Free Pedigree Mum by Fiona Gibson Page B

Toast catalogue shoos him away, and a bunch of children yell in protest as Buddy scampers over a mound of sand with little flags stuck all over it, like some kind of gigantic pin cushion.
    ‘It’s ridiculous!’ someone cries. ‘That dog’s out of control.’
    ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ James mutters as he tears after his dog, who has now cocked his leg against the judges’ trestle table for a hasty pee before continuing his explorations of the beach.
    ‘Could the owner of this dog
please
remove him from the area,’ a male voice booms over the PA system. ‘A Beach Buddy has already been informed …’
    Ah, the illustrious BBs, jumped-up volunteers in lilac T-shirts who appear out of thin air on the rare occasion that someone dares to stub out a fag in the sand. They don’t take kindly to dogs venturing into the wrong zone – as James has been reminded on several occasions by a zealous-dad type with a shiny ‘BB’ button badge, who clearly derived great pleasure from having the authority to tell people off.
    At least Buddy has left the competition now, and is prancing delightedly in the shallow waves. James marches towards him, not realising that the paper napkin with the piano teacher’s number has fluttered away behind him and is being carried away by the light breeze. By the time he’s marched Buddy back to the promenade, wondering if 3 p.m. is too early for strong alcohol, he has forgotten that he even wrote it down.

Chapter Twelve
    Kerry had always assumed that a mid-life crisis involves the purchase of an enormous motorbike and ill-advised leather trousers. But now she thinks maybe they’re more complicated than that. More like a forty-year-old man gets monumentally pissed with younger colleagues, stays over at the flat of some little princess, then announces that perhaps moving to the south coast wasn’t such a great idea after all, despite being one hundred percent certain that blissful day with the kite. And that now he’s had time to ‘really think things through’, and despite the fact that they have an offer on the house, maybe they should hang onto their London home for a while longer, as a sort of … ‘base’.
    ‘What d’you mean, a “base”?’ Kerry asks. She and Rob have left the tearoom and are waiting at the pedestrian crossing to cross the road to the beach.
    ‘Just … somewhere I’d stay,’ Rob says, ‘one or two nights a week instead of commuting every day, until we’re sure about selling it.’
    ‘But I thought we
were
certain,’ she points out. ‘I seem to remember you saying, “Let’s do it, tell Maisie we want to go ahead. ” ’ She looks at him expectantly, baffled by this new development. ‘And now you’re completely backtracking,’ she adds. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on with you, Rob .’
    For some reason, Kerry is finding it hard to breathe. Aware that in just a few minutes she’ll be required to be all perky and smiley in front of hordes of mothers at the sandcastle competition, she exhales fiercely and starts to cross the road.
    ‘I’ve just been mulling things over,’ Rob says, hurrying to keep up with her.
    ‘Well, I don’t see how we can afford to run two homes – not with your job being so precarious and me just starting freelancing. We’ve got to buy Maisie’s place sometime. We can’t expect to live rent-free forever.’
    Rob presses his lips together as they reach a group of shiny blonde teenage girls dressed in skimpy shorts and Abercrombie sweatshirts, talking in loud, braying voices.
    ‘Anyway, when you say you want a “base”,’ Kerry adds as they make their way along the seafront, ‘do you mean a shag pad?’
    ‘Of course I don’t mean that. For God’s sake, that’s ridiculous.’
    ‘So why would you need it, unless this thing with Nadine—’
    ‘There’s no
thing
,’ he snaps. ‘I thought I’d finally managed to get that across to you …’
    She glares at him, wishing she wasn’t obliged to spend