Will clipped Blossom back on the shorter lead. ‘Do they do them for humans too?’ Yup, the good shiver was gone, but before Margot could insist in the strongest possible terms that she wasn’t a twat, he added, ‘It would save me from getting stuck in these long conversation with other dog walkers. They really like a chat, don’t they?’
‘I love talking to people about their dogs,’ Margot gasped. ‘It’s one of my favourite things about having a dog.’
‘Really? It’s one of my worst.’
She still couldn’t tell when he was joking. His face, unless he was gazing at Blossom when she was being particularly delightful, really was stuck like that. Grim, forbidding, detached – much like his general demeanour.
But surely that was because Margot didn’t know him well enough. They shared a dog and she’d been to his flat and she knew that he was a florist. Correction: he worked in the floristry business. She also knew that he had a family; and she presumed that he was single. Although Will could be married with two kids or divorced with five kids or out with a different woman every night for all Margot knew. It was hard to imagine Will in flirt mode, though she was sure if he put his mind to it he could be quite devastating. Sometimes, when he was cooing at Blossom, lavishing her with endearments in a husky voice, Margot had felt a very slight quiver. Much like she was feeling now as she pictured Will leaning in to flirt with some random woman . . .
Margot was forced to take stock. So far, in their short acquaintance, Will had made Margot feel many things: teeth-grinding, fist-clenching irritation, a quick white-hot flash of anger every now and then, and also a near-constant seething resentment. But he’d also been responsible for a couple of frissons, a good shiver and a very slight quiver.
What was wrong with her? Was she so starved of male company, so despairing of likely candidates to build a future with, that she was even considering – No! Not even going there!
It was simply because outside of work, Will was the only man that she saw on a regular basis. God, she really needed to find some new dating apps to install because she was fed up with swiping left on the same sorry faces again and again.
By now they’d lapsed into silence broken only when Will veered off path.
‘One of my other least favourite things about dog ownership is having to deal with this,’ he said bending down, face squinched up to avoid any fumes.
Margot waited until Will was gingerly carrying a full poo bag between thumb and forefingers, then did a quick inventory of her internal organs to make sure that there were no quiver, shivers or frissons. There weren’t and, quite frankly, she’d have been alarmed if there had been given what she’d just witnessed Will doing.
But, by the same token, she wasn’t grinding her teeth or clenching her fists in irritation either. They’d somehow achieved a state of benign neutrality, if not harmony, which had to be a good thing for Blossom’s sake. This was all about Blossom, after all.
‘Hang on! About turn!’
‘What?’ They’d been walking, but now they stopped and did a swift one-eighty, though why they were bothering when it didn’t seem to have the least effect on Blossom’s lead-tugging, she didn’t know. Margot tutted in pure frustration but when she glanced at Will he was staring down at Blossom, his austere features softened, the tiniest of smiles hovering on his lips. ‘You really care about Blossom, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Will sighed, as if the caring was against his better judgement. ‘Even when she’s making actual “nom nom” noises as she’s eating her dinner; if a person did that, I’d never speak to them again.’ Which was reasonable enough as far as Margot was concerned, even though she was a person who said ‘pawrent’ out loud.
‘I also like the way that when we’re cuddled up in be—’
Margot tutted as they stopped. Again. Had Will been about to say ‘bed?’
‘I knew it! She is sleeping in your bed, isn’t she?’
‘Of course she’s not,’ Will said stoutly. ‘Cuddled up on the sofa, I was about to say, and how I like it when she headbutts my arm until I lift it up and put it round her.’
‘That is cute,’ Margot agreed. She wanted to pursue the thorny topic of where exactly Blossom slept when she was at Will’s but, in the interests of diplomacy and not arguing in front of their charge, she decided to let it go.
Face screwed up again, Will dropped the poo bag in the correct bin. ‘Should we start heading back?’
‘We should,’ Margot said without much enthusiasm, as this afternoon she was going to troubleshoot a problem with a pattern for a jersey jumpsuit with a wrap-style bodice. Basically, a onesie for women who wouldn’t be seen dead in a onesie.
‘And I suppose another reason why I care so much about Blossom is that my mother adores her. Anything that makes my mother happy is all right with me.’ The tiny smile upgraded to a full grin. Will had dimples. Who even knew?
Margot was instantly full of questions. So many questions. What did Will’s mother think about the whole co-pawrenting thing? How did his father get on with Blossom? Was his father still around, because Will had never mentioned him? But Margot stopped herself because if Will wanted to tell her then he would. The trick was to stay quiet (something Margot always struggled with), then the other person would speak to fill up the space. It was a technique she used to great effect on dates – it would bring even the quietest man out of his shell because who didn’t love talking about themselves?
In the six or so months since she and George had parted ways, and long before George had come into her life, Margot had been on more dates than she could remember. They’d all merged into a blur of men’s faces, glasses of white wine spritzer because she didn’t want to get drunk with all the dangers that could pose and hands relaxed in her lap while she jiggled her toes or rotated her ankle and generally fidgeted under the table, while a man talked about himself and didn’t ask Margot a single question.
‘You’re not getting off that lightly,’ Will said, interrupting Margot’s unwelcome reminiscences of first dates past. ‘What’s your favourite thing about Blossom?’
18
Will
‘Just one thing? It’s impossible to narrow it down,’ Margot complained. She gestured with one hand at Blossom who was tugging Will down the steep path towards the gate. ‘I love her Beyoncé strut. I love the way she leans into my legs when we’re on the bus or she’s sitting under my desk. There’s something so satisfying about the weight of her. She’s like a proper dog,’ Margot mused. ‘To think I was planning on getting something small and fluffy.’
‘I couldn’t see you with something small and fluffy,’ Will said, because despite her addiction to soft furnishings and the cutesy growl whenever she addressed Blossom, there was something fundamentally no-nonsense about Margot.
‘It was the portability that I was drawn to. Nothing portable about Blossom.’ Hearing her name, Blossom looked up at Margot, who instantly reached into her pocket for a treat as per Jim’s instructions for whenever she made eye contact. ‘Good look, Blossom.’
‘So, that’s what you love most about Blossom?’ Will prompted. ‘That she’s a chonk?’