Behaving Badly Part 15

'...in all the towns in all the world. I know, Mum. Never mind. Anyway, my puppies are arriving. Sorry. Can't chat.' There's only so much father-bashing I can take.

Soon, Sooty the sheepdog was trying to herd all the other puppies; Alfie and Roxy were looking for things to retrieve; Gwyneth Paltrow was looking at her reflection in the water bowl; and Twiglet was jumping off chairs.

'He's absolutely fearless,' said Phyllis to Marcus, admiringly. She seemed to have taken a shine to him. 'He obviously takes after you. I must just ask you,' she added, 'because I'm so fascinated by what you do-what's the most frightening thing you've ever done?'

'Well...' I looked at him-he must get asked that so often.

'Jumping off a tall building?' she suggested sweetly.

'Not really-so long as it's not more than twenty storeys high.'

'Being set on fire from head to foot?'

He shook his head. 'You wear a flame-proof suit.'

'Riding a motorbike across a yawning chasm?' she enquired eagerly.

'That's okay. You just have to get the revs right.'

'Swimming in a tank full of piranhas. Naked.'

He shrugged. 'It's fine as long as they've had lunch.'

'What is it, then? The scariest, most frightful, horrifying thing you've ever done in your entire life?' Her pale blue eyes were shimmering with antic.i.p.ation.

'Well,' he said. 'You know those big black spiders you get in the bath?' He gave an involuntary shudder. 'I once put one of those outside.'

'You're teasing me,' she giggled, clapping her hand to her mouth.

'No, it's true. I really did. If you don't believe me, you can ring up my ex.'

'Okay, everyone,' I said after I'd done the roll call. 'Welcome again, and let's play Pa.s.s the Puppy.'

'I can't help feeling we should be doing this to music,' said Lily as she pa.s.sed Gwyneth, yapping, to her left.

'-I say, Alfie's grown.'

'-I think Cosmo's second teeth are coming through.'

'-Bentley's widdled on me!'

'-He doesn't usually do that.'

'-Where's the kitchen roll?'

We discussed the importance of identi-chipping and p.o.o.p-scooping, then, finally, we had problem-sharing again.

'And how are things going with Lola, Sue?' I asked her.

'Oh, it's getting much better,' she said. 'I mean, I have my good days and my bad days...' Everyone nodded sympathetically. 'But I don't feel nearly as stressed.'

'You've got to get them in a routine,' said Phyllis, bouncing Maisie on her lap. 'That's the key to it.'

'That's right,' everyone murmured as they cradled their puppies. 'You've got to get them in a routine.'

'Okay, so, see you all next week then,' I said.

'Must dash,' said Marcus, as he waved at everyone. He tucked Twiglet into his jumper. 'Twiggers and I have got a hot date.'

'Oh that sounds exciting,' said Phyllis. 'New girlfriend?' Marcus nodded. 'Oh good.' He opened his wallet and showed her a snap. I didn't want to appear nosey, so I didn't look, though I was curious.

'What do you think?' I heard him say.

'Well, she's very pretty,' said Phyllis approvingly.

'She is. She's gorgeous. She's a jewellery designer,' he explained as he put the photo back. 'Gla.s.s necklaces. They're made out of tiny little beads. She strings them herself,' he added proudly.

'Really?'

'She's very successful. She sells them in Liberty's.'

'I say. And how did you meet her?'

'In the chemist's by Chalk Farm tube. She was waiting for a prescription and I was buying some Strepsils and we got chatting.'

'How romantic.'

'It was. Because it wasn't actually my local chemist, as I live in Camden. But I'd just dropped in there because I had a bit of a scratchy throat-and there she was. This vision.'

'That's a lovely story,' Phyllis said. 'Anyway, we mustn't keep you, Marcus. Maisie, say bye-bye to Twiglet.' Maisie emitted a cross between a squeak and a yap. Marcus left, then Lily came up to me.

'I had no idea you'd been engaged to Alexander Darke,' she whispered, her large brown eyes goggling. I nodded. 'That's absolutely brilliant,' she said. I looked at her blankly. 'I mean, for the piece. It's fantastic copy.'

'Oh. Good,' I said dismally.

'And how was the great D.J.?'

'He was...fine.'

'He can be notoriously tricky-the snappy snapper. Was he like that with you?'

'A bit.'

'I've met him a couple of times, but I found him so uncommunicative. You'd get more conversation out of a corpse. I think it's something to do with what happened to him,' she went on confidentially. 'I'm sure you must have noticed his hands.'

'I, no, not really, I...'

'The poor darling had this dreadful experience. Years ago, his father was sent a letter-bomb by the animal rights crazies-not that I disagree with them on every issue-but anyway, D.J. opened it instead and Boom!'. Her eyes had opened as wide as windows. 'Hence those awful scars. They say he's never been the same.' I felt sick. 'Well, you wouldn't be, would you?' I wished she'd shut up. 'They say that's why his marriage didn't last.' I looked at her. 'He was married to this Polish model.'

'Really?'

'Absolutely gorgeous-but she'd had enough after a year. She claimed he hardly ever talked to her. I can well imagine it. Anyway,' she put Gwyneth in her puppy basket, and tugged on Jennifer's lead. 'My driver's waiting, Miranda. Bye!'

