Waiting for Doggo (16 page)

Edie opens a rather fine bottle of white Burgundy and then shows me how to cook a real risotto alla Milanese.

‘Do you always have fresh bone marrow and home-made chicken stock in your fridge?’

‘Why, what do you have?’

‘Milk. Butter. I eat out a lot.’

‘With Doggo?’

‘There’s a great place up the road with tables outside. They know him now.’

‘No social life at all?’ she asks with a mischievous grin.

‘Yes, actually.’

‘Tell me about your friends.’

That’s how it starts, and that’s how it goes on, me stirring with the wooden spoon while Edie dribbles in the stock with a ladle. She’s a good listener, almost too good. There’s something evasive about her interest, a sense that the questions are designed to keep me talking about me, about anything but her. Six years is nothing, but it suddenly feels like a lot. At the age of thirty, give or take, most of my friends are up and running in their chosen fields, sure of their choices, forging ahead with their careers. It’s Edie who points up the difference. No one she knows has quite broken through, not yet.

‘That’ll all change when you pick up a D and AD award next year for the SWOSH! campaign.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she replies sceptically.

‘It’ll happen one day.’

‘How does it feel?’

‘Who doesn’t want a bit of recognition? It’s not like we’re working in the charity sector. It feels good.’

She senses my hesitancy. ‘But?’

‘It’s a bauble, a reason for people you don’t even know to want you to fail.’

‘Bugger them.’

I smile. ‘That’s the spirit. You’ll go far.’

‘With you, I hope,’ she says.

That surprises me. Has she detected my misgivings about the industry we’re in? ‘I don’t see why not.’

‘I do,’ she replies.

‘Oh?’

‘Oh?’ she parrots perfectly.

‘Edie, I have no idea what you’re on about.’

She places the ladle on the counter and looks me squarely in the eye. ‘Yes you do. He’s standing between us. Tell me I’m wrong. Better still, tell me what I have to do.’

I feel suddenly breathless, light-headed. I’m not prepared for this. I’ve toyed with the thought, but I never for a moment imagined …

‘End it,’ I say.

‘End it?’

‘Tell him it’s over between you.’

The slight clouding in her eyes is the first sign that I’ve grasped the wrong end of the stick – no, the wrong stick altogether.

‘I was talking about Fat Trev,’ she says. ‘I thought …’ She trails off. ‘I don’t know what I thought.’

I do. She fears I’m going to pair up again with my old partner, and I’ve just gone and completely misinterpreted her words.

The misunderstanding is laughed aside, but the awkwardness lingers like an unpleasant odour in the air around us. Even the distraction of dinner, of the finest risotto I’ve ever tasted, doesn’t dissipate it. Doggo gets his own bowl of the stuff, topped up with extra bone marrow, which he wolfs down before barking for seconds. Edie has a gift for him and she goes rummaging. ‘I know it’s here somewhere.’ She finds it eventually under the sofa: a slender cardboard package from Amazon, unopened.

‘What is it?’

‘A hunch,’ she replies.

It’s the DVD of a film called
Marley & Me
, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. The photo on the front shows the two stars trussed up together by a long leash attached to a Golden Labrador puppy. The title rings a vague bell with me, whereas one glimpse of the cover is enough to send Doggo tearing round the room. He makes two frenzied circuits before skidding to a halt and panting up at Edie.

‘I thought so,’ she says.

Doggo’s bizarre obsession with Jennifer Aniston is no longer a mystery. He lies between us on the sofa, chin on his paws, gazing at the TV (when not turning to check we’re enjoying the film as much as he is). It’s pretty good. Jennifer delivers an impressive performance, and Owen is his utterly watchable and sympathetic self. It’s not exactly the laugh-a-minute comedy you might take it to be from the cover. Sure, Marley is an incorrigible handful of a dog, prone to eating furniture and terrorising dog-sitters, but it’s really the story of a young couple moving through life, building a family. As for the ending, well, the ending …

‘Are those tears?’ asks Edie as the credits roll.

‘Dust mite allergy. What’s this sofa stuffed with?’

It’s late by now, time to leave. Doggo is presented with the DVD, which he carries off in his mouth when Edie accompanies us downstairs. She crouches and kisses him on the forehead. ‘Good night, Doggo. Big day tomorrow.’

‘We never talked about Megan and what I’m going to do.’

‘Something tells me you’ll work it out.’

