Page 93 of The Day After Christmas
‘She’s got three, I think.’
‘I love how they are all barking at a slightly different pitch and perfectly out of time. It’s a really relaxing sound.’
‘Isn’t it?’
In all the years she had known Andrea, and it was a lot of years by now, Felicity had only ever been to her boss’s house once before. It felt a tiny bit naughty.
‘Please don’t be naked, please don’t be naked,’ Felicity prayed quietly, and then let out a long breath as Andrea opened the door still fully clothed from the day. She didn’t look remotely surprised to see them.
‘Oh, thank God, you’re dressed.’ The words were out before Felicity could stop them.
Andrea’s eyebrows went up into her hairline for a split-second, then she full-on grinned. ‘You’ve just missed the floor show if that’s what you mean.’
‘Oh, God,’ said James, making retching noises.
Andrea just giggled. ‘Come in then if you’re coming. Ignore the dogs, they’ll calm down in a minute.’
They did not in fact calm down at all. Andrea had three spanielly-type things of varying sizes and colours, with floppy ears and extremely waggy tails. All three of them seemed to move as one creature, like a very small murmuration or shoal of fish, gliding this way and that, but occasionally they gathered into a semicircle and formed a dog barricade just the perfect height for a human to trip over. In typical fashion from the moment they walked through the door all three dogs had ignored Felicity completely and took an instant shine to James, flocking round his feet wagging their tails and trying to climb on his lap for the entire visit.
Harry was nowhere to be seen.
‘Well, this is awkward,’ said Felicity after a few moments. ‘Where’s Harry?’
‘He’s gone out for Chinese, he’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Right. So he was here. And you two are…?’
‘Yes,’ said Andrea with a brisk nod, only the tiniest hint of colour rising on her neck.
‘Right. Well, it was him we wanted to speak to really.’
‘Okay. You’d best wait then. Drink?’
‘Please.’
Andrea pottered through to the kitchen and Felicity and James exchanged a look. She had always smelt a little of dog, had Andrea, but that was to be expected, given her job. The cottage, however, was ripe with it, as if the smell of dog had permeated deep into the soft furnishings. Hardly surprising given the sofa was covered with almost an entire rug’s worth of dog hair. Even Felicity’s hardened nose was beginning to itch.
Perhaps Harry had lost his sense of smell as well as vision.
‘Thank you so much for today,’ said Andrea, handing them each a smeary glass of what they assumed was white wine.
‘I enjoyed it,’ said Felicity. ‘I love talking about that place…’ She stopped mid-sentence, but couldn’t think of a suitable way to change what she had been going to say.
‘Felicity? Are you okay?’
‘Oh, yes, sorry, I just—’ She could feel her face burning.
‘I thought it was a great day,’ James cut in, smoothly. Felicity made a mental note to kiss the face off him later. ‘I loved being back in the old AS uniform. And everyone today really seemed to love it.’ He patted the logo on his chest and then remembered what they’d come about and fell silent too.
‘Why are you two being weird?’ said Andrea, never one to beat around the proverbial.
‘Who’s being weird?’ said Harry, opening the lounge door with his foot. The dogs burst into the song of their people again and swarmed round his ankles. Harry very nearly went face first onto the dog-hair sofa but with some impressive manoeuvring he managed to keep the spoils, in other words a small cardboard box full of takeaway, intact.
Andrea handed Felicity the bag of prawn crackers from the top of the box without even needing to be asked. She immediately ripped the top off and began munching, batting James’s attempts to snaffle one away with her free hand.
‘So let me guess, this is not just a social call,’ said Harry, half an hour later, when Felicity and James had polished off the prawn crackers and finished watching him and Andrea eat their chow mein and prawn balls while trying not to salivate.
‘Look on the bright side. You’re seeing us twice in one day, you lucky things,’ said James.
