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Epub ISBN: 9781473551398
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Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © Sheila Norton, 2018
Extract from The Vets at Hope Green © Sheila Norton, 2017
Cover design and illustration: Head Design
Sheila Norton has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in the UK in 2018 by Ebury Press
www.eburypublishing.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781785034213
Sheila Norton lives near Chelmsford in Essex with her husband, and worked for most of her life as a medical secretary, before retiring early to concentrate on her writing. Sheila is the award-winning writer of numerous women’s fiction novels and over 100 short stories, published in women’s magazines.
She has three married daughters, six little grandchildren, and over the years has enjoyed the companionship of three cats and two dogs. She derived lots of inspiration for her animal books from remembering the pleasure and fun of sharing life with her own pets.
When not working on her writing Sheila enjoys spending time with her family and friends, as well as reading, walking, swimming, photography and travel. For more information please see www.sheilanorton.com
The Vets at Hope Green
Oliver the Cat Who Saved Christmas
Charlie the Kitten That Saved a Life
For all my friends and readers in my adopted county of Devon. Crickleford isn’t a real place, of course – but I think it should be!
With grateful thanks once again to Sharon Whelan, this time for her advice about rescuing a pony. And to Sue Viney for her first-hand knowledge about keeping house rabbits! And as always, to everyone at Ebury for all their hard work in bringing my stories to the readers.
August turned into September. The little town seemed to be steaming with heat under a thundery sky. Even when it rained, which it was now doing with increasing regularity, it was still hot. When the sun did occasionally deign to come out, everywhere was bathed in a strange orange light, the wet streets shining, the trees dripping and glistening as they began to shed their leaves. Then the dark clouds rolled in again, blotting out the sun’s light but not its intensity.
The weather matched my mood. I found it difficult to sleep, and just as difficult to drag myself out of bed in the mornings. I walked my doggie charges, petted my cats and stroked an assortment of rabbits and guinea pigs while I waited, expecting at any moment for everything to blow up in my face – for the story of whatever Rob had found out to spread through the town and for the paparazzi to descend on Crickleford in their hordes. For the people to turn against me, for Lauren to throw me out. For Matt to turn up … or not. For a headline in the local paper to scream out his betrayal of me … or not. The uncertainty, the fear, the heartbreak about Matt was as unsettling and exhausting as the stormy atmosphere. Over and over again I replayed the scene where Matt walked away from me. Should I have run after him? Would it have made any difference? Was he really angry enough with me now to ruin my new life by exposing me?
I was terrified of meeting up with Rob again; but I knew I had to talk to Vanya, in case Rob had told her an untrue version of what had happened on my last day at the house. Finally, a week later, I walked down that long driveway twice, my legs shaking, turning back and hiding behind a tree, before finally plucking up the courage to go on, all the way to the house, where I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the garage door up, Rob’s car missing. As far as I knew, he never walked anywhere other than on the treadmill at his gym.
‘Don’t worry, Emma,’ Vanya said, as soon as she opened the front door to me. ‘He’s not here. And he won’t be back.’
I blinked at her. How did she know I was frightened of confronting her husband? And why would he not be back?
She smiled at me as she put the kettle on, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. I wasn’t sure what was coming. Sugar was winding herself around my legs and I bent to stroke her absent-mindedly, my thoughts chasing each other through my exhausted brain.
‘Last week, on your last day here,’ she began, still in the same calm but strange tone, ‘you left in a hurry, didn’t you?’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I know I left Sugar on her own with Rob but it was only for a little while, and …’ I dipped my head and took a deep breath. ‘I need to tell you—’
‘It’s OK.’ Her voice, suddenly, was surprisingly, unusually, gentle. I looked up. She put a hand on my arm. ‘I know what happened. Well, I guessed. You left your pyjamas and dressing gown in the bathroom, the bed unmade. That’s not like you. And I knew you wouldn’t just walk out and leave Sugar.’
‘He came into my room!’ I blurted out. ‘He … he tried …’ I gulped and stood up straighter. It wasn’t my fault, I reminded myself. ‘He assaulted me, Vanya. I promise I didn’t do anything to encourage him.’
‘Of course you didn’t, love. And believe me, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. I just wish you’d confided in me sooner so that I could have stopped him straight away.’ She smiled thinly as I stared at her in surprise. ‘Oh, he’s always stopped his little dalliances as soon as I’ve found out. He pretends he stays with me because he doesn’t want the scandal of a divorce, but really it’s because I keep him in the style to which he’s become accustomed. He acts as if he’s something rather special, doesn’t he, but in fact he’s been out of work for the past two years. He pretends to be working from home, while he’s … well, occasionally doing stuff for the parish council, but mostly just messing about playing computer games or looking at porn sites.’
I gasped, and she gave a little dry laugh. ‘I suppose you thought he was working. Well, he was a sociology teacher at the local high school, until he got dismissed for texting dirty messages to a couple of the sixth form girls. All this posturing and posing about being on the parish council is just him trying to make himself feel better, because in fact he’s just a rather pathetic piece of nothing.’
I flinched, but she carried on, apparently completely self-possessed.
