you,’ she says. He can hear the gratitude and relief in her voice. ‘I’m really grateful.’ She looks down at the dog, smiles affectionately. ‘You’re very lucky, buster! … I’ll leave you my number and if it doesn’t work out I’ll come and take him back, I promise. And the girl in SuperValu, Katie, said she’d help – if you need to go away or anything, she said she’d mind him.’
When she stands and draws her body upright his eyes fix on her legs and thighs and he feels a powerful physical sensation, as if he is pulled upwards with her legs and thighs – pulled up by the force of her body, up into her.
She takes her phone from her jeans pocket. He clears his throat. For a moment he cannot recall his phone number, then calls it out haltingly, uncertainly, and she taps her screen. In the hall, his own phone pings.
He stands in the doorway until her yellow car disappears from view. The sun streams into the hall. He listens for sounds inside the house. He steps into the hall and whistles lightly, then calls ‘Paddy’. But the dog does not budge. Even when Lily pokes her head around the door he does not stir.
All afternoon Luke leaves him alone. He clatters about the house, opening and closing doors noisily, talking animatedly to Lily. He tries to hear what the dog hears – the distant human voice, the echoes, the footsteps.
Later he enters the drawing room and sits on the sofa, reading. Now and then he tries to coax the dog from his spot. Finally, he lifts him gently – the animal stiffening in his hands – into an old wicker basket and carries him outside to the old servants’ kitchen in the yard. He places the basket in a corner where the sun slants in through a high window. He places a bowl of water beside him, and, closing the door behind him, leaves the dog in peace.
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