I cast my mind back to our first meeting and his neighbour flirting with him in front of me.
‘The…yummy mummy dog-sits?’
He screwed his face up a moment. ‘Tamara? God no! The other side. Retired couple.’
‘Oh, that makes more sense.’
‘Yeah. To be honest, I’d rather not be beholden to Tamara for anything, if you know what I mean.’
I could take a wild guess. Then I remembered my text from earlier.
‘But Mark said this morning…’
‘Yeah, I kind of spoke to Mark on my way out last night and explained the situation. Don’t be mad at him,’ he added, seeing my eyebrows shoot up. ‘I asked him to keep it a secret. If I’d known you were going to be so upset about it all last night, though, I’d have told you. I thought you were just upset about me slating your boyfriend.’
‘Let’s not talk about that. And I promise I’m not mad at Mark. I just…does Janey know?’
‘Of course. She and the kids came with me this morning to meet him. He was brilliant with them. So that was that. With a stop for food, bedding and, by the time the kids had finished, pretty much every toy in the place, we were done.’
‘Sneaky moo.’
‘Excuse me?’ he laughed.
‘Your sister. I was round there earlier! I had a break between clients close to her house so I stopped in for a cuppa and she never mentioned a thing.’
‘Yeah, that’s kind of my fault too. I wanted to surprise you.’
I laughed. ‘Well, you most certainly got your wish.’
We were sat side by side on the little sofa in the corner of the office, weakening rays of winter sunshine filtering through the window, the dog lying in the middle of them, watching us through sleepy eyes.
‘We had a run in the park earlier, so he’s a bit pooped.’
‘He looks it.’
‘There’s one thing though.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The name. I’m sorry. It has to go. I’ve been calling him “boy” all day. I can’t stand bloody football at the best of times, so his current name really isn’t going to work.’
‘He’s your dog now, call him what you want. He’ll soon get used to it.’
‘That’s the thing. I don’t know what to call him. I thought you might have an idea.’
‘Me? I can’t name your dog.’
‘Yes you can. You’re the reason he’s here. You have a vested interest. Come on, please?’
I sat back on the couch, tucked my feet up beside me, then peered around Michael to look at the dog.
‘You know, one name does come to mind.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Have you read Jane Eyre?’
Michael shook his head. ‘No, sorry.’
Handy.
‘One of the main characters, Mr Rochester, has a dog. He’s called Pilot.’
Michael nodded. ‘Pilot. I like that.’
‘You do?’
He shifted to look at me. ‘Yeah I do.’
The smile broke on my face. ‘Oh my Gosh! I can’t believe you have him! I’m so happy you took him after all.’ Without thinking I flung my arms around Michael’s neck and hugged him. His arms wrapped around me and pulled me closer.
‘I should be thanking you.’ His voice was soft near my ear, and I was suddenly aware of the hardness of his chest against mine, the warmth of his hands through my dress and the way his arms held me tight. It felt…Oh my God. It felt good! Which was bad! So, so bad! That damn dog had my emotions all over the place. I was getting all sorts of confused! I pulled back.
‘Right!’ I said, over brightly causing Michael to wrinkle his forehead.
‘You…OK?’
‘Uh huh! So! Let’s crack on, shall we?’
‘All right,’ he said slowly, standing as he did so. ‘You said before that you normally start with clothes and stuff. So I thought, especially after what you said last night, that maybe it was about time we got to work in the bedroom…on the bedroom. You know. And if you…erm…had any ideas about what you think I could do to make it a bit more…personal, then I’d be happy to hear them.’
I smoothed my dress, remembering what had happened the last time I tried to suggest something to that effect.
‘I know I bit your head off last time you tried to help me. I guess I didn’t see it then. But I do now. And you’re right. You were right last night too, about some of it. But not all of it.’
‘No, I know. I’m sorry.’
‘I just needed you to understand.’
‘I do.’
‘I didn’t tell you everything though.’
I looked up and met his gaze.
‘The reason I didn’t exactly give anyone a tour of the house? Honestly? How could I? You saw the state it was in when you got here. It’s all to your credit that you didn’t turn tail and take off.’
‘I’ve seen far worse than this.’
‘Well, I haven’t. And it kind of mortified me that I’d let it get to this state. I don’t even know how it did. After Angeline left, I guess I didn’t really want to face anything and then when I finally looked up again it was to see all this. And by then I didn’t know where to start.’
‘But look at it now. We’re so far along.’
‘I have something else to apologise for.’
‘Crikey! You’re on a roll.’
‘I know. Take advantage because it might not happen again for a while.’ He gave me a sideways look and I couldn’t help but smile.
‘I dismissed your notion before that all this, this thing you do, could have an effect on more than just my house. But you were right. I’m calmer with work now I can find everything and I’m much more productive. I’m in the running for a really big project, which may well not have happened if I hadn’t been organised enough to pitch. And, of course, this one.’ He bent down and rubbed Pilot’s tummy, at which point the dog rolled completely onto his back with all four feet in the air.
‘Oh, now that’s just charming in front of guests, boy. Really classy.’ His new owner laughed and stood. ‘Come on, Pilot.’
The dog looked at him, cocking his head to the side.
‘Yep. That’s you now. Better get used to it. Come on.’
Scrabbling about for a moment, the dog righted himself and followed us up the stairs to the master bedroom.
Unlike many of my clients, Michael didn’t actually have acres of clothing. Once he’d scooted around the house and gathered up various items that had never made it back to the wardrobe, there was certainly more than I’d seen on my first visit, but it still wasn’t as intimidating a pile as many I’d seen. Going through everything, choosing what to keep, didn’t take that long either. Michael was actually getting pretty good at this now. He’d even