‘I asked him why you’d gone, of course – and he stuttered and stammered and tried to hide his red cheek—’
‘Oh yes!’ I put my hand to my mouth. ‘I’m sorry. I slapped him … it was the only way I could stop him.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ She gave me that strange smile again. ‘He had it coming to him. Anyway,’ she added, picking up her beloved cat and laying her face against the fur of Sugar’s little head, ‘he’ll have to get over his fear of the scandal, because I’d already decided to divorce him, after the last girl he tried to seduce. It’s quite funny really,’ she said. ‘He hardly ever succeeds, you know. He’s not unattractive, so I suppose it’s his obnoxious personality that puts the girls off.’
‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ I stuttered. I took a deep breath. ‘So has he actually moved out now, then?’
‘I’ve thrown him out, yes. Not before time. So you won’t let this put you off from coming back to look after Sugar again, will you? I couldn’t bear to lose you now. Sugar adores you.’
It was bizarre. She seemed completely unmoved about splitting from her husband – her only concern was making sure her cat would be looked after while she was jetting off to her high-powered business meetings.
I finished my coffee, trying to calm my fears. It didn’t appear that Rob had told Vanya anything else about me. So presumably, apart from his horrible friend in the pub (who I hoped had been too drunk to remember any of it), he hadn’t told anyone else either. He may not have had time, of course. Apparently she’d given him his marching orders as soon as she guessed what had happened, and was so keen to see the back of him that she was paying the rent on a room in a B&B down in Paignton for him, as a temporary measure. He’d left the parish council and left Crickleford, hopefully for good. He surely had enough to worry about now – with a bit of luck, he wouldn’t have time to think any more about me and my background.
‘I’ll have to sell the house, of course,’ Vanya was saying sadly, looking around her. ‘He’ll expect a share. But I’ve got my furry baby. That’s all that matters.’
I admired Vanya, even if I was still a little nervous of her. She was a strong, dignified woman, as well as being beautiful and successful. I understood why she wouldn’t want someone like Rob in her life any more. But although I loved Sugar too, I knew her obsession with the little cat was somewhat over the top. Which had come first – his despicable behaviour, or her rejection of him in favour of her furry baby? Well, as long as I never had to see Rob again, I didn’t care.
I’d still heard nothing from Matt, though. For the first few days, I’d gone to hang around outside the Chronicle office – despite my fear that even as I stood there, he’d be inside, writing his killer story about my past. I’d even stood for ages outside the door to his flat a couple of times, too scared to ring the bell. And of course I’d walked up and down Moor View Lane staring at Bilberry Cottage. I was desperate to see him, to try to sort things out between us, but conversely worried about what I might find out. If he was writing that story, it would mean the end – for me in Crickleford, and for us. That’s if we hadn’t already reached the end.
Eventually I stopped looking for him. Apart from the fact that I was beginning to feel like a stalker, as time passed and I looked fearfully every week at the Crickleford Chronicle as well as all the national papers, half expecting to see my name splashed across the front page, I began to believe that he wasn’t going to betray me. Perhaps he might still care about me – might have forgiven me? But even if he had, I sensed that I’d have to give him time. How much time did he need? I spent hours lying on my bed, staring at my photo of Albert, cuddling Romeo and Juliet, or listening to little Holly’s chatter and keeping her amused by playing games with her, waiting for my fear of exposure to recede, waiting for my heart to mend.
There’d been a big change at Primrose Cottage. Holly had started school at the beginning of the month, and told anyone who’d listened that she was now a big, grown-up girl. It seemed that there was now nothing her parents or I could tell her that she didn’t already know.
‘Mrs Jones told us that,’ she’d say about anything we discussed. ‘Mrs Jones knows about everything.’ Her heroine was apparently pretty, funny and kind, as well as being the fount of all knowledge.
‘I feel a bit redundant,’ Lauren admitted one day while we were preparing dinner together. ‘I’m going to talk to the school about working afternoons as well as mornings. I’m lucky that my job fits in perfectly with Holly, of course, and I do love being a teaching assistant. But sometimes I wish I could do something more challenging – perhaps train to be a proper teacher. But …’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘I only got a handful of GCSEs at school.’
‘You’re cleverer than me, then,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get any.’
‘But you are clever, Emma,’ she said, looking at me in surprise. ‘Look at you! Running your own business! Being clever isn’t just about passing exams.’
Wasn’t it? I pondered this when I lay in my bed that night, as usual trying to get to sleep while the rain pattered against the window of my little room. Nobody had ever said that to me before. I’d always just assumed I was as stupid as the other children at my school said I was.
One afternoon, I was upstairs in my bedroom, with some time to spare before going back to the house where I’d been looking after a rather annoying budgie, when I heard Mary arriving with her latest supply of books for Lauren. Lauren put on the kettle and started to chat with Mary about her career ambitions. I lay back against my pillow and, as I often did, pulled out the photo of Albert and the letter that had come with it. It was now completely creased up, and I smoothed it out and stared at it, making my eyes go funny in the vain hope that some of the words might suddenly jump out at me, when there was a tap at the door and Mary appeared in the doorway.