‘Wait!’ she commanded as she opened the boot. She sensed the dog’s urgency, his desperate desire to run free, but he’d do as he was told, she had no doubt.
She drew in a deep breath before she clipped the lead onto Domino’s harness. She pressed her lips to his forehead as she fondled one silken, floppy ear before she stepped back to allow him out.
Bright and alert, all bunched muscles and restrained excitement, he bounded from the boot of the car and stood to attention, quivering in anticipation while she glanced at the people in the tree-lined park.
She zipped her coat up to her chin against the chill wind and hunched her shoulders, determined to move and keep the cold out.
‘Which way shall we go, lad?’
Muted voices floated across, an open invitation for her to join the others in Dale End Park. She chewed the inside of her lip, undecided for a moment, before she turned from the company of the twilight walkers with their idle chit-chat which she normally relished. They wouldn’t miss her, their unofficial dog meet was transient. If you turned up, you mingled. If you didn’t, no one questioned it. A nice crowd, but she needed her privacy.
‘This way, Domino.’
If she allowed herself into their sympathetic fold, she’d be tempted to whine about Jenna, and if there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was disloyalty. She huffed out a breath. Her anger with Jenna would pass. Until then, she’d keep to herself. Allow the solitude to blanket her.
She turned right out of the car park and strode out up the hill, past the small Co-op at the mouth of the Museum on the Gorge. It would be open until ten o’clock. Perhaps she’d nip in on her way home and buy that bottle of red wine.
Sodium lights illuminated the town to spread their warm golden glow as she lengthened her stride and marched along the narrow footpath, puffing out small bursts of vapour as her breath hit the cool evening air.
The Council had readied the flood barriers for erection along the Wharfeage, as the River Severn continued to rise after an unusually long, wet autumn. It threatened to break its banks early in the season, leaving a dull sense of foreboding for what the rest of the winter would bring. The town wallowed in an eerie quietness. The windows of almost all the premises overlooking the river dark, but for an occasional upstairs light on.
Breathless from her overexerted stride, she paused halfway up the hill before crossing the Ironbridge. A town in the summer overflowing with tourists keen to witness the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the Ironbridge dominated the landscape with its iron structure pioneered by Abraham Darby in the eighteenth century. The plethora of museums drew people from all around the world. Somewhere for the locals to avoid. As a tourist town, however, devoid of visitors during the winter months, most of the shops had already closed for the evening.
The car park in the little square opposite the Ironbridge was empty except for a single red car outside the Tea Emporium as the last of the patrons left for the day. If she’d been earlier, Fliss could have indulged in a fruit scone with jam and cream, accompanied by a cappuccino, or one of their thick, creamy hot chocolates. A treat both she and Jenna often indulged in as they watched the world go by from underneath the fluttering umbrellas outside all year long.
Her stomach let out a protesting wail as she turned her back on the café. She’d not eaten since lunchtime and couldn’t wait to get back to Jenna’s. She’d fling together a quick stir-fry in time for Jenna’s return. Not that her sister deserved it.
The torrid waters of the Severn swirled beneath her as she crossed over the Ironbridge, deserted since the end of the summer and tourist season, much to her relief. Fliss wasn’t in the mood for mad holidaymakers leaping at Domino just because they’d seen 101 Dalmatians and believed they were all cuddly animations instead of big dogs who could give a powerful bite if provoked. Not that Domino would bite anyone. She reached down and scrubbed the top of his head and made his tail go wild. The big softie.
With high, prancing steps, Domino’s strong muscles bunched and flexed as he matched his pace to hers, happy just to be with her.
Snatches of bad temper still curdled in her stomach and Fliss barely paused as she turned right off the bridge and hit the flat of the wide, disused railway track which led straight to the cooling towers, before unclipping Domino’s jaunty red lead. She coiled it around her neck, clipped the end onto one of the metal loops along the lead, so it couldn’t slide off, and headed after the dog.
As he veered off to the left, taking the narrower offshoot from the main path up into the woodland, Fliss automatically followed. She put on a spurt to get her up the first steep incline, blowing out white puffs of breath as the path rose in undulations until she was thirty feet above, and parallel to, the main drag. Glancing around, Fliss considered her mistake taking that route as dense vegetation crowded out the light to make it even more difficult to see where she was going.
She hesitated and peered down through the dimness at the wider trail. Already twilight, it would soon be an impenetrable black in the woods.
With a sniff, Fliss burrowed her nose deeper into her fleece-lined coat against the chill wind whipping through the Ironbridge Gorge and shrugged. Sure-footed, she was so familiar with the walk, the thought of negotiating it in the dark never bothered her. She wouldn’t be too long, and where the paths merged at the base of the cooling towers, she’d return along the wider, safer path.
As the peace and quiet of the Gorge settled on her, she slowed her pace and breathed deep, allowing the rich, pungent aroma of the undergrowth to encompass her. Sharp scents of wet pine and dark wood smoke rose with snatches of damp soil and musky fungus to invade her senses.
Never one to hold onto her temper, she let it go and took in her surroundings. She squinted above her, way up the hillside into the thicket, in the hope she’d spot deer picking their way through. Too dark to make out any shapes, she turned her attention back to the narrow pathway.
Thrilled at the fresh crunch of leaves underfoot, she swiped at the piles of them with her boots, like she had when she was a child. Only the thick slide of mud underneath gave her a moment’s pause. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to kick the protective layer of leaves aside and end up on her backside, or worse still, at the bottom of the steep incline. Jenna would only give her hell. What were you doing up there at that time of night? How come you slipped? Trust you to get into trouble. Her sister’s lecturing voice trailed through Fliss’s mind, slowing her down still more.
Disappointed, she curled her fingers into the palms of her hands to keep them warm and ambled onward, her eyes straining to catch the quick bursts of Domino as he pounded in mad leaps up and down the hillside, the scent of deer in his nostrils.
A wild flash of white shot past her, so close the whip of air stroked her bare hands. The merry jingle of Domino’s collar let her know exactly where he was as he tore through again, almost taking her off her feet.
‘Slow down, slow down, you barmy dog.’ God, but she loved him.
She laughed out loud as he charged by one more time. It wasn’t worth calling him back. He wouldn’t take any notice and it just made her feel stupid when she shouted for a dog that wasn’t going to obey. Anyway, he was having fun.
She cast a quick glance up at the umbrella of trees and pushed away the regret of coming out here. It was good for him. He needed the exercise, and even in the dark, she was sure-footed, she knew the pathways. Besides, another twenty minutes and she’d be back onto the main track. Although it wasn’t lit either, it didn’t have the heavy layer of branches canopied over it to draw the night in.