The timed light in the entrance hall goes off and we find ourselves face to face in the near darkness, just a pale wash of street-lamp sodium slanting through the fanlight above the front door.

‘Good night, Dan.’

‘Listen, I’m sorry about before.’

‘Don’t be. I’m not.’ She smiles. ‘It means I’ve got something on you too now.’

She certainly does, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to live it down. She lands a quick kiss on my cheek and pulls open the door. ‘You should get a cab at the end of the road no problem.’

She’s right; we only have to wait a minute or two. Once we’re settled on the back seat, Doggo releases the DVD into my charge and rests his head on my lap. There’s something wistful in his expression. Maybe I’m wrong, but I sense memories of his former life flapping in to roost.

I run my hand the length of his stumpy little body and make a mental note to call the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home first thing tomorrow.

I
FIGURE THAT
M
EGAN
is less likely to be suspicious if it happens on her own turf, so Edie is drafted in to lure Seth away. She could use pretty much any pretext in the book, given his soft spot for her, but she opts for a game of pool, billing it as an opportunity to avenge herself for her last defeat at his hands.

They’re well into their game when I slip silently past them and into the office.

‘Hey, Megan. A quick word?’

‘About what?’ She’s at her desk, scribbling away, and only looks up when she hears the door close behind me. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

I ignore her, pulling up a chair and removing the gaily coloured package from the shopping bag. ‘A peace offering.’

‘It’s not going to do any good.’

‘No, I don’t suppose it will, but it’s yours anyway, so you may as well open it.’

She strips off the wrapping paper to reveal the food container sealed in the freezer bag. Her face falls but recovers quickly.

‘Gee, thanks – Tupperware.’

‘Second hand, I’m afraid. It’s been used to transport dog shit.’

‘You really need help.’

‘And you really need a lawyer.’

A bit melodramatic, perhaps, but it hits the spot. The supercilious expression falters, and I can almost see her brain at work behind those small, deep-set eyes. She tosses the container at me. ‘I’ve never seen this before.’

‘And when your fingerprints are found all over it?’ I let my words sink in. ‘I used surgical gloves to remove it from the bin. I have video evidence to prove it.’

‘What the fuck is this –
CSI: Soho
?’

‘You made the rules, I’m just playing by them.’

‘Screw you.’

I hesitate before replying. ‘You know, Megan, you’re a lot of things, but one thing you’re not is a figure of fun. When this gets out, you’re going to be the laughing stock of the industry. I mean, really … framing a dog with a frozen turd?’

She’s impressively quick on her feet. ‘Come to think of it, when I found the turd, I cleared it away in my Tupperware there. But then I thought: no way, I want people to see what that bloody dog has done, so I put it back and threw the Tupperware away.’

‘Not bad, as lies go.’

‘You know it. I know it. No one else will.’

‘Thanks, that’s all I needed to hear.’ I slip the container into the shopping bag and rise to my feet. ‘Oh, I guess you should know …’

I pull back the cuff of my shirt to reveal the tiny microphone taped to my wrist. It cost me £60 from Spymaster on Portman Square. The digital recording device in my pocket was a further £120. I’d happily have spent ten times that much to clear Doggo’s name.

There’s pure venom in Megan’s voice when she finally finds it. ‘That’s lower than low.’

‘Are you seriously going to lecture me about playing dirty?’ I turn at the door. ‘If you want to talk more, I’ll be in my office.’

Ralph describes it as a stay of execution. It seems Megan has had a change of heart. ‘She doesn’t want to press charges, so to speak.’

‘Oh?’

‘She says she rather likes having Doggo around.’

‘Oh?’

Ralph plants his elbows on his desk, scrutinising me. ‘What did you do, Dan? Was it money? Did you buy her off?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

He gives a sceptical grunt. ‘There’s still the issue of that clause in our tenancy agreement.’

‘He’s a mental health companion dog. I don’t imagine that’s a deal-breaker when it comes to the lease.’

Ralph throws his head back and laughs. ‘You’re a dark horse. I can see I’m going to have to keep my eye on you.’

‘It’s not me you need to worry about.’

That sobers him up pretty quickly. Me too. I wasn’t planning to say it.

‘Go on,’ he says.

