Badgers

Badgers

Guinea pig sought to be a companion for a lonely ginger Peruvian named Pushkin. Caring owner, lifetime commitment, incredible hair.

It feels nice to have a friend doing this online dating thing with me. Though Pushkin is looking for love on findapet.org, the process is much the same: upload your photograph, write your particulars and wait for a match.

He hasn’t had any matches yet, but then neither have I. I’m dusting the ceramics shelf with Marjie’s absurd rainbow feather duster when I spot a badger staring back at me. He’s wearing his gold spectacles low, looking at me from over the top of the newspaper he’s reading. He must have only just woken up because he’s wearing his nightcap still (when did people stop wearing hats to bed, I wonder; I love nothing more than a hat opportunity). Beneath Mr Badger’s breakfast table, which is laid extravagantly with eggs and butter and a teapot and milk jug, two child badgers are playing on the floor with a toy car, a teddy bear and a frightening-looking

jack-in-the-box. Whoever Leonardo

, the artist inscribed on the gold plaque, was, he must have been a few badgers extra to a picnic, if you know what I mean. The price tag on the bottom is ￡16.

‘Did the badgers just come in?’ I ask Marjie, holding the stripey fellows up.

Marjie looks up from a donated Prima

magazine from 2021 and puts her glasses on the end of her nose (and in doing so looks temporarily like father badger). ‘Hm? Oh, yes, the badgers. Came in yesterday.’

I say, ‘They’re fantastic’ at the exact moment that Marjie says, ‘They’re quite creepy.’ And we take a moment to consider the other’s perspective.

‘Sixteen pounds, though?’ I ask.

‘I googled them. Those badgers go for sixty-five new.’

‘Yeeshk.’

Marjie laughs and takes off her glasses and holds her old Prima

magazine far away from her face so she can continue to read. My phone lets out a merry ping. Hope swells in my stomach. But it is not a reply from Betty_313 or Freda.J or usernamemadge on Platinum Singles. It is an email from [email protected].

Eddie!

she’s written, I’m photographing the Winterbourne Gardens the Saturday after next if you fancy joining me. 10 a.m. Wear something fun.

‘Shit,’ Bella says, scrolling down to the bottom of the email and then back to the top.

‘So,’ I ask her, ‘do you think it’s a date? It could be another photography session.’

‘It could

be another photography session,’ she agrees.

‘But it could be a date?’ I ask, with a tiny sparkler of hope igniting in my chest.

‘It could

be a date,’ Bella confirms. ‘I think you’re going to have to ask her.’

‘You can’t ask

someone if it’s a date!’

‘Can’t you?’ she asks.

‘No, it would ruin the magic,’ I tell her. ‘I mean, I don’t have any real-world experience, of course, but my instincts tell me that I oughtn’t ask her.’

‘Well then, we’ll have to consider it a photography session but hope for more.’

‘That’s wise,’ I conclude, and she taps her forehead as though to show me where her wisdom originates.

‘But what shall I wear?’