Chapter 5

5

‘Megan?' Flora placed her hand on her shoulder. ‘The meeting is over now.'

Megan blinked and looked around the kitchen as Susan, Jay and Ginny filed out of the door whilst Alex and Percy loaded the used mugs into the dishwasher. In front of her, Sally was opening a folder.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.'

‘I know you were, lovely.'

Pulling the chair out next to Megan, Flora sat down.

‘I'll catch you later.' Alex closed the dishwasher door and left as Percy turned his attention to wiping flapjack crumbs from the kitchen counter.

‘Jay didn't mean anything by what he said about Lyle.' Flora smiled kindly. ‘He doesn't know you were his partner.'

‘He doesn't?' Megan gripped her mug, the ceramic cold against her hands, the coffee having cooled a long time before.

‘Well, not unless you told him yourself. None of us has mentioned anything to him. Or anyone else, for that matter.'

‘You haven't?'

‘Of course not. Your business is your business, not ours.' Sally paused, pen in hand.

Megan looked from Flora to Sally and back again. Why wouldn't they have said anything? She'd have deserved everyone knowing.

‘Thank you.'

‘No problem,' Sally said. ‘We're really grateful to you for volunteering.'

‘Especially for doing the books!' Flora chuckled. ‘Seriously though, we are grateful. It must have taken a lot for you to have come back here, not knowing how we'd react.'

‘I take my hat off to you, I do. You've got guts coming back after what Lyle did.' Percy sat back down at the table.

Megan nodded. ‘I did worry you'd all turn me away.'

‘Well, as long as you know that you're welcome here. We all know what you and Andy did to save Wagging Tails.' Flora patted her hand. ‘And we're here for you. You must be going through a tough time after splitting up with him.'

‘Yes.' Percy looked at her and frowned. ‘He might have been an awful man and I for one think you're better off without him, but a relationship has still ended.'

‘And we all know how tough that can be.' Sally looked across at her. ‘So if you need to talk or vent, then we're all here for you.'

‘Absolutely.' Flora laid the palms of her hands on the table and pushed herself to standing. ‘But don't worry about what Jay said. He wasn't aiming it at you at all.'

‘Okay. Thanks.' Megan breathed a sigh of relief.

The last couple of days here at Wagging Tails had been a breath of fresh air. Quite literally. She'd been so used to spending time on her own, whilst she'd been living with Lyle and since she'd moved out, that suddenly being surrounded by people was both strange and comforting at the same time. And Flora was right, everyone had made her feel welcome. Maybe she herself was the one who was struggling to forgive the fact she hadn't realised what Lyle had been up to earlier and how corrupt he was.

‘Right, I'm off to take Angus to see Mack at the vet's and to hopefully be given a full bill of health.' Flora tucked her chair in.

‘I'll go and make a start of clearing that patch for the kennels.' Percy followed Flora out.

‘I don't suppose you fancy a walk down to the beach, do you?' Sally closed her folder. ‘I need to take Ocean and Splash out to see how they are with other dogs when they're together.'

‘Are they the two who came in with Angus?'

‘That's right. They're super lovely and get on so well together.'

‘I'd love to come then.' Megan pushed her cold coffee away and stood up. She hadn't actually been down to the beach yet even though she'd been staying in Trestow for the last few weeks.

Megan looked towards the sea as they walked down the cobbled lane leading to the cove. The sun was beaming down on the blue water, which reflected the sun's rays, as a handful of people walked along the water's edge.

‘So far, so good.'

‘They've been brilliant, haven't they? So calm even when we met that puppy being walked back there.' Sally stooped down to fuss Ocean.

‘Do you think they'll be rehomed together?' Megan glanced down as Splash, a small Yorkshire terrier, paused as the cobbles gave way to the sand.

‘Possibly not. It's so difficult to find people wanting to adopt a pair of dogs. Still, it's good to check to see how they walk together as it might come in handy to know if the potential adopters already have a dog.' Sally looked down at Ocean, a West Highland. ‘You never know though, someone might come forward for the both of them. It would be nice for them to stay together.'

Megan looked across at Sally. ‘So what's the real reason you asked me on the walk, then? You already know they get along together because they share a kennel, and you could have walked them both together yourself, anyway.'

‘You got me.' Sally held her hands up, Ocean's lead tucked around her wrist and between her fingers. ‘I wanted to check in on you, see how you're doing with everything.'

Maybe she should be annoyed, but it was nice of Sally to ask. None of her so-called friends from home had even bothered to get in touch with her. Not that she blamed them. When she'd moved in with Lyle, she'd moved away from her family, her friendship group, and although she'd been welcomed into his social circle, she'd never quite felt comfortable with them and maybe they hadn't quite been as accepting of her as she'd believed. Besides, she hadn't been the one to tell them she and Lyle had split up so she dreaded to think how he would have spun the story.

Megan looked across at Sally. ‘I'm okay.'

‘Are you sure? You've had a lot of upheaval recently and, as Percy said, none of us liked Lyle, but he was your husband.' She paused as Ocean slowed down. ‘You loved him and now…'

As they walked towards the sea, the sand became wet and Megan could feel her trainers sink, the millions of tiny grains moving beneath her.

