Page 94 of The Day After Christmas
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Harry. He was sounding more and more like an actual father these days, thought Felicity. Not that she really knew what one of them was meant to sound like.
‘We’re sorry to interrupt your domestic bliss,’ she said, absent-mindedly stroking a spaniel ear, ‘but, Harry… what is this exactly? We found it in the donations envelope. Is it some kind of joke?’
Felicity held out the rather smudgy photocopy and raised her eyebrows forcibly to the heavens. Harry swallowed a last mouthful of prawn ball and took it from her hand.
‘Ah. Yes. This.’
Without a word, he passed the document to Andrea, then sat back casually and waited for all hell to break loose.
Except no hell really broke loose. Or not straight away, anyway. Andrea just sat and stared at the piece of paper in her hand for such a long time Felicity wondered if she’d had a stroke.
‘Are you okay, love?’ said Harry, eventually. ‘Please say something.’
Still nothing. He looked pleadingly at Felicity.
‘Andrea? Are you okay?’ she said. No reply.
Finally, James got up and went over to her. ‘Do you want me to read it for you?’ he said in a slightly patronising tone.
She shook as if from a stupor and looked up at him. ‘Piss off, you sarcastic git,’ she said.
‘She’s cured,’ said James triumphantly, and sat back down in his seat, a smug grin on his face.
‘Oh thank goodness. Thought I’d given you a small breakdown for a minute there,’ said Harry, a smile spreading across his still-handsome features.
Andrea looked across at him. ‘Is this your doing?’ she said, blinking rapidly.
He had the grace to look a little embarrassed. ‘Maybe. If you like it? Otherwise I’ll blame Felicity.’
‘Hey!’
‘That’s where Jessica the donkey lives,’ said Felicity feebly, but Harry and Andrea didn’t even respond.
‘You’ve bought a donkey sanctuary in Guernsey? You’re leaving me?’ said Andrea, her forehead crinkled.
Never mind you. He’s leaving me. Again, thought Felicity.
Harry’s eyes widened. ‘What? No. Well, yes, I’ve bought it, but no, I’m not leaving you, you daft cow. I bought it for you. It’s a present. Your very own animal rescue centre. And of course, if you want me to come with you and run it… I’ll be more than happy to do some writing from there. No hardship.’
Andrea looked as if she had even more questions than Felicity had an hour before. Did she actually have tears in her eyes? This was unprecedented. But the question that came out of her mouth first was, ‘How on earth did you ever afford it? Not those smutty books, surely?’
‘Ah, we should probably go,’ said Felicity, standing up and edging towards the door.
‘It’s fine, you can stay,’ said Andrea, a little absently, her eyes fixed on Harry’s.
James huffed a laugh. ‘Trust me, you will want to be alone for this.’
As they navigated their way past the pile of spaniels on the floor, Felicity couldn’t shake the feeling she was still missing something important.
CHAPTER 46
On Monday morning Felicity crept into Animal Saviours, hardly daring to breathe.
There was no sign of Andrea, but she found Charlie with his feet up in the staff room, carefully rolling a cigarette, which always made him look as if he’d been born a century too late.
He leapt up when he saw Felicity in the doorway. ‘Ah, just the person I was hoping to see.’
‘I do work here.’
