Isabel Wolff - Behaving Badly

For Greg

Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace.

AMELIA EARHART

Cover Page

Title Page BEHAVING BADLY ISABEL WOLFF

Dedication For Greg

Epigraph Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. AMELIA EARHART

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Acclaim For Isabell Wolff

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

‘Will you be all right now, Miranda? Miranda…?’

I slowly surfaced from my reverie.

‘What?’

‘I said will you be all right now?’ repeated Clive, my builder.

Would I be all right now? I considered the question. I wasn’t at all sure that I would. ‘It’s just that I’ve got to be in Barnes by five,’ he explained, as he began to gather up his emulsion-spattered sheets. ‘So if it’s all the same with you…’ I banished painful thoughts and forced myself to concentrate.

‘Oh. Yes. Of course. You want to go.’ I glanced round my new workplace—my new workplace and my new home too. In three weeks Clive had transformed six St Michael’s Mews from a semi-derelict shell into a smart office with a small living space on the floor above. The estate agent had negotiated a reasonable rent—reasonable by Primrose Hill standards at least—on condition that I refurbish it myself.

‘Thanks, Clive,’ I said. ‘It looks wonderful.’

He pursed his lips judiciously, then pressed a crumpled hanky to his neck. ‘Yeah…well, I’m pretty pleased myself. I’ve checked the electrics,’ he added as I reached for my bag, ‘and I’ve been over the roof again and it’s sound. Is there anything else needing doing?’

I scribbled out the cheque, sinkingly aware that it represented the last of my savings. ‘No. I don’t think so. It all looks…great.’ I surveyed the newly egg-shelled walls and gleaming skirting boards, and flicked the downlighters on and off. I raised then lowered the green micro blind and tried the drawers in my new desk. I examined the joins in the new wooden flooring and made sure that the security locks on the windows all worked.

‘Have you got enough bookshelves?’ he asked as he packed away his paintbrushes. I nodded. ‘Well then, if you’re happy with it all, I’ll be off.’

I glanced again at my final checklist. ‘Actually there is one last thing—the sign.’ I picked up the ceramic plaque I’d had specially made and handed it to him. ‘Would you put it up for me?’

‘Sure.’ We stepped outside, shielding our eyes against the glare of the midsummer sun. ‘You can’t start your new business without this, can you?’ said Clive, affably. He pulled a pencil from behind his right ear and made rapid marks on the walls; then he began to drill, a slender avalanche of pink brick-dust drifting to the cobbled ground.

‘Got enough punters?’ he enquired as he screwed in the plate.

My stomach did a flick-flack. ‘Not quite.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured me. ‘You will. There. That’s it, then. All done.’ He took a step back as we appraised it. ‘Perfect Pets’, it announced, above a stylized drawing of a dog on a psychiatrist’s couch. Beneath, in smaller letters: ‘Miranda Sweet BVSc, Animal Behaviourist’.

Clive beeped open the doors of his van. ‘I know a few people who could do with your services,’ he said as he slung his equipment inside. ‘My neighbours for a start. They’ve got this Labrador. It’s lovely, but it’s barking mad.’ He shook his head. ‘Literally. Barking. That’s all it does, all day.’

‘Poor thing. It’s probably being left on its own for too long so what it’s doing is calling its humans back.’

‘I dunno what it’s doing,’ he shrugged as he opened the driver’s door. ‘All I know is it sends me and the wife up the wall. Anyway, give me a bell if you run into any problems Miranda, otherwise…’ he got behind the wheel, ‘…good luck. Take care of yourself,’ he added solicitously as he ignited the engine. ‘You take care now.’

‘Thanks, Clive.’ I smiled. ‘I’ll try.’

Clive swung right out of the Mews onto Regents Park Road, then tooted twice in cheery valediction and was gone. I glanced at my watch—it was ten to four. Daisy would be arriving soon with Herman. She’d been looking after him for nearly a month. She’d been wonderful since ‘it’—as I had now come to think of it—happened. Without her, I don’t know what I’d have done…

As I wiped the paint splashes off the windows I wondered how Herman would react to being with me again. Apart from the odd visit I’d hardly seen him, so he’d probably be cool and remote. He’d make it quite clear that he felt I’d neglected him, which of course I had. But I hadn’t been able to cope. It was the shock. The Never-Saw-It-Coming-in-a-Month-of-Sundays unexpectedness of it all. Not just the end of my relationship but the way it happened—the knowledge that I’d got Alexander so wrong. As an animal behaviourist you have to be able to read people as well, but with him I’d clearly missed something big.

As I scratched at the glass with my thumbnail I glanced at the other businesses in the Mews. There was the cranial-sacral therapy centre at the far end, and that aromatherapist at number twelve. There was an osteopath two doors down, and a hypnotherapist at number ten. With a chiropractor directly opposite, and a Chinese herbalist at number nine, St Michael’s Mewswas an oasis of alternative therapeutics and was therefore the perfect location for a business like mine.

I’d discovered it in late April. Alexander and I had been invited to have dinner with Mark, a TV director friend of his, to celebrate the end of Land Ahoy! , a lavish period drama—a bit like Hornblower —in which Alexander had had his first starring role. And now I thought, with a dragging sensation, of how it would soon be screened. Would I be able to bear watching it? Would I be able to bear watching him ? No. The thought of it made me feel sick…Anyway, Mark had booked a table at Odettes, in Primrose Hill, and Alexander and I had arrived too early so we’d gone for a walk. As we strolled up the hill, hand in hand, we talked about how Land Ahoy! might transform his career, then as we walked back down we discussed my work. And we were speculating about where I might have my new animal behaviour practice, and what I might call it, when we suddenly turned into St Michael’s Mews. I was struck by the tranquil atmosphere, and by the fact that it didn’t look polished and affluent, like so many London mews do; it looked Bohemian, and slightly unkempt. Then, above the door of number six, I saw a ‘To Let’ sign. It was as though I’d been hit over the head.

‘This would be perfect,’ I’d said, as we peered through the cracked windowpane into the dusty interior. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘Well, it’s a good location.’

‘And there’s that pet shop over the road, and loads of people round here have animals, and the Hill’s just a few yards away. This would be the perfect place for my new practice,’ I reiterated happily.