‘You’re right, it was,’ he said, ‘and we drank the lot once we’d decided you were staying over.’

‘No wonder I’m whacked,’ I yawned, ‘I feel as though I could sleep for a week.’

‘It’s all this fresh, country air,’ he smiled, accepting my explanation. ‘Do you want to turn in? I can get you a sleeping bag and that toothbrush, if you like?’

‘Would you mind?’ I asked.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Come on, Bruce,’ he added, nudging the dog off the sofa. ‘You best sleep in my room tonight, my lad.’

‘You can leave him here with me, if you like,’ I said, looking at Bruce’s martyred expression and thinking that I wouldn’t mind the company. ‘There’s just about enough room for two.’

‘No, best not,’ Joe laughed. ‘Once this storm blows itself out later, he’ll be back to his bouncy and mischievous self in no time, and he’ll be up and about long before you’ll want to be. I can guarantee it!’

It turned out he was spot on about that.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Just as Joe had predicted, Bruce was up early the next morning. However, I had heard someone, presumably Charlie given where the snores had emanated from the night before, moving about overheard even earlier and then slamming the outside door. Turning over, I’d disregarded the rumpus because it still felt like the middle of the night but when Bruce came bounding in a little later it was considerably lighter and his exuberance was impossible to ignore.

‘For pity’s sake, Bruce,’ I groaned, trying to push him away, which wasn’t easy because I was bound up in the sleeping bag. ‘Get off.’

The action of giving him a shove only served to further excite him and it wasn’t many seconds before the inevitable happened and his tail brushed the coffee table completely free of the piles of paperwork, folded-up newspapers and remote controls which had been quite happily settled there, completely minding their own business.

‘You,’ I said, as I struggled to sit up, ‘are a total pain in the butt.’

He cocked his head to one side, as if weighing the accusation up, then rushed out of the room again, his claws scrabbling on the tiled floor, before he reappeared with a tea towel which he dropped on my lap.

Clearly, it was time to face the day, but first I had to corral the mess on the floor into a heap so I could put it back on the table – although how long it would stay there with Bruce’s rapidly rotating rudder still in the vicinity was anyone’s guess.

‘Why don’t you go and wag somewhere else?’ I asked him, adding the last of the papers to the pile as the sound of Joe’s voice drifted through from the kitchen.

He didn’t sound particularly happy.