Page 30 of Beg, Borrow or Steal
‘I promise you she’s a dog.’
‘She looks … part bear, well, to be honest she looks at least seventy-five per cent bear.’
‘And the other twenty-five?’
‘Er … The Beast of Bodmin?’
Jamie laughed harder, causing Rosie to raise her head from the thick black fur it was buried in.
‘Whatcha laughing at?’ she asked.
‘Your mummy thinks that Beauty looks like a beast.’
‘Mummy!’ Rosie shouted, taking Beauty’s large, ugly head between her hands and letting the dog lick the entire length of her face. ‘She is not a beast; she’s bootiful. You’ll break her feelings and hurt her heart.’ She went back to burying her head in the fur and Libby shuddered. Dogs had always made her nervous and this thing was not even a dog.
When Jamie had driven them back to his home in an expensive area of Wimbledon (Libbyknewhe’d been lying when he told her she was on his way to work), she had only had a few moments to appreciate the house (a beautiful Victorian semi-detached) before the biggest and most terrifying animal she’d ever seen in real life came bounding out of the perfect doorway and down the imposing stone steps, straight towards her. She’d frozen with fear but the monster kept coming. At the last minute it had jumped up so that its paws were on her shoulders and barked once in her face, revealing an impressive and terrifying set of teeth.
‘Beauty, down,’ Jamie had clipped, and the dog-slash-terrifying horror-film werewolf had pushed away from Libby, causing her to stumble back into the car. ‘Sorry, she’s a bit enthusiastic with strangers,’ he said. Libby gripped onto Rosie’s arm to keep her by her side and away from those teeth. But Rosie, being Rosie, managed to wriggle her way free. She ran over to the beast and threw herself at the huge mound of fur. Her face had rarely emerged since; both dog and girl seemed to be utterly besotted with each other.
‘She’s an … um … interesting choice of pet.’
Jamie laughed again.
‘Well, when I brought her home she was actually pretty cute. Picked her up at a rescue centre – so she may be part beast for all I know.’ He shrugged. ‘Only went there with my nephew to choose a kitten, but couldn’t resist that face.’ Libby glanced over at Beauty’s massive, ugly, squashed-looking face and suppressed a grimace. ‘It wasn’t the smartest move to be honest. I have to pay a dog sitter on my on-call days, and I don’t think my sister-in-law will ever forgive me for having to walk her and check on her every lunchtime. She agreed when Beauty was a puppy, without quite realizing how much more of her there would eventually be to love, or how resistant she would be to any training … Right, let’s go.’ Jamie swung the cool bag up and grabbed the other massive rucksack stuffed with equipment from the floor, his upper arms bulging in his T-shirt and causing Libby’s mouth to run dry.
‘Can I carry anything?’ she asked once she’d swallowed a couple of times.
‘Nope, you and Rosie just keep Beauty under control.’ He handed her a lead and Libby looked over at the Beast of Bodmin with trepidation. Beauty was eyeing the lead, the closest thing Libby had ever seen to a doggy scowl on her ugly face.
It was only when they were all loaded up into his car and Jamie had started driving that Libby finally thought to ask where his boat actually was. She’d had a vague idea that it would be on the Thames somewhere in London, but they seemed to be heading out to the M25.
‘Uh …’ Jamie paused, flashing her a wary look before clearing his throat. ‘Actually it’s alittleway outside London.’
‘How far?’ Libby asked slowly.
‘Well,’ Jamie drew out the word. ‘Have you ever been to The Solent?’
‘The what?’
‘You know, the stretch of water between England and the Isle of Wight.’
‘The Isle ofWight?’ Libby’s voice rose.
‘The boat’s notatthe Isle of Wight,’ Jamie told her quickly. ‘It’s near Southampton.’
‘Southampton?’ Libby’s mouth dropped open and she stared at him. What she had thought would be a couple of hours to humour Rosie was turning out to be a full-on day trip.
‘It’s a family boat. My parents keep it at the club there.’
Of course they do, Libby thought. Of course Jamie’s family are members of a Yacht club. She spent the next twenty minutes staring out of the window in furious silence. Rosie, however, didn’t seem to notice the atmosphere in the car and chattered happily for the next hour about everything under the sun.
It was Jamie’s patience with her daughter that finally broke through Libby’s anger. Even Rosie’s beloved Bumpa could only tolerate ten minutes of her nonsensical eye-spy games (the letter Rosie chose never corresponded to what she had chosen to spy, and the spied item was never something Rosie could have possibly seen on the journey – unless the embankments of the M3 were littered with flying ponies, ballerinas and aliens), but Jamie seemed to love it. By the time they arrived at the marina, Libby had started smiling as Jamie began spotting his own impossible items – dragons, the Loch Ness Monster, The Queen – making Rosie squeal in protest, the little hypocrite.
Her good humour fled, however, during the short walk from the car to the habourside. Libby was given Beauty’s lead as Jamie carried the mountain of stuff they would need for the boat, and she soon understood that there were no short walks with that dog in the mix. Beauty seemed to take great delight in dragging Libby down the pavement at speed, then stopping abruptly to sit on her massive behind and smell something that urgently needed an olfactory once-over. On one occasion she’d spent a good five minutes on her own downstairs region – what possible interest her own genitalia could hold for even one minute of intense inspection was unclear, but Beast Dog was not going to give up however hard Libby yanked on her collar.
Dr Grantham, the bastard, had found her lack of ability to control the vast animal hilarious.
‘She might be a wee bit stubborn but I’ve never seen her be quite such an arse.’
