Raincoats and Retrievers. Cressida McLaughlin

streets of Fairview, finally stopping outside Mark’s house. He leaned over and kissed her again, his fingers caressing her neck.

      ‘Did you want to come inside?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes.’ Cat waited for Mark’s smirk, his wide, charming grin, but he just nodded and climbed out, opening the door for her.

      They made it up his front steps before he kissed her again, enclosing her in his arms under the soft glow of the hanging lantern over the front door. Cat let herself be drawn in. She had almost lost herself to him completely when a familiar voice called up to them.

      ‘Cat, is that you?’ She broke away and turned, blinking quickly, and saw Juliette Barker, her black corkscrew curls pulled away from her face, hands clasped in front of her. She was wearing a cream business suit that looked almost peach under the street light. Cat thought for an awful moment she was about to be told off for kissing in public.

      ‘Juliette. Hi. How are you?’

      Juliette nodded and gave a quick smile. ‘Fine, fine. Sorry to disturb, but could you walk Effie and Alfie tomorrow? Only Will had told me he was going to be at home all day, and I’ve arranged a series of important meetings in the office, but now he’s got some surfing meet-up that he apparently has to attend. Anyway, he can’t take the dogs and nor can I. Are you around? I was coming to your place but I looked in this direction and –’ She indicated the pair of them standing, post-snog, on the doorstep.

      ‘O-of course I can fit them in,’ Cat said. Mark ran his fingers up Cat’s back and she tried to shimmy away from him. ‘What time?’

      ‘Eleven? They’ll be running rings round the furniture by then, and I –’ She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Sorry, this is incredibly rude of me. I can see you’re in the middle of…’

      ‘It’s no problem,’ Cat said, not wanting to get into a discussion with her neighbour about what she was or wasn’t in the middle of. ‘They’re such lovely dogs, and sometimes things don’t fit easily into working hours.’ She smiled, and Juliette seemed to relax a little.

      ‘Great, thank you.’ She glanced between them. ‘You’re Mark, aren’t you?’

      ‘Guilty as charged,’ Mark said, holding his hand up in a static wave. ‘Nice to meet you.’

      ‘Do you like surfing?’

      ‘Never tried it,’ Mark admitted. ‘Your husband, Will, he enjoys it?’

      ‘Far too much,’ Juliette said. ‘Well, maybe that’s unfair. He enjoys it at the expense of almost everything else. I know it’s a good hobby, it keeps him fit, he gets lots of fresh air – but he seems so obsessed with it. He spends his life down at that cove. Why do men get so obsessed with things? It doesn’t seem healthy.’

      ‘I get obsessive,’ Mark said. ‘Not about surfing, but my work – my writing.’

      ‘And Joe, my housemate,’ Cat joined in, ‘is anal when it comes to so many things. Feet on the coffee table, talking during films, dogs in the house…’ she added quietly. ‘I think it’s just a man thing.’

      ‘He used to be obsessed about work,’ Juliette said ruefully. ‘But not any more. Now it’s new wetsuits, streamlining his board, catching the waves – as if they don’t happen every hour of every day. He’s started talking in a new language – it’s all “hang fire”, or, no, what is it? I’m sure it’s “hang” something. I can’t remember.’ She sighed and shook her head, a curl escaping and falling over her face.

      Mark and Cat exchanged a glance.

      ‘Sorry,’ Juliette said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t mean to – I’m still interrupting. I’ll leave you to it.’

      ‘No, Juliette,’ Cat said, ‘we don’t mean for you to go, it’s just…’

      ‘Thank you so much for walking the dogs tomorrow, Cat. Have a good evening.’ She gave them a brusque smile and turned, her court shoes echoing as she walked the few yards back to number six.

      Cat watched her go, her embarrassment at being interrupted fading as Mark snaked his arm around her waist. But as she spun to face him she noticed a car parked further up the road, and her stomach swooped for an entirely new reason.

      ‘Now,’ Mark murmured, his lips brushing her neck. ‘Are you coming inside? I don’t think there’s anything you can do to prepare for walking Juliette’s dogs, is there?’

      Cat closed her eyes. His touch and his taste, his confidence, his dark eyes, they were all so enticing. ‘I – I can’t,’ she said. She put her palms flat on his chest. He flinched slightly and tried to pull her closer, but Cat resisted. ‘There is nothing I would like more than to come in with you right now. But I can’t.’

      ‘Why?’ He smiled at her, only a hint of confusion on his face. ‘Because of Juliette?’

      ‘No, not that. Because the red Renault with a World’s Greatest Inventor bumper sticker that’s parked outside number nine belongs to my parents.’ She sighed and rested her head against his chest, which was a mistake, because it felt good and it made her even more reluctant to leave. ‘They must have come for an impromptu visit and – depending on how long they’ve been there – Polly and Joe might be beyond rescuing.’

      ‘Then there’s no need to go back,’ Mark said, ‘if it’s too late to save them.’

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured, leaning in for a final, delicious kiss. ‘If I thought I could get away with it, I’d stay.’ Reluctantly, she left Mark standing on the top step, watching her. His face gave nothing away, no frustration, no flicker of disappointment. She reached number nine, searched through her bag for her keys and then, pushing open the front door, went in to face the carnage.

       Chapter 2

      Cat’s mum and dad were wedged on the smaller of the two sofas, Shed stretched out with his head on her mum’s lap, his back legs on her dad’s. The cat was snoring. Despite the weather, her dad Peter was wearing his usual fishing waistcoat over a short-sleeved shirt, and Delia, her mum, had her sunglasses perched on her head, sending her short brown hair into disarray. Polly was sitting opposite them, hands clasped together, and Joe was on the arm of the sofa, as if trying to make it obvious that he wasn’t staying. He’d probably been there, his bum going numb, for hours. That’s what happened in the presence of Cat’s parents – you couldn’t escape.

      ‘Cat,’ Joe said, standing as she walked in. She could hear the relief in his voice, and she flashed him an apologetic look. ‘How was it?’

      ‘Catherine dear.’ Her mum reached her arms up towards her as if she was a toddler asking to be picked up. Obviously, Shed couldn’t be disturbed. ‘It’s so lovely to see you.’ Cat reached down and hugged her mum, taking in her overly floral perfume, and then her dad with the musty workshop smell that hung around him like a fog.

      ‘You too,’ she said, ‘though you could have called ahead, told me you were coming. I kind of had plans tonight.’ She gave them a tight smile, and folded her arms.

      Her mum and dad exchanged a cheeky look. ‘We wanted to surprise you,’ her mum said.

      ‘We had no idea you’d be out on a date,’ her dad added. ‘Couldn’t fathom it at all! Joe and Polly have been the perfect hosts in your absence. How much detail do we get?’

      ‘Hardly any,’ Cat said, not adding that the potential for juicy gossip would have been much greater had they not turned up and cut short her evening.

      ‘Oh, come on, Cat,’ Polly said, standing up and embracing her friend, ‘we’re all dying to hear how it went.’

      ‘And I’m