can carry on,’ Judy pointed out.
‘Well, think about it while I deal with the financial crisis and get things back on an even keel,’ I suggested.
‘I still don’t think you should rush into giving us your money, Izzy. You’ve had a shock and you’ve been working so hard,’ Judy said. ‘You need to rest and recover before you make a big decision like that.’
‘No, go with your heart,’ Debo urged me. ‘Not about the money, but about where you want to live and work.’
‘I’ve already made my mind up about all of those,’ I said, ‘and what’s more, now I’m back for good, I also intend facing up to my past head-on.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Judy.
‘That I’m on a mission to talk to everyone closely involved in the accident that killed Harry, so I can get as true a picture as possible of what happened that night. I should have done it years ago, because I’m sure when I have I’ll really be able to put it behind me at last.’
They exchanged worried glances.
‘I’m not sure that’s the best idea. It was so long ago, everyone has forgotten about it,’ Judy said.
‘But I don’t think they have, they just don’t talk about it. Even you two have never really discussed what happened with me, but now you’re going to have to.’
‘Well … we will if you really want us to,’ Judy said, and Debo reluctantly agreed.
‘I don’t think you should rake it all up again, but if you’re determined to do it, then we’ll help you, of course.’
‘We don’t even like to think of it,’ Judy said. ‘At one point we really thought we’d lost you, when the line on the monitor went flat …’
‘I expect that was while I was in Heaven, before I had to come back,’ I said. ‘I know neither of you really believe that I went there, but it was totally real – and anyway, if it wasn’t, then how did I know that Harry and Patch were both dead?’
‘That was odd,’ Debo admitted. ‘But the nurses might have talked about the accident and we may have mentioned Patch, so your subconscious probably absorbed the information.’
I gave up on that tack. ‘Apart from the visit to Heaven, the last thing I remember before waking in hospital was being in the car park on my way home from the pub and telling Harry I couldn’t go to the party with him and the others. There’s a huge blank to fill in, so I’d really appreciate any help you can give me.’
And they did answer my questions about that night, though of course by the time they’d arrived on the scene of the accident, everyone except Harry was out of the car and the ambulance was on its way.
It obviously upset them to remember it, but I also had the oddest impression that Judy was holding something back …
After that, I went upstairs to unpack my things, and then into my studio for a while. Whenever I’d returned I’d always been grateful that it hadn’t been turned into emergency kennelling but was always just as I’d left it, with my old sketchbooks, rolls of fabric and drawers of odds and ends awaiting me.
It felt comforting, even with the niggling worry about whether this unknown son of Baz’s would change things – or, worse still, that his mother