‘It’s fine, really,’ Linda said in a conciliatory tone. ‘Quinoa is an acquired taste, I suppose.’
Debbie ignored her, and kept her eyes firmly fixed on Sophie who, after much tutting and slamming of cupboard doors, stomped upstairs with her substitute meal.
It troubled me to see Debbie and Sophie bickering. It reminded me of how things used to be, when Debbie had first taken me into the flat. Back then, their arguments had been a regular occurrence, usually culminating in Sophie storming out, leaving Debbie morose and tearful. For a while I had blamed myself for Sophie’s unhappiness. Their relationship was already fragile, in the wake of Debbie’s divorce and their move to Stourton, and I worried that Debbie’s fondness for me had given Sophie another reason to feel hard done by. In time, however, Sophie’s resentment towards me had mellowed, at first to tolerance, and eventually to something approaching affection. It had been a long time since she had deliberately flung her school bag at my head, or referred to me as ‘that mangy fleabag’.
I sat in the cardboard box, listening to the ceiling joists creak beneath Sophie’s thudding footsteps. I was aware of stirrings of disquiet in the pit of my stomach and a feeling of foreboding that life in the flat might be about to get worse. Debbie had directed her annoyance at Sophie rather than Linda, but I suspected she might be harbouring frustrations of her own. As I watched Debbie chew her way stoically through her superfood salad, I wondered whether, in fact, she didn’t much like quinoa, either.
6
Since Debbie had made the decision, a few months earlier, to close the café at weekends, Saturday mornings in the flat were usually a laid-back, leisurely affair. Debbie would stock up on pastries from the bakery, and she and Sophie would settle down on the sofa in their pyjamas, licking sugar and crumbs off their fingers while the kittens and I napped or washed nearby. The Saturday morning that followed the superfood-salad argument, however, did not begin in the customary relaxed manner. The effects of the previous evening’s conflict seemed to hang over the flat and its residents like a cloud.
When I awoke at the foot of Debbie’s bed, I discovered she had already risen. I padded downstairs and found her in the kitchen, shooting impatient looks at the closed living-room door, while roughly stacking dirty plates in the dishwasher. When, some time later, Linda finally emerged in a state of puffy-eyed disarray, she found a frosty Debbie hanging damp laundry over the hallway radiator.
‘Morning, Debs. Can I do anything to help?’ Linda asked.
‘The dishwasher will need unloading,’ answered Debbie curtly. Linda rolled up her dressing-gown sleeves and headed diligently into the kitchen.
A little while later, Debbie was extracting the vacuum cleaner from the hallway cupboard when the bell over the café door tinkled.
‘Deb, it’s me,’ shouted a man’s voice from downstairs. It was John, Debbie’s boyfriend.
‘Hi, John, come up,’ Debbie called over the banister.
Feeling relieved, I padded across the hallway to meet him. John’s gentle manner was just what the flat needed on this rather tense Saturday morning.
John hummed to himself as he made his way up the narrow staircase and smiled jovially as he rounded the top of the stairs. ‘Croissants,’ he said, handing a large paper bag to Debbie, before kissing her lightly. John was tall but stockily built, with sandy hair and a kind, freckled face. I had always liked him, not least because I had been instrumental in bringing him and Debbie together.
‘Come and meet my sister,’ Debbie said, leading John into the living room, where Linda was sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper. ‘John, Linda. Linda, John.’
‘Nice to meet you, Linda,’ John said, holding out his arm to shake Linda’s hand, whereupon Beau, who had been asleep on the rug, jerked awake in alarm at the sound of an unfamiliar male voice. Upon seeing a strange man advancing, arm outstretched, towards his owner, Beau was unable to contain his guard-dog instincts. He leapt to his feet in panic.
‘Beau, stop it!’ Linda shouted over the animal’s frenzied barking. ‘I mean it, Beau!’ she pleaded ineffectually, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment as Beau snarled and snapped around John’s ankles.
John’s eyes crinkled into a smile as he regarded his furry assailant with mild surprise. Dropping to his haunches, he put a hand out for Beau to sniff. ‘At ease, fella. We’re all friends, here,’ he said placidly.
‘I’m so sorry, John, he’s not normally aggressive,’ Linda apologized, as Beau’s damp muzzle twitched across John’s fingers.
‘He’s just being territorial,’ Debbie cut in drily. ‘He’s a Lapsang Souchong, you know.’
Linda shot her sister a look over the top of John’s head. ‘Lhasa Apso, Debs,’ she said crisply. ‘He’s a dog, not a cup of tea.’
Reassured that John posed no immediate threat, Beau retreated to his corner of the rug. He lay down and lowered his chin onto his forepaws, but maintained his beady surveillance of John, lest his services as Linda’s bodyguard be required after all.
The buttery smell of freshly baked croissants had lured Sophie downstairs from her bedroom for the first time since her ill-tempered departure at dinner. She hovered in the doorway, watching hungrily as Debbie piled them onto a plate in the middle of the dining table.
‘Morning, Soph, how are you?’ John asked warmly.
‘Good, thanks,’ she mumbled.
While Debbie made coffee, John and Linda chatted at the dining table. Once John had established that Linda found Stourton charming and thought Molly’s was fabulous, Linda swiftly turned the topic to John himself.
‘So, Debbie tells me you’ve lived in Stourton all your life?’ she enquired, popping a chunk of croissant into her mouth.
‘Born and bred,’ John nodded.
‘And you’re a plumber, I gather,’ Linda probed.
‘That’s right. Did Debbie mention how her boiler nearly burnt the place down?’
Debbie had just placed their drinks on the table, and she rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, all right, John – are you ever going to stop going on about that? Besides, if it hadn’t been for the boiler, you and I might never have met.’
Whether it was the effect of the croissants or John’s good-natured presence, the residual awkwardness from the previous evening seemed to dissipate. Debbie looked more relaxed than she had done for days, and even Sophie seemed in no hurry to leave. Once all that was left of the croissants was a scattering of crumbs on the table top, Debbie drained her coffee cup and glanced at her watch. ‘Sorry to break up the party,’ she said, with a sombre look at John, ‘but we’ve got to get the cats to the vets.’
I had long accepted that visits to the vet were a non-negotiable aspect of life as a pet cat and, though I didn’t exactly enjoy the experience, I never doubted that the long-term benefits outweighed the short-term discomfort. Jasper, however, had been born on the streets and had gone through life without ever experiencing the chill of the black examination table or the sting of the vaccination needle. His first-ever trip to the vet had taken place several months earlier, when he had begun to spend time indoors. Debbie had decided that Jasper deserved the same provision of care as the rest of us, and he had woken one morning to find himself being bundled into the cat carrier.
The fact that Jasper’s first visit had resulted in him being neutered did nothing to endear the vet to him. When he had returned to the café after his ordeal, groggy from the anaesthetic, he had immediately taken refuge in the alleyway and proceeded to sulk for several days. Eventually, though, Jasper had realized that life would go on. In time, he had forgiven Debbie, although he retained his distrust of the vet, as well as his aversion to the cat carrier.