Puppies Are For Life by Linda Phillips Read Free Book Online Page B

remotest idea what he was on about – was beginning to drive him crazy:
what the hell was this life all about?
    But a loud thundering at the front door prevented him having to come up with an answer just then.
    ‘Yes?’ he demanded, his eyes sweeping the small band of workmen he found propping up the porch.
    ‘Mr Webb? We’ve come early,’ their spokesman told him with a grin. ‘Now’s not often that happens, is it? We saw yer car on the drive, so we knew someone must be in, and we thought – well, you ain’t likely to object, are yer, mate?’
    ‘Object? To what?’ But Harvey had spotted a blue van with writing on the side and it began to trigger his memory.
    ‘Object to us getting on with it,’ the ring-leader said. ‘Make a start, kind of thing. Get the gear into the house and have another look-see. Know what I mean? Then tomorrow we can get down to things bright ’n early.’
    ‘Oh.’ Harvey’s face fell. ‘The bathroom. Of course.’
    Some time ago Julia had decided they must have the guest bathroom refitted, and he had absently agreed. At the time, when quotations and so forth had been bandied about, he hadn’t taken much notice except for the final cost. He had nodded at colour charts and samples and hadn’t thought he would be much affected by the actual work; he’dcertainly never dreamed he’d be part of the surroundings when it happened. Now he realised his privacy was about to be invaded, when all he wanted was to be left alone with his misery and the great mystery of life.
    ‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ he said, holding the door a little wider, and he watched in dismay as the work-party shambled past him in paint-splattered boots. Within minutes every room in the house seemed to be cluttered with copper piping, a shiny new bathroom suite stuck all over with impossible tape, ladders in three different sizes – what would they need those for? – and a stack of filthy tools. All Harvey’s work of the past four hours had gone to a ball of chalk.
    But the boxes of tiles Julia had selected for the walls were too much to stomach.
    ‘Oh no,’ he said, taking one between his fingers as though it stank, ‘definitely, absolutely, and most decidedly not. This lot can go straight back where they came from.’
    And then he had an idea.

CHAPTER 6
    The green hold-all with tan leather trim bumped against Frank’s thigh as he walked towards the boarding gate. It bulged so much with goodies for Jan and himself that it made him tilt as though drunk. His arm muscles were strained and he was panting heavily. He was getting too old for globe-trotting, he decided. But at least this was the only luggage he had to worry about. He wouldn’t have to hang about the airport waiting for suitcases to be disgorged; he could get straight off home to Jan.
    Lord, what a wasted trip! And how was he going to break the news? It was the last thing Jan would be expecting to hear from him. They had both been so sure of Bert’s money. For five short days they had blissfully assumed that all their problems were over. And now they were back to square one. Back to the nightmare that had begun almost as soon as they had left England and was still going strong.
    Frank sighed as the crowd slowed to a crawl. No amount of goodies would ease the pain for his wife. Poor Jan. She had always been such a help to him – even before Rose died. A kind-hearted colleaguewhom he’d respected and grown to love. She didn’t deserve all this.
    He handed over his boarding pass, tender warmth flooding his hard old heart. Dear Jan. What would he have done without her?
    Simon sat in his car, staring up at the converted house. On the outskirts of Bristol and less than a mile from the one he and Natalie had lived in, it looked almost identical: Edwardian, three floors under a grey slate roof; run-down and generally uncared for.
    He bounded up the path.
    ‘I told you not to come here,’ were Natalie’s first words. She looked furtively