The road took a sharp turn between dark hawthorn hedges starred with silvery constellations of blossom, and then began to climb. The dark and densely planted conifers of Sir Lionel Cripchet’s estate, Grimside, crowded up to the backs of the cottages on our left, while the tangled ancient woodland of Sweetwell lay to the right. Oddly, although Cripchet’s estate was well known to be overrun with grey squirrels, they never crossed the road into Sweetwell. Tom Tamblyn always reckoned that this was to do with the taste of the water there, which despite the name is anything but sweet.
I put my window down and inhaled the familiar scents of home appreciatively. Already spring seemed to have arrived in the valley and all the buds and blooms were bursting forth at once, with bluebells, saffron-yellow gorse and daffodils along the grass verge, and creamy magnolia and bright yellow forsythia in the gardens.
The cottages edging the lane grew in number for, although Halfhidden straggled all the way up the steep lane to the Summit Alpine Nursery, most of the important buildings, including the tiny church, formed a defensive huddle around the circular Green.
Here stood the large house from which Cara Ferris’s parents ran their veterinary practice, Lottie Ross’s general shop, and the Hut, a half-brick, half-wooden hall, renovated more than twenty years before by Baz Salcombe in a fit of philanthropy.
Judy steered the car past the deserted bus shelter where, twice a day at an inconvenient hour, the Middlemoss bus stopped before returning whence it came, and turned between the lichen-scabbed stone gateposts of Sweetwell – and I saw at once that a large sign reading ‘Rufus Carlyle Garden Antiques’ had replaced the ‘Debo’s Desperate Dogs’ one.
I spotted that a moment later, half-concealed in the shrubbery by the turn-off to the Lodge. Unfortunately, the sign was the only thing that was concealed, for ramshackle kennels and rusty wire pens ran right up to the edge of the drive, and the sound of barking, which had been increasingly audible as we approached the Green, now became deafening.
‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘Things have expanded a bit since I was last home. How many dogs have you got now?’
‘Nearly forty at the last count,’ Judy admitted. ‘Debo can’t seem to say no.’
The cottage, a low honey-coloured building with windows set under the eaves, looked just the same. The deep scarlet door was flung open as we got out and the tall, slender and elegant figure of Debo, clad in jeans and wellies, was swept out on a wave of Desperate Dogs.
‘Darling!’ she cried, tripping over a rat-tailed little white mongrel and practically falling into my arms. ‘Welcome home!’
Sandy, the kennelmaid, loomed silently up and waded into the scrum, chasing all the dogs back towards the kennels in a yapping, noisy pack, and I finally managed to get through the door.
Debo didn’t let me have time to do more than dump my bags in my old bedroom up in the eaves, before calling me back down to the small sitting room for the council of war.
Vic and Ginger, the two house dogs, had vanished with the rest, but Babybelle lay like a furry Mont Blanc in front of the empty fireplace.
‘Belle refused to go out with the others and she’s too big to drag, unless one pushes and one pulls,’ Judy said, seeing my glance.
I sat down on one end of a rather hairy sofa and Belle heaved herself up and wearily plodded over, then subsided heavily onto my feet with a sigh. My toes instantly went numb.
Judy exchanged glances with Debo. ‘There, I told you she’d taken to Izzy.’
‘I suppose we’d better try and get her into her kennel before we start, because Sandy will feed them all when she comes back and then Belle will be desperate to get at her dinner. She’ll howl for hours afterwards, too, wanting more food,’ Debo said.
‘That must go down well with the neighbours,’ I commented.
‘Oh, well, most of them don’t mind and it’s not as if we’re right next to anyone. Dan Clew’s cottage is the nearest and he did report the barking to the council last year, but luckily we didn’t have quite as many dogs in at the time and when they measured the noise, it wasn’t so bad. Anyway, they don’t bark all the time.’
‘I’ll get Belle out,’ Judy said, and fetched in a sort of plastic ball with holes in it, filled with doggy treats that Chris, Debo’s canine behavioural specialist, had recommended. I think she could produce an adoring male specialist to provide free advice in any department.
Babybelle looked up when she heard the food rattle; then, as Judy backed out of the room, she slowly hauled herself to her feet, her eyes fixed longingly on the toy.
‘She has to chase it round her run to get the treats out and they’re low calorie, because Judy bakes them herself. Exercise and food – such a good idea,’ Debo said.
‘She is huge!’ I commentated as the bear-like creature ambled out.
‘Quite a lot of that is fur, because the Newfoundland breed has a special double layer to keep them warm when they’re swimming in the icy sea. And she’s got webbed feet too.’
‘Really?’ I said, fascinated. ‘Weird!’
Debo poured coffee and pushed the milk carton my way. The china was a mismatched collection of thick, white, cheap pottery, one or two remnants of Victorian chintz-patterned loveliness and a couple of eighties Portmeirion plates.
‘We can get the biscuits and cake out now without Babybelle bothering us,’ she said happily, opening a tin to reveal Judy’s home-baked pecan biscuits and another containing the coffee and walnut cake that Judy is convinced is my favourite.
Debo cut hefty slices from it and took one for herself.
‘It’s a miracle you aren’t twenty stone, with the amount of sugary things you eat,’ I said.
‘Good metabolism, darling, like you. It’s so lucky you took after my side of the family that way, even if you ended up titchy, like your father.’
Judy returned, dogless. ‘That should hold her for a while,’ she said, sinking back into her usual wing-back chair. ‘If we can get some more weight off, we should be able to rehome her eventually. She’s good-natured enough with people and other dogs. I’ll miss all that lovely hair for my knitting, though.’
Since Debo’s Desperate Dogs was a kind of Last Chance Saloon, rescuing dogs that, for one reason or another, were facing being put down, there was a core group of permanent residents who were unlikely to leave, as well as a fluctuating population of arrivals and departures. But recently there appeared to have been a population explosion.
I said so. ‘I see you’ve had to get Tom to make you some more runs out of old wooden pallets and wire mesh, Debo – they’re right up to the edge of the drive, now!’
‘We were bursting at the seams and it’s flat just there. Besides, I had to put them somewhere,’ she said reasonably.
‘But you’re only licensed for a certain number, and there wouldn’t be quite so many if you didn’t take in dogs that could be easily found new homes by other charities,’ Judy pointed out.
‘But the poor things have had such hard lives that they need a little time and love so they can recover first,’ Debo protested. ‘And anyway, when Baz came back last year – his first flying visit for yonks and he’d put on so much weight that that heart attack was on the cards, Izzy – he didn’t say anything about there being too many dogs, or the kennels spreading round the front just a tiny