The Little Clock House on the Green. Eve Devon

I’m going to be buying it with you.’

      ‘Buying it with–’

      Juliet heard her kitchen chair being scraped back from the table as Kate hopped up. ‘Did I just hear you right?’

      Juliet nodded and pulled the cork out of the bottle of wine again.

      ‘Wait,’ Kate stopped her. ‘You’re serious, serious?’

      ‘Serious, serious. Fancy that wine, now?’

      ‘Forget the wine, have you got any honey lying around? I’ll make us both a couple of honey martinis while you tell me why on earth your mum thinks you want to buy The Clock House?’

      ‘Honey martinis? I haven’t had one of those since…’ Juliet shut her mouth when she remembered it had been after Bea’s funeral. ‘I don’t think I’ve got any vodka.’

      ‘We’ll do it gin-based, then. You still have that bottle sitting on your bookshelf in the lounge, gathering dust?’

      ‘Yep.’

      ‘So go get it and start explaining.’

      ‘Okay,’ Juliet wandered out into the lounge, throwing a, ‘It’s all because of the cats,’ over her shoulder.

      In the lounge she reached up to the top shelf of the bookshelf and grabbed a hold of Gordon. One of her Musketeer cats, Porthos, stretched lazily on the sofa beside her as if he knew that sooner or later he’d be talked about.

      ‘Well, of course it’s because of the cats,’ Kate said, as if the statement made total sense to her, when Juliet walked back into the kitchen with the bottle. ‘Continue,’ she said, taking the gin from her and then moving to the small workspace area to set out the rest of the ingredients. ‘Or is the deal with the cats big enough that you need the alcohol first?’

      ‘I can probably survive, but only if you hurry. So the thing with the cats…’ Juliet replied hovering over Kate’s shoulder. ‘I overheard Gloria Pavey–’

      ‘Gloria Pavey is a complete bitch and no one should pay any heed to whatever she says. Ever. Wait – she is still a bitch, right? Please tell me she hasn’t morphed into a national treasure and I’m going to have to feel guilty for every horrible thing I ever said about her?’

      ‘Oh rest assured, she hasn’t changed one little bit. Well, actually, now that she’s become the ultimate cliché, she’s worse.’

      ‘The ultimate cliché? Do tell.’

      ‘Her hubby went off with a younger model,’ Juliet explained, pushing aside the guilt for gossiping.

      ‘No! After all the work she had done to make sure that wouldn’t happen.’

      ‘I know. But it turns out that instead of having her boobs done she should, in fact, have had them reduced and had a completely different part retrofitted instead.’

      ‘Retrofitted?’

      ‘The younger model is an actual model… called Bobby. As in short for Robert.’

      ‘Bobby? Truly? Bob Pavey has left Gloria for another guy… A guy called Bobby?’

      ‘You forgot the male model part.’

      ‘The Bobsters… Bob and Bobby Pavey,’ Kate tried the names out and Juliet watched her computing the hugeness of the gossip that had been delivered. ‘God, it must be killing Gloria that she made Bob take her name when they got married.’

      ‘I know. And you can hardly blame her for being bitter and twisted now.’

      ‘You’re right. That’s, wow, a lot. I mean, Gloria’s always done the competition thing with just about everyone she comes into contact with, but competing for your husband’s affection against another man? How is she still even adulting?’

      ‘She’s not, really. And that’s why we’ve all been cutting her a little slack.’

      ‘Oh my God, I just thought – this must mean I’m officially no longer the only screw-up in the village.’

      ‘You’ve never been thought of as a screw-up and anyway…’ Juliet added, because if she didn’t get the words out soon she would definitely be too drunk to filter what she was saying.

      ‘Sorry – yes – so what did Gloria do?’ Kate asked as she took a lemon from the fruit bowl and cut it in half.

      ‘It sounds so silly now,’ Juliet murmured.

      ‘It’s not silly if it hurt you. Come on, out with it.’

      ‘Okay. So. I overheard her declaring me the ‘Girl Most Likely To Become Whispers Wood Official Crazy Cat Lady’.’

      There. She’d said it. And with that she opened a drawer to search for the honey drizzler stick thing she was sure she owned.

      ‘What?’ Kate said, spying it in the drawer and fishing it out for her and then brandishing it like a sword. ‘Is she still living in that converted barn? I am going to track her down and pull her hair and kick her shins and steal her conkers and, hang on, she called you a name?’

      ‘I know,’ Juliet nodded, squishing half the lemon juice into the cocktail shaker. ‘It’s pathetic. I shouldn’t have let it get to me. Except. Well, Kate, do you know how many cats I have now?’

      ‘One,’ Kate answered loyally, calmly chucking a shot of gin into the shaker and looking at her for confirmation.

      Juliet shook her head.

      ‘Two?’ Kate asked, chucking in another shot of gin.

      Juliet shook her head.

      ‘Right, right,’ Kate added, measuring out one more shot, ‘I saw another one that looked like it doubled for Grumpy Cat.’ She reached for the honey. ‘So, you have three cats, big deal.’

      ‘Five. I have five cats.’

      The honey drizzler that Kate had plunged into the jar of honey paused mid-air. ‘Wow, Juliet… That’s a lot of fur-babies to feed.’

      ‘I know,’ Juliet agreed, sliding the cocktail shaker under the spoon of honey before the contents could ooze and drip onto the countertop. ‘And I swear the last two found me, I didn’t find them. I’ve officially run out of names. There are only three musketeers, Kate. Four if you count D’Artagnan. And you know how I hate it when things don’t match. Do you know what I ended up calling the last one, the one that could stunt-double for Grumpy Cat?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Catty McCatFace. And now it has a complex–’

      ‘Because it thinks it’s a boat?’

      ‘No, because, because other cats probably hear me calling it in at night and probably go all Gloria Pavey on it when I’m not around.’

      ‘Oh Jules,’ Kate said sympathetically.

      If Kate was using her pet name for her, she really was sounding pathetic. Annoyed with herself, she threw open the door of the freezer and tossed a bag of ice onto the countertop. Taking a rolling pin out of the drawer, she smashed the bag and tipped some of the contents into the cocktail shaker, slammed the lid down on top and began to shake it vigorously.

      ‘So why would buying The Clock House stop you from being the Crazy Cat Lady of Whispers Wood?’ Kate asked, as she stood back to allow Juliet to reach into an overhead cupboard and grab two jam jars.

      Juliet stared at the jars. It had taken hours to build up the lace-effect Washi-Tape evenly.

      ‘Jules?’

      ‘Having a business to work on will help take my mind off it. Cheers,’ she said, passing one of the jars to Kate and clinking hers against it before taking a huge gulp.

      Lemony-honey-alcoholic goodness slipped down Juliet’s