‘I did love him, yes. Once, a long time ago, but honestly? Towards the end of the relationship, I knew he had changed, I knew he was no longer the man I'd vowed to spend the rest of my life with, I just didn't realise quite how much he had changed and quite how much I'd end up hating him.'

Bending down, Sally coaxed Ocean to move along the beach, before looking back at Megan. ‘Why didn't you leave him before then?'

Megan shrugged. There hadn't been one reason, there had been a million different ones.

She cleared her throat. ‘He was my world. I'd been with him for fifteen years and spent pretty much my entire adult life with him. I'd have lost everything – our friends, our social circle, my home. Everything.'

‘I understand.'

Megan laughed, her voice catching in her throat. ‘As it turns out, I've lost everything, anyway. Maybe I should have found the courage to leave him years ago.'

‘Do you wish you'd left him before?'

‘Yes, and no. I don't know.' Megan looked down at Splash as she pulled at the lead, seemingly desperate to get to the water. ‘Part of me does. Part of me feels as though I wasted all that time I stuck with him.'

‘If you had, though, Wagging Tails would have likely been bulldozed by now.'

‘That's what I keep telling myself.' Megan bent down and fussed Splash behind the ears. ‘I think this little one wants to go for a paddle.'

Sally smiled. ‘She seems to love the water. You should have seen her this morning when Alex was cleaning out their kennel. Neither of them seems to be house-trained yet, so he had the hose out and Splash was absolutely loving it! Jumping up to catch the water and everything.'

‘Aw, she was given the perfect name then.'

‘She was! She's come out of herself so much since they first arrived.' Sally began walking across the sand towards the water's edge. ‘But back to you. How are you holding up now?'

Megan watched as Splash lunged forward again, diving straight into the water, the seawater quickly reaching her shoulders. ‘I'm not sure. Lyle was away from home so much towards the end of our relationship that, quite honestly, I don't really miss him much, but I miss being with him. That doesn't make sense, does it?'

‘Umm…' Sally shrugged.

‘I mean, I miss knowing he's there for me, that it's not just me on my own against the world, that I have someone to fight my corner.' Megan walked along the wet sand, the water seeping in through the tops of her trainers. ‘Not that he would have been there for me anyway, but it's more the thought of being completely alone that I struggle with sometimes.'

‘I understand.'

‘It's strange because on the one hand, I feel totally free, as though I can do anything I want and go anywhere I want without having to think of anyone else, but on the other hand, it's daunting. I've not been alone since I was at university and then I lived with housemates. I'm completely alone now.'

She swallowed. Now she'd said it, it somehow felt real all of a sudden. She was alone. Her parents had emigrated to Spain years ago, she had no siblings and her so-called friends had all dropped her, perhaps worried that the impending divorce was a contagious disease which could threaten to ruin their marriages too. That, or they had just sided with Lyle.

‘You're not alone. You have us.' Sally reached out and gave her a quick hug around the shoulders.

‘Thanks, but you know what I mean. I guess it's that my life has been well and truly turned upside down. I don't miss Lyle, not one bit, but I miss the safety net he provided. I miss the future I thought we'd have. And now I don't know what my future looks like from one minute to the next, let alone where I'll be in five years' time.'

‘Have you thought about what you'd like to do? Long term?'

‘No.'

That wasn't true. She had.

‘Sorry, I have actually. I've thought about it since the moment I shut the door on my marital home, but I'm no clearer what I want to do. What I do know, though, is I want to find somewhere to settle. Somewhere to put proper roots down.'

‘How about here?'

Megan scrunched up her nose. ‘There's too many memories here.'

Sally nodded slowly. ‘I guess so.'

‘I want to have a completely fresh start. I wanted to come here and volunteer, find my bearings, so to speak, and it just felt like the right thing to do. I know I can't make up for the way Lyle treated you all, but I hope I can make a slight difference, however small.'

‘You don't need to make up for anything. And I know Flora's spoken to you about that before. You really don't. If anything, we owe you. If it hadn't been for you revealing his plans, then the home would no longer be here. You don't owe us anything.'

‘Still, it feels right.'

It did. When she'd left Lyle the first place she'd thought of running to had been West Par. Well, not quite the first. She'd initially spent a couple of months in her and Lyle's holiday home on the Norfolk coast, but somehow it hadn't felt right. When they'd been together, she'd spent a lot of time there on her own anyway and as hard as she'd tried she'd just not been able to relax, she'd always felt as though he might walk through the front door without a moment's notice. No, coming here she at least could tell herself she was beginning her new life away from him. She didn't need to look over her shoulder, or worry that he'd walk through the door of the bed and breakfast at any given time. West Par would be the last place he'd think she was.

As they walked across the beach, Splash and Ocean's leads taut as they played in the sea, Sally linked her arm through Megan's and pulled her close. ‘Well, I'm glad you came. And I know for one thing, Flora's relieved she doesn't have to try to sort the finances out!'

Megan laughed. ‘Glad to be of assistance.'