got one perm… SKYLA, Mrs Gibbons has had long enough under that, can you sit her over there? Sorry, darl, Thursday morning means bedlam in here. All the wrinklies in for their discount colour.’
‘No, no, we’re good. Sorry to disturb you at work.’
‘Don’t you worry about that, treasure. But I’m worried about you. You on your own?’
‘Yeah but I’m fin—’
‘NOT THAT CHAIR, SKYLA, THE ONE NEXT TO IT. All right, babe, but shout if you need me and I’ll come over. Leon’s picking Dunc up today so once I’m through the purple-rinse brigade, I’m all yours.’
I hung up and Marmalade and I continued to watch morning TV. The ghostbuster had finished and had been replaced by a woman on the sofa claiming she wanted to be cryogenically frozen with her dog. After that, they tested high-street umbrellas by making Eamonn Holmes stand in a pop-up shower with each one. Marmalade dozed while I stared at the screen. Next, Lorraine Kelly interviewed Meghan Markle’s make-up artist, followed by a phone-in debate about whether you could clean the loo brush in the dishwasher.
Paws ’n’ Claws called back just after midday. I answered, expecting it to be the receptionist, but it was Dr Pennyworth.
‘Florence, hello. We have the results back and it looks like it’s a renal issue.’ He was speaking in the tone of voice you’d use if you were telling someone their grandmother was terminal. ‘It looks like it’s kidney failure, I’m afraid.’
‘What does that mean?’
He took a breath before answering. ‘Well, we do have medication we can try, and we could do a round of fluids, but at this stage it’s a question of prolonging things, a question of how far you’re willing to go. It’s normally a matter of weeks at this point, rather than months.’
‘OK,’ I said, more quietly, my hand on Marmalade’s back.
‘There is no wrong decision but it is a very personal one, so shall I leave you to think about it?’
‘Yep,’ I replied in a small voice. ‘If I bring him in to, er, to go to sleep, can you do it today or do I wait or, how does it all work?’
‘You can come in whenever you like,’ he replied smoothly. ‘Speak to Alison and we’ll arrange everything.’
I hung up, dropped the phone on the sofa and sat immobilized, my hand still on his back. I knew what I should do. I knew the kindest thing for Marmalade was to go to the vet’s: an injection and a long sleep. But the thought of coming home every day to an empty basket felt so cruel. I’d known him for seventeen years. He’d slept next to me for seventeen years. That was a marriage for many people. Better than a marriage, in fact, because he didn’t fart in bed or demand I cook him dinner every night. All he wanted was his Whiskas. His only treat was condensed milk. It was the simplest, happiest relationship I’d ever known. Here, in this house, Mia and Ruby had always been a pair – yakking together in the kitchen or doing their nails together upstairs. But so long as I’d had Marmalade, it hadn’t mattered. He was my other half, his back pushed up against my leg as I read on the sofa or his head on my feet as I wrote at the kitchen table. How could I sit here and make this decision with him lying so trustingly beside me? Some people would snigger at those who call their pets their best friend but I felt sorry for them. They’ve never known the devotion of a Marmalade.
I started crying again and picked up my phone to ring Rory.
He didn’t reply so I tried Jaz.
No answer there either so I called Eugene.
‘Hiya,’ said a voice at the other end. But it wasn’t Eugene. It was Zach.
I couldn’t help it. I burbled down the phone making a noise that sounded like the cry of a humpback whale I saw once in a documentary. A high-pitched wail.
‘Florence. Florence, are you OK? Florence? FLORENCE?’
I burbled further unintelligible sounds. ‘Pnueeeeegh, vet, pneuuuuuuuugh, Marmalade, pneuuuuuuugh.’
‘OK, breathe,’ he instructed. ‘Stop making that weird noise. Breathe. That’s it. No, not that noise. Another breath. In, out, in, out. That’s it. In, out. OK?’
‘Dank do,’ I managed, between breaths.
‘What’s up? Tell me.’
Very slowly, between more instructions from Zach about breathing, I explained. ‘And it feels so mean!’ I cried. ‘He’s just lying here! He hasn’t done anything wrong! How can I carry him back to