Will wasn’t sure who Penny was, but he shrugged on his jacket – it was warm enough now to forgo his heavy winter coat – and set off for the park.
He’d never say anything to Mary, but Blossom never got much of a walk with her. She hated letting her off the lead and when she did, Mary would continuously call Blossom back. Now, when Will or Margot walked Blossom, she’d frequently stop, look back at them and refuse to move until she got a ‘Good girl!’. Worse, Mary refused to believe that treats were rewards for good behaviour and not something to be doled out willy nilly.
Lately, Blossom had decided to sit down mid-walk until she got a treat. No wonder that last time he and Margot had taken Blossom to the vet, they’d been told sternly that Blossom had gained all the weight she needed and was fast heading in the other direction.
‘She’s not fat!’ Mary had protested at the news. ‘She has a very large ribcage.’
Will decided that he’d talk to Margot about it when they met later and come up with a plan of action. It was a habit that he’d got into lately: storing away anecdotes and amusing things that had happened. Polishing them, refining them, working on his jokes so he’d tease that radiant smile out of her or, even better, make her laugh. When he made Margot laugh, she’d usually finish up by gently shoving him.
It came to something when a gentle shove from from Margot, even just simply thinking about the possibility of it, could completely derail Will’s thought processes: he’d taken the right-hand path into the park and not the left. Now he had to cut across the green, the grass springy and wet with hidden patches of squelchy mud, to get to the café. He could see Mary’s gang congregated outside, all of them in fleeces.
Will grinned as Blossom looked at him, then looked back at the busy tables to see if there might be any food in her near future. She decided that there wasn’t and came running to meet Will with her purposeful, bustling waddle.
‘Hello, madam.’ Will stepped back so she couldn’t jump on him with muddy paws. ‘No, don’t sit down. You need to stop snacking between meals.’
Blossom looked at him with sorrowful eyes, but she was given away by the joyous beat of her tail as they walked to the café where Mary and her friends were now regaling some new arrivals with the latest update.
‘. . . she got chased by those two German Shepherds . . .’
‘. . . everyone’s told him to keep them on a lead if he can’t control them . . .’
‘. . . of course, he says they’re just being friendly, but Nancy’s Pug got pinned down by one of them . . .’
‘. . . anyway, Penny took off and she was gone for fifteen minutes . . .’
‘No, it was half an hour at least and Jayne was frantic . . .’
Will felt compelled to interrupt. ‘Penny’s a dog, right?’
‘Oh, Will! Penny is Jayne’s Juggle,’ Mary said in exasperation as if Will should know who Penny and Jayne were.
‘And a Juggle is . . .?’ he couldn’t help asking, despite the condemning stares from Mary’s friends, who pretty much ruled the park, and God help you if you didn’t pick up your dog’s poo quick enough.
‘It’s a Jack Russell cross Pug cross Beagle,’ he was told crossly. Will stuck around long enough to hear that Jayne’s husband had opened the front door to find Penny sitting on the step.
‘We couldn’t get rid of you if we tried,’ he told Blossom, as he clipped on her lead to cross the road that snaked through the palace grounds, the same road she’d taken a mad dash across in pursuit of a squirrel all those months ago.
She was a different dog now. Walking calmly across the road then sitting down and waiting for Will to unclip her again so they could take their usual route. Now Blossom was free to sniff and explore, her true personality had emerged, and her true personality was a sassy, salty little madam, who liked to think that she was in charge of the open spaces of North London, but especially Ally Pally park.
During the week, the park was quiet in the mornings. Usually the only people Will saw were his fellow dog walkers. He didn’t even bother to try and get out of saying hello now. In fact, sometimes he found himself walking with one of them so they could both discuss their dog’s likes, dislikes and weird foibles.
But on Saturdays, the park was full of people getting their exercise on. At the Grove, they’d already passed a small, all-ages group doing gentle exercise and running to various markers. On the South Slope in front of the palace, there was a large gaggle of twenty-somethings being shouted at by two burly men in camouflage gear – the military boot-camp gang.
At the bottom of the South Slope, were a steady stream of runners, joggers and stragglers doing the weekly park run. On every bench, people in tight Lycra were stretching and patting Blossom’s head as she trotted along to supervise all this strenuous activity.
It didn’t make Will nostalgic for his days of half marathons and burpees, but he could start running again now it was warmer. Maybe he could join a running club . . .
Blossom had gone on ahead now, towards two young guys sparring: one of them throwing punches, the other deflecting his blows with a pair of focus pads strapped to his hands. Blossom stopped to look at them then. And kept on stopping. God, she was lazy.
‘Good girl, Blossom!’ Will called out, but still Blossom didn’t move. The two boys stopped boxing and looked at Blossom. Will increased his pace.
‘She’s very friendly,’ he called out as he got nearer. ‘She won’t hurt you.’
‘Think there’s something wrong with your dog, bruv.’
Will broke into a run. Had she stepped on broken glass? Or landed awkwardly on one of her impossibly delicate back legs?
Blossom was standing there, panting hard, tongue out so she could frantically lick her lips; a sure sign that she was in pain or stressed.
‘Didn’t even touch her, innit,’ one of the lads said, taking a step towards Blossom, who cowered away from him. ‘Not even doing nothing.’
‘Sorry, she’s a rescue,’ Will murmured, all his focus on Blossom. He squatted down so he could run his hands over her, check her paws, but at his first touch on her flank, she snapped at him, then collapsed on her belly so she could crawl away.
‘She even your dog, though? She ain’t acting like she’s your dog.’
Will couldn’t blame them for doubting his ownership, because every time he spoke to Blossom, or reached out a hand, she slunk further and further away from him, until she was hiding behind a wooden bench, still panting furiously.
He hadn’t seen Blossom this afraid since the day that he’d first met her and he’d had to bribe her with freeze-dried duck innards to come to his side.
‘Blossom,’ Will said, his voice as low and as soft as he could make it. ‘You know that I would never hurt you. You’re safe with me.’
The bench backed onto a hedge, its leaves prickly and sharp, which didn’t stop Blossom from burying herself in the foliage. Everything Will could think of to do, which wasn’t much, only scared her more. The last thing he wanted to do was send her into such a blind panic that she ran across the road again.
He didn’t know whether to sit down or stand and loom over her. He didn’t know what to do.