That night I hardly slept. Lily's words kept buzzing around my head like trapped bees bouncing against a windowpane: 'never been the same-well you wouldn't be, would you-never been the same-BOOM!' I eventually fell asleep at about six and was woken by the phone-it was Daisy on her way to work.

'At last I can talk to you,' she said over the dull rumble of the rush hour. 'I've been so frantic-we're doing a Bollywood ball and I've been trying to find a couple of elephants. So how's it all going? The search?'

'I've found him,' I said.

'You've found him?'

'Yes. That photographer-the one I said wasn't the right one.' I hauled myself into a sitting position. 'Well, it turns out he is. The reason why he sounds American is because he grew up in the States.'

'Christ,' she exclaimed. 'You must have got a shock when you realized.'

'I did-about ten million volts.'

'And what was he like?'

'He was a bit...difficult,' I said. 'But then it was a very stressful encounter-not that he would have understood why.' On my bedside table was his business card. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. 'But I also thought he was...nice.'

'What does he look like?' she said as I heard a bicycle bell tinkling aggressively in the background. I described him to her.

'Gosh, he sounds rather attractive.'

'He...is. Though he's very brooding and watchful-he doesn't exactly put you at your ease.'

'And was it weird, being photographed by him?'

'It was terrifying. I gibbered like a maniac to begin with. But then, somehow, once he was behind the camera, this change came over him and he seemed to relax. As though he was able to talk to me then.'

'How long was he with you?'

I pulled up the blind and my room filled with sunlight. 'About an hour.'

'And was it...obvious...?' she asked tactfully.

'Oh yes. There are scars. You can see. But Christ, Daisy...' I looked out of the window and my vision blurred with sudden tears, 'he could have lost fingers-or worse. He could have been blinded. That's always been part of the nightmare for me-not knowing how seriously he'd been hurt. As it is, his hands are okay, but they're just,' my throat was aching, '...scarred. And I did that to him,' I wept. 'And it was such a huge shock-actually seeing it-seeing the damage I'd caused.'

'So you obviously didn't...tell him then.'

I wiped my eyes with the cuff of my nightshirt. 'No. Not yet. But I will. Now that I've met him I can't possibly not tell him. So I'm going to call him soon. Very soon. But I've just got to steel myself first. It isn't going to be easy,' I sniffed. 'In fact it's going to be very hard.'

'You sound a bit like me,' she said ruefully, 'with Nigel.'

'So you still haven't spoken to him?'

'No. As I say, I've been busy and so has he. He had his advanced bonsai cultivation on Monday, and I had indoor climbing on Tuesday, then last night I was at the Trail to Timbuktu extravaganza and he was working late because he really wants to get Equity Partnership soon. But I will speak to him. Definitely. Any day now...'

'Hmm.'

'But you ring David. In your own time. When you feel absolutely ready, Miranda-you ring him.'

I didn't have to, because, to my great surprise-he phoned me.

I was with a client down in Kingston later that day-a lop-eared house-rabbit.

'What's his name?' I asked his owner, as she pa.s.sed me a biscuit. She brushed a crumb off her twin-set.

'Bob.'

'Short for Bobtail?'

She looked puzzled. 'No. Robert.'

'Oh, of course.' I opened my pad and began to take notes. 'Bob the bunny,' I scribbled. 'And he's four months old?'

'He is. And most of the time he's a very pleasant and well-mannered young rabbit,' she said approvingly as she sipped her tea. 'But recently he's become extremely demanding, haven't you, Bob?' She wagged an admonitory finger at him as he sat next to her on the sofa, washing his face.

'In what way?' I asked as he did his toilette. He licked his forepaws then wiped them several times over his eyes and nose.

'Well, during the day he has the run of the house,' she explained. 'He's litter-trained. But he sleeps in his play-pen at night. And when I come downstairs in the morning I usually feed him before I do anything else, and give him a bit of fuss. But lately I've noticed that if it isn't convenient for me to do that right away because the phone rings, or my little girl needs me, he goes totally berserk.' I looked at Bob. He was washing his ears now, carefully pulling them down over his face.

'Berserk?' I repeated. 'How?'

'He throws a huge wobbly. He grabs the bars of his cage and shakes them, or he goes over to his pile of toys and throws them about. He's got some wooden bricks and he hurls them all over the place. It's quite frightening, actually.'

'Hmm, I can imagine.' I visualized a notice outside the house-Beware of the Rabbit.

'It's a sort of hysteria,' she observed. 'Sometimes I think it's like he's going through the "terrible twos".'

'Well, you're not far off the mark. He is having toddler tantrums-or the lapine equivalent of them-because he's just learning, to his horror, that the world doesn't always go according to his plan. He's shocked to find that he can't have a carrot or a cuddle exactly when he wants it-so he sulks, or he vents his frustration in physical ways. It's what we call "redirected aggression".'

'I see.'

And I was just explaining that he'd almost certainly grow out of it, and it was nothing to worry about, when my mobile rang.

'Miranda?'

'Yes?'

'It's David here.' My stomach did a somersault. 'Miranda? Are you there?'

'Ye-es. Yes. h.e.l.lo.'

'Are you busy at the moment?'

'Well, a bit-I'm with a client.' I glanced at the woman, who was now hunting for her handbag, Bob dangling under her left arm.