Jules Wake - Peony Place

‘By yourself?’ Ava’s saucer-eyed admiration and Poppy’s approving nod made me grin at them both. Feeling like a hero was something I could get used. After my ridiculous meltdown earlier, this was balm to my soul. It had been a long time since I’d felt such a sense of achievement. Although, if homemade spaghetti Bolognese brought me superhero status, it showed just how far I’d fallen.

Listening to their happy chatter about their days – what they’d eaten, how brilliant super-speller Lucy Chambers was at maths and how the five-a-day fruit and veg maxim should really be ten-a-day and a host of other nutritional facts that Poppy had absorbed in Science – took us from the playground to the edge of the park. The same park I was striding through not that long ago, feeling like I could take on the world. How quickly things had changed.

‘Can I go on the swings? Can I? Can I?’ asked Ava, her chubby legs already deviating from the main path that cut through the park to my house towards the enclosed playground area.

‘That all right with you, Poppy?’ I asked, giving my watch a quick glance. We had plenty of time and nowhere to be. Unlike Ros’s kids who had Cubs, ballet, trampolining, and football to be ferried to, Alice’s children didn’t appear to have any after-school activities.

She looked surprised and shrugged. ‘I guess. I’ve got my book with me.’

I’d noticed that Ava got her own way an awful lot. Alice always deferred to her while poor old Poppy often had to play the sensible older sister. It was a role I remembered well.

We diverted to the small play area which had a couple of swings, a roundabout, a rope walk, and several one-seater rocking animals on large springs for which Ava made a beeline. Poppy chose a swing and before long was flying high, her long spindly legs earnestly propelling her backwards and forwards.

Ava, with her butterfly attention, zig zagged from ride to ride, calling for me to watch, catch, and chat to her before I escorted her to the slide where she directed me from her Nelson’s Column position at the top of the steps. Her bossiness with her precise instructions, no there , not there , was quite comical, although I caught Poppy rolling her eyes from where she now sat on one of the benches by the fence with a book.

A few minutes later I heard a snuffling noise and when I looked behind me, I saw a scruffy grey and white lurcher loitering by the fence. The next time I glanced over he’d poked his nose through a gap and I watched as Poppy put out a tentative hand to stroke the top of its head. I heard her crooning gently to the dog as it tipped his head to one side as if paying careful attention to her. The dog was just like her: all skinny legs and big brown eyes.

‘Look! Doggy! Doggy!’ cried Ava leaping from the end of the slide and barrelling over towards Poppy with her sturdy body. ‘Doggy!’ she screeched even more loudly, climbing on the fence and leaning over, waving her arms like a whirling dervish towards the dog. The dog, which had been quietly making friends with Poppy, immediately began bouncing about, its back legs springing from side to side, barking in a high pitch which was growing ever more hysterical.

‘Stop it, Ava,’ snapped Poppy. ‘You’re winding it up.’

‘Not,’ said Ava as she withdrew, not quite so confident now. The dog jumped up and startled Ava who fell backwards and started to cry.

‘Serves you right,’ said Poppy crossly.

Ava wailed. The dog barked and Poppy glowered.

I scooped Ava up and sat down on the bench, ignoring the dog. ‘What have you done? Where does it hurt?’

‘My b-bottom,’ sniffed Ava, rubbing at the damaged area, pulling up her skirt and exposing her knickers with gay, exhibitionist disregard. Surreptitiously I tugged the skirt down.

‘Ava, you frightened the dog,’ I said sternly. ‘And I don’t think you’re hurt, just a bit shocked. I’m sure you’ll be fine. See, Poppy’s just sitting quietly and letting the dog come to her.’

She gazed up at me, her tears drying instantly at my no-nonsense lack of sympathy.

Now that Ava had calmed down, the dog had quietened too and was pressing up against the fence, sticking its head through the metal bars again. Poppy edged forwards and scratched its head. ‘He likes this. You just made him all over excited, Ava. See, he’s lovely. Like a hairy carpet.’ He certainly seemed to enjoy her attentions and was now sitting on the other side of the fence, his dark eyes watchful, grey tufty ears twitching and lifting as if he were following our conversation.

‘Mmm,’ I said, wondering whether I should encourage Ava to approach the dog slowly so she wouldn’t be frightened in the future.

‘There now, he’s calmed down.’ Poppy continued to stroke him. ‘I wonder where his owners are. He doesn’t have a collar on.’

‘Maybe he slipped his lead.’ I said, looking at the scruffy animal.

‘Do you think we ought to take him home with us?’

‘No, I’m sure he’ll find his – or her – way home,’ I said firmly. The last thing I wanted was an extra addition to the household. I wasn’t sure what I was doing with two small humans; I certainly wasn’t about to throw a dog into the mix.

‘Please, Auntie Claire.’ Ava had jumped off my lap and was now trying to angle her head through the railings to get closer to the dog. She was so that sort of child that would get stuck. I could see it now and I’d be having to call the fire brigade if she didn’t stop.

‘Ava, be careful.’ I grabbed the collar of her coat and tugged her back. ‘We ought to be going home. I thought you were hungry.’

‘Yes, but I’m chocolate-biscuit kind of hungry,’ she said, her eyes ever hopeful.

‘Let’s go home and see what we can find.’ I gave in, knowing that I had bought a secret bag of bite-sized chocolate treats and a packet of chocolate digestives.

Of course the dog wanted to follow us and bounded around our legs with playful hopefulness.

‘Home, boy,’ said Poppy with more authority than I’d have given her credit for.

‘See, he wants to come home with us,’ said Ava tugging on my hand, looking up at me with angelic pleading.

‘Well, he’s not.’ It was all I could do not to smile at her cupid-bow mouth quivering in distress and her mercurial change of heart.

‘I think he’s probably run away from home because his owners were mean,’ she announced.

‘It is odd he hasn’t got a collar on,’ said Poppy, ever thoughtful.

‘And it isn’t our problem,’ I said firmly. ‘Just ignore him. Don’t pay him any attention and he’ll soon get bored.’ For some reason, we’d all assigned the dog as male.

Ava gave me a mutinous stare from under the snarled tangle of curls masquerading as a fringe, her bottom lip standing proud. Any second she was going to dig her heels in and refuse to abandon the dog.

‘Home,’ I said, firmly. ‘Biscuits. Chocolate.’ As if she were the dog.

‘Okay, then,’ she said and reluctantly followed me. Poppy eyed me with disapproval but trailed after us, throwing backward glances at the dog, who had now got the message and stood whining, its head down and its tail between its legs. It really, really wasn’t my problem but I did wonder for a fleeting second if dogs ate Bolognese sauce. No, I told myself, adorable and needy as he was, I could not add any more into the mix.

‘Come on, its owners will probably be searching for him. If we take him home, they won’t be able to find him, will they?’

‘I spose not,’ said Poppy, dragging her feet.