A Christmas Tail: A heart-warming Christmas romance. Cressida McLaughlin

paying the same amount of rent.’

      ‘Do you always have to be so argumentative?’

      ‘Only when I’m standing up for my rights.’ Polly crossed her arms.

      ‘Your rights to have your feet on the table?’

      ‘I had a shower when I got in, so they’re perfectly clean. Cleaner than Shed’s, I bet. And he’s got his bum on the table.’

      Joe looked sideways at his sister. ‘Fair point. Come on, Shed.’

      He prodded Shed’s back, and the cat glared at him and stepped onto his knee, kneading his paws into Joe’s jeans.

      ‘Ahhh – aaaaaaaaaah, not there, Shed!’ Joe tried to move the cat but he refused to budge, and Cat hid her laughter behind her glass. She made the mistake of catching Polly’s eye, and they both shook silently while Joe tried to rescue his private parts. Small portions of near-harmless revenge were very satisfying, even when they came from an unlikely source.

      The bottle of wine was empty, Cat’s eyes were blinking sleepily and Joe had long since disappeared to do more work or fume, silently, behind his office door. Polly switched off the television and drummed her fingers on the table.

      Cat sat up. ‘What?’

      ‘He’s not always been like that, you know.’

      ‘Who, Shed?’ Shed was asleep in Joe’s place on the sofa, a big orange fuzz, his face buried under his tail. Cat imagined he was secretly plotting ways to get her into trouble, playing the perfect pet against her role of irritating new housemate.

      ‘Joe,’ Polly said. ‘You’ve got the worst of him at the moment, that’s all.’

      ‘The two-month bad patch?’ Cat raised an eyebrow and grinned at her friend’s exasperation. ‘Sorry, I know things weren’t that great for him before I moved in, but I – I mean, I don’t know the whole story.’ She spoke gently, thinking of all the times she’d tried to get the truth out of Polly, knowing that it wasn’t fair to level her curiosity at her new landlord, but unable to help it.

      ‘It’s probably time to tell you. He was really stung by Rosalin. No, not stung, that’s not fair. Sometimes it’s easy to think of Joe as a grumbling, emotionless lump, but he’s not like that. He’s broken-hearted.’

      ‘She left him?’

      Polly nodded, hesitated for a second, and then sighed. ‘For his business partner,’ she added. Her tone suggested she still couldn’t believe it, and Cat could understand the incredulity.

      ‘Alex did the first break-up. They’d been running Magic Mouse Illustrations for nearly five years, and he told Joe he’d been headhunted by a company in London, some global corporation with a fat salary and all the extras, and he was going to take it. That was hard, not only because Alex was leaving, but because Joe thought he wouldn’t be able to do it without him. Alex was always better at the graphic design – Joe’s skills are mostly straight illustration, which he’s worried is a dying art. It’s crushed his confidence to think Alex got poached, even though I’m pretty sure Alex wasn’t telling Joe the whole truth.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ The temperature had dropped, and Cat put a cushion over her feet, too wedged into the sofa to go and get warmer clothes.

      ‘I think Alex was exaggerating. I think he wanted out – he was about to steal Joe’s girlfriend – so he applied for the job and got it. I’m sure there was no headhunting. Anyway, a few days after that Rosalin told Joe she was leaving him, that she was moving to London with Alex Duhamel, smooth and French and, from that moment on, no longer Joe’s friend. It’s put him off French things for ever – Brie, Paris – and women, and…some other things.’

      ‘That’s horrible.’ Cat felt instantly guilty, felt the usual sweep of shame at her curiosity.

      ‘He lost everything in a few days,’ Polly continued. ‘He’s kept Magic Mouse going, he’s got his head down, but he’s not coping as well as he’d like us to believe. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I don’t like introducing him as “my heartbroken brother”. People shouldn’t be judged on their back story, so I didn’t fill in the blanks.’ Polly sat forward, elbows on her knees. ‘Also, I didn’t want to worry you. It used to be me, Joe and Rosalin here. Joe was fine about you moving in – or he claimed he was – but you’ve still replaced Rosalin in this house, so you might be getting a harder time of it than you should.’

      ‘He’s not being actively mean to me.’

      ‘But he’s miserable, sarcastic, pessimistic. I thought it was about time I explained. I don’t want you thinking I’ve mis-sold you the Primrose Terrace experience.’

      Cat laughed. ‘You haven’t, and I’m really happy here, I promise. If I wasn’t then I’d be in Brighton trying to get my old job back. But I’m really going to give dog walking a go. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before – it’s perfect for me! And your brother may be down in the dumps, but he sometimes makes an effort to be nice to me, and he’s definitely got his uses.’

      ‘Like what? Scooping up unfinished wine? Being gullible about natural disasters?’

      ‘Those too,’ Cat said. Her mind was whirring – it hadn’t stopped since Elsie had suggested that she could strike out on her own and do something she really believed in. ‘But I’ve also heard he does quite a good job of prettying up websites.’

      ‘Ah.’ Polly’s thin, pearly lips lifted at the corners. ‘Yes, he does have that going for him, whatever his insecurities are. And he is throwing himself into work to take his mind off things.’

      ‘So his heartbreak could play to my advantage?’

      ‘It could, but I wouldn’t start your negotiation with that. “Hi, Joe, seeing as you no longer have a girlfriend to spend time with, could you just…” Maybe focus on his skills as a designer, his great visionary mind, his intellect in general.’

      ‘Good plan.’ Cat leaned forward and fist-bumped Polly. ‘The two of us could really make a go of this dog-walking thing!’

      ‘Two of us?’

      ‘Of course. If you want to be a part of it?’

      Cat and Polly had lived together at university in York ten years earlier, and discovering that they had grown up only a few miles apart had made their friendship stronger. After graduating, life had inevitably got in the way, but they’d remained firm friends, meeting up regularly. Cat had jumped at the opportunity to move the short distance from Brighton to Fairview and move in with Polly, and including her in her business idea was the logical next step. Polly was calm, measured and organized. Cat thought they would be a perfect match.

      Polly chewed her lip. ‘I – I’d love to, but at the moment I have so little time. Studying, the work placement. I’m so close to graduating now, I can’t mess it up.’

      ‘Just get involved when you can. And it’s not all about the walking. There’ll be admin, marketing, accounts. There’s loads of things to consider – it’s not going to be a walk in the park. Now,’ Cat raised her eyes to the ceiling, ‘which clever person told me that?’

      ‘All right,’ Polly laughed, ‘you’re on. I’d love to be involved. And first, the most important decision for any new business.’

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘A name. What, Cat, is your dog-walking business going to be called?’

      ‘“@PoochPromenade. For all your dog-walking needs in the Fairview area of Fairhaven. No dogs too small (or big).” What do you think?’

      ‘Sorry?’ Joe turned over a page of the newspaper, his head bent towards it as if trying to block out the rest of the world. He was sitting at the dining table which, along with the sofas, was in the house’s one giant