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The dog ran ahead of her hoovering up smells, tail waving. Ziggy was a mongrel they’d rescued from the dogs’ home. Owen’s dog. Arranged when he was six in the wake of his dad leaving them. The dog was average, unremarkable. Tan-coloured, pointy ears and muzzle. An every-dog. The sort that could illustrate the alphabet letter D or a brand of dog food. Impossible to mistake for any pedigree breed. He was good-natured, biddable.
Owen was meant to walk him once a day, Fiona the other time. But in recent months Owen’s personality transplant meant he’d given up on the walking. It ranked alongside brushing his hair and clearing up his room. Boring, beneath him.
Fiona felt a stab of guilt. Then a wash of shame. Her son was alive. She should have clung to him despite his protestations. Rejoiced. He was a lovely boy beyond the practised disenchantment, the grunts and the sneers. He was caring and honest. As a younger child he’d been avidly interested in the world and its workings, genial, prone to giggles. Easy company. He would be again, surely.
She wondered about Danny and his mother. Had they squabbled and fallen out? Was he surly and sullen at home? What had his parting words been? Something mundane: I don’t want tea. Or edgy: I heard you, I’ll do it later! Or poignant: Love you, Mum. Fiona had a sudden urge to text Owen – Luv u. He’d not thank her for it, would probably not even acknowledge it. His phone was always off when she tried it, or out of credit when she asked why he’d not responded to her messages. Mysterious how he still seemed able to communicate with his mates on it.
Ziggy waited at the bridge to see which route they were taking. Fiona signalled ahead: ‘Go on Zig.’ The dog waited and trotted over the bridge when Fiona reached the steps. The pub on the other bank, Jackson’s Boat, once derelict, had been done up a couple of years ago and there were parties sitting at the picnic tables. The smell of fried food lingered in the air, children squealed in the playground. Back in the mists of time she and Jeff had occasionally treated themselves to Sunday lunch there, Owen in his pushchair.
The lane led through an avenue of trees, the canopies in full leaf, the track beneath still muddy in the shadiest places from last week’s rains. Fiona hoped she wouldn’t run into any of the regulars, the dog walkers who’d come to know each other through their animals. A rag-tag community, all shapes and sizes. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She tried to immerse herself in the natural world around her: the heady perfume of dog-roses, splashed pink among the hedgerows, the clamour of sparrows, a small tortoiseshell butterfly dancing in the nettles, the flash of orange and the blue edging far fancier than its name suggested. They crossed into the little wood by the nature reserve building and she saw a wren busy in the undergrowth and a ball of gnats in a roiling jig under the boughs of the trees. The path led on to the water park. The lake was the colour of blue-black ink, ruffled despite the still of the evening. The motorway ran at the other side, its roar ever-present. Pylons stood sentinel, their wires stretched high above the water. Bulrushes and Himalayan balsam, with its sweet, waxy scent, lined the banks. The lake was used for sailing and canoeing but the water was clear of craft now, the boats locked away in the yard on the far side near the fancy motorway footbridge with its triangular frame. Now only ducks and Canada geese, gulls and a solitary heron broke the water’s surface.