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think things through, but you can be…’
    ‘Impulsive, spontaneous?’
    ‘Excitable, a bit like a dog.’
    Cat threw a cushion at her. ‘I get that I need to think about it like a business, but I’m excited, Pol. As excited as I was about moving here, finally getting to live with you. I think I can do this, and at the very least I can test the water, see if anyone nearby would be interested in a dog walker – other than Elsie, of course.’
    ‘You won’t charge her, will you?’
    ‘I said I wouldn’t, but she insists on it. She’ll be my first client and I’ll give her a special OAP rate.’ Cat sipped her wine and beamed, feeling a swell of something like accomplishment, even though all they’d really done was come up with an idea, and the hard work was all ahead of her.
    ‘Well, I think it’s pretty inventive,’ Polly said. ‘Inspirational, almost.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes. You may not have intended to leave your job today—’
    ‘Get booted out, you mean?’
    ‘ But ,’Polly continued, holding up a finger, ‘this could be better. And you’ll have a nearly-trained veterinary nurse on hand, should anything go hideously wrong.’
    ‘What’s going to go hideously wrong?’ Joe sloped into the room, sat next to Polly and poured himself a glass of red wine. He was in his usual work outfit of jeans and a hoody, the current one navy with an orange goldfish on the front, his short hair sticking up in unruly tufts as if his day had involved a lot of head scratching.

    ‘There’s a tsunami heading towards Fairview beach. Think of the carnage it’s going to cause.’
    Joe sat up, almost spilling his wine. ‘What? Who said anything about a tsunami?’
    ‘Calm down,’ Polly said, pushing gently against his chest. ‘Cat was having you on. No tsunami.’
    ‘Right.’ Joe glared at Cat and she grinned. Joe and Polly could almost be twins. They were both blonde haired and blue eyed, Polly’s frame almost as slender as a boy’s, but Joe’s blond was more strawberry than ash, and Cat had never found him unnerving, only annoying. ‘So what’s going to go wrong?’ he asked.
    ‘Cat’s new business venture – except it’s not, but if it does, then I’ll be on hand.’
    ‘To offer moral support?’ Joe noticed Polly’s feet up on the coffee table, and gently nudged them onto the floor.
    ‘To provide medical assistance.’
    ‘Are we going back to the tsunami? Why would you need medical assistance? Do your techniques work on people as well as animals?’ Joe rubbed his forehead.
    ‘Not for the people, silly,’ Polly said, ‘for the dogs.’
    ‘Dogs?’ Joe sat up again, this time keeping careful control of his wine. ‘What dogs?’ There was an edge of panic in his voice that Cat might have found amusing, except that it was his aversion to dogs that was stopping her from having one of her own at Primrose Terrace.
    ‘All dogs.’ Cat threw her arms up. ‘I’m going to walk the dogs of Fairview. I’m going to look after them all, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes, give them exercise and love and the freedom they deserve, and I’m going to get paid for it!’

    Joe took a sip of wine, his movements slow and measured. Cat had, in the two months she’d been living there, discovered this meant he was formulating an argument, considering his point carefully before he expressed it. Spontaneity was not Joe’s thing. Cat was expecting a carefully crafted attack on all things canine. It didn’t come.
    ‘So your time at the nursery,’ he said softly, ‘it’s…come to an end?’
    ‘How did you know?’
    ‘I didn’t. But…it seemed slightly inevitable.’
    ‘Why?’
    Joe gave a quick smile. ‘Because every time I asked about your day, you gave me an elaborate description of all the things you wished you’d been doing with the children – some of which would have got you sued, by the way – because the real answer was too boring to talk about. I guessed that you weren’t that happy there.