Page 7 of My Kind of Happy

Chapter Three

The row hovered over me all the way home like my own personal rain cloud. I felt wretched; I’d never quarrelled with Laura before. If it hadn’t been for Scamp, I’d have probably made a den under my duvet and stayed there for the rest of the weekend, curled up with my own misery.

I was ashamed of my reaction to her news; of course Laura deserved to be happy and she deserved my support. But I was hurt too. We’d always been there for each other; I didn’t have any secrets from her and I couldn’t believe she had fallen in love with someone and not confided in me. And not only was Hamish in on the deception, he was the cause of it, which made me feel more isolated and despondent than ever.

My spirits lifted a little as I pulled up outside our – my, I corrected myself automatically – house, a pretty little Victorian terrace on the outskirts of Chesterfield; there, perched in the front window was Scamp. Ears pricked and front paws, one white, one black, resting on the back of the armchair I’d put there especially for him to keep a lookout. I was pretty sure that he was waiting for Ethel to come home, which melted my heart and made me perhaps a bit over generous with the dog treats to compensate.

Freddie and I had bought the house between us seven years ago; we’d had the best fun doing it up and for a time it had been known as party central among our friends. For the months following his death, I’d hated the special kind of silence Freddie had left behind him. Having Scamp to come home to had helped No. 78 Pineapple Road feel like home again.

‘Hello, you gorgeous boy.’ I crouched down to let Scamp give me his usual enthusiastic welcome and felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I took it out and read the screen: text messages, from both Laura and Hamish. I wasn’t ready to listen to them. Not yet. Instead, I cancelled the dog walker who’d been due in at lunchtime and took Scamp out for a long walk.

‘You’re the best thing to happen to me this year, you know,’ I told him as we stopped at a pedestrian crossing. He looked up at me adoringly, two chocolate brown eyes under expressive bushy eyebrows. The crossing started to beep and Scamp tugged me across the road, eager to get to the park on the other side. Once through the gate, I let him off the lead, laughing as he lolloped off to the spot where two months ago he’d found a discarded sausage; he never gave up hope of finding another. I envied him his optimism.

Ethel had left me a letter asking me to look after him if anything happened to her. A dog fills a space in your heart you didn’t know was there, she’d written. And she’d been right; Scamp had quickly worked his way into my affections as well as my home, and I was simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the day that Ethel returned to her house next door. Scamp ran back to me, his tail wagging wildly, and dropped a filthy tennis ball at my feet. I picked it up gingerly and Scamp yelped with glee as I threw it for him. Part Border collie, part Jack Russell, he had longish legs, wiry fur and perky ears. Despite his arthritic hips and advancing years he raced after the ball with all the enthusiasm of a puppy. At least I was making someone happy today, I thought wistfully, thinking of Laura alone at the spa.

So much for our lovely day of pampering. I wondered whether she’d left after I did, or maybe she’d phoned Hamish and asked him to join her. I shook the image of them both from my head for now. At some point I’d have to get in touch with them, but until I worked out what I was going to say I needed to keep myself occupied.

There was one obvious job I could do: sort out Freddie’s room. Until Christmas, I hadn’t been able to clear any of his belongings; his coats had still hung on the hook in the hall, a heap of discarded trainers below them. The shelves in our little living room had bulged with his books and DVDs and his dumbbells still served as a doorstop. Since the start of January, I’d been tackling a room at a time, gradually removing traces of my big brother. All that remained was his bedroom. I’d been putting that off until last; it was such an intimate space and it was going to feel like such an invasion of Freddie’s privacy. Hamish had offered to help me and I’d accepted. Now it looked as if I was going to have to do it alone.

Or …

I could get some work done instead. Perfect, I thought briskly. Work it was; Freddie’s room could wait for another day.

I called to Scamp, clipped his lead back on and we set off for a lap around the lake before heading home. Data crunching might not be the most thrilling way to spend the day, but at least I’d get ahead on the big project my team was delivering to clients next week. And, maybe working on a Saturday would give me some extra leverage with my boss, Bernie, because I had a favour to ask. Again.

By six o’clock that evening my eyelids were beginning to droop from staring at the screen for so long. But as a distraction tactic it had worked – every time I’d found my thoughts returning to Laura and Hamish, I’d given myself a shake and focused hard on my report. I’d squirrelled away in comfort: in front of the fire, with Scamp pressed to my thigh and my laptop on my knee. I’d work this way every day if I could, I thought, stretching my arms above my head before composing an email to Bernie, my boss, to give him an update.

Tuesday was D-Day for our big annual presentation. Clients from Japan, Portugal, Germany and South Korea would be tuning in to a video call to watch what we at Zed Market Trends were predicting would happen in the world of office paper over the next five years.

Being a senior market analyst in the paper industry might not sound thrilling; in fact, everyone I told about my market niche had a habit of glazing over. Until, that was, I got them thinking about the supply chain (or paper chain as I jokingly described it). From forests in Indonesia, to paper mills in Scandinavia right through to the UK’s stationery retailers, billions of pounds were invested to keep our home printers supplied. And it was the trend-predictions made by my company that helped steer that research and development across the world. Heady stuff …

OK, well, I found it interesting anyway.

I emailed Bernie my PowerPoint slides ready for Monday and a second later a reply pinged into my inbox:

Working on a Saturday? Very dedicated! All we’re waiting for now is the data from Seattle and I can work on the summary.

I typed one back:

That should be in by Sunday night. There’ll be plenty of time on Monday for the team to have a run-through before the presentation on Tuesday.

The presentation which I had no intention of delivering. The prospect of all those international boffins hanging on my every word filled me with dread. Giving presentations used to be a piece of cake for me, but now I abstained from cake completely whenever I could. My heart sank as another email popped up from Bernie:

Fearne, you are going to deliver this presentation, aren’t you? Because it’s time you got back in the saddle. It’s been a long time since Frankfurt.

Frankfurt.

I shuddered so violently at the memory that Scamp scooted closer and pushed his nose onto my lap.

It had been on a work trip to Frankfurt that I’d felt the full force of losing my brother. After Freddie’s funeral I’d crunched up my grief into a tight ball, pasted on a smile and headed off to a trade show in Germany with Bernie to give a talk to Norwegian engineers about 3-D printing. As I stepped from the taxi outside the conference centre, a motorbike courier pulled up in front of me. He swung his leg over the bike and pulled his helmet off to reveal a close-cropped blond head. He could have been Freddie’s twin.

‘Freddie?’ I’d gasped, grabbing the sleeve of his leather jacket.

As the complete stranger stepped back from me in alarm, the world had spun and gone black.

I came to, clammy and confused, surrounded by a group of Germans and a very worried Bernie with his arms around my shoulders. I recovered quickly, or at least I thought I had, until an hour later, when Bernie and I had commenced our presentation to the Norwegians. Grief exploded like an airbag in my chest and I couldn’t breathe, let alone talk. Bernie had been brilliant. He’d organised a taxi to take me back to the hotel and given the presentation without me. Since then, the thought of speaking in public brought me out in a cold sweat.

My stomach was still churning as I typed a response to Bernie.