Edie thinks we should celebrate Doggo’s deliverance in style, so after work we stroll through Covent Garden to the bar overlooking the river at Somerset House. We nab some comfy armchairs on the terrace, where Edie orders two glasses of champagne for us and a plate of dried meats for Doggo. She asks to hear the recording I made of my conversation with Megan. Playing it back, I’m struck by how hard I sound, how pitiless. Is that really my voice, really me?

‘Wow, you stitched her up nice and tight.’

I don’t tell her how I then went and did the same thing to Tristan.

Ralph fell into a brooding silence when I told him what Tristan had implied to me at the restaurant: that before too long he, Ralph, would not be in a position to call the shots at Indology.

‘That little shit,’ he finally muttered. ‘Thanks, Dan, I owe you.’

I can’t trust Ralph to keep me out of it, despite his promise to. He’s the sort of man who’s likely to let something slip in the heat of the moment. And Tristan’s no fool, he’ll suspect my involvement. I’m still not sure why I did it. I think maybe my blood was running high with virtuous indignation after the confrontation with Megan. Whatever the reason, I’ve started a war, and everyone knows that once that particular genie is out of the bottle there’s really no putting it back.

‘To Doggo,’ says Edie. ‘Long may he deliver letters.’ We raise our champagne flutes to him, and I could swear there’s something in the set of his lips that suggests a smile.

I’ve spent almost twenty-four hours squirming at the memory of my unwitting confession to Edie, whereas she seems to have taken it in her stride. It’s as though it never happened, which I guess is the message she’s sending me: it didn’t, let’s both move on. There’s just one problem – I’m not sure I want to move on, not if it means going back to where we were.

‘Listen, I never got a chance to say last night, but you don’t have to worry about Fat Trev and me. That’s over, gone for good.’

‘Really?’

I fill her in on my awkward dinner with Trev the other evening. ‘He blames the job for sending him over the edge. He’s not coming back.’

‘What if he changes his mind?’

‘I’ve made my choice too, and it’s you.’

With a sudden lurch of the stomach, I realise how that must sound to her. ‘Oh God, I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘But you did last night,’ she replies teasingly.

‘That’s not fair. I was drunk.’

‘You’d had one glass of wine. We were making risotto.’

‘Yeah, well, making risotto does strange things to me. It always has.’

She has a dinner later, and so do I – J and Lily’s first since they got back together. It’ll be one of their big Friday night feasts with loads of people jammed in around the giant refectory table in the kitchen. I also have an appointment at the dogs home tomorrow morning to see if I can extract some more information about Doggo. When Edie hears this, she asks if I want company.

‘Sure, if you’re free at eleven thirty.’

‘Free all day,’ she replies, which may or may not be an invitation to spend it with her. We’ll see.

J has always been the king of cocktails. It’s more than an art for him, it’s alchemy, which is why he calls his own lethal concoction ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ (or ‘La Pietra Filosofale’, seeing as it was invented in Italy during his gap year before university). The contents are a closely guarded secret that he has vowed only to reveal to his first-born child. This means it has to be prepared in strict privacy and in advance, usually in a large silver bowl, so technically it’s not a cocktail but a punch – a far more fitting moniker. The first glass is like a slap in the face with a wet fish. The second, bizarrely, is like a gentle caress. That’s the one I’m on when J claps his hands together, calling the rowdy mob in the back garden to order.

‘I have an announcement to make.’ He glances at Lily, who’s standing beside him. ‘
We
have an announcement to make.’ There’s a low murmur of anticipation; we’re all thinking the same thing. ‘It’s no secret that Lily and I have had our wobbles over the years. Well, you can’t learn to ride a bike without a few wobbles, and that’s what I want to talk about.’ Lily’s eyes roll heavenwards in weary forbearance. ‘A bike,’ says J. ‘One of you lot has chained theirs to the neighbours’ railings and they’re threatening to call the cops and have it removed.’

A collective groan goes up. J ducks to avoid a cocktail sausage, which Doggo snaffles up, and Lily has the last laugh. ‘Come on, guys, you really think I would have said yes?’

Lily is a serious cook with an ambitious and varied repertoire. Tonight she has gone Moroccan. We’re treated to a variety of exotic appetisers and home-made flatbreads before the tagines, couscous and salads hit the table. J has managed to find a very drinkable Moroccan red wine (as well as a watery white that isn’t in the same league). It’s a hard combination to beat: great food and good friends. I realise I’m the only person at the table who isn’t paired off right now, although a couple of the partners are missing, away on business.