Never The Bride

Chapter Two - Dress Nine

'COME ON, SUMO, WALKIES,' I called from the lounge door, waving his lead. He lifted his head and eyed me over the arm of his chair, as if suspicious my motives for rousing him from his sleep were genuine. When he saw the lead, he yawned and had a gentle stretch before making a meal out of getting up, then trying to ease himself off the chair. He put out a paw, then retracted it, and repeated the move again and again as he stared at the floor, performing some kind of doggie hokey cokey. 'Come on, it's hardly an abseil over the edge of a canyon. You have no trouble when it's time for dinner.'

I giggled as I was rewarded with an immediate response to his favourite word and he threw himself down, landed with a thud and ambled over. As I was going to be out for the rest of the day and was paranoid about leaving the dog flap unlocked when I was out, he needed some fresh air, as well as a tinkle and poo.

'Oh no you don't,' I warned, crouching to grab him as he tried to shuffle past to the kitchen. 'Walkies.'

He sulked as I clipped his lead to his studded brown leather collar. I shoved my front door keys in the back pocket of my jeans, grabbed the invoices I needed to mail and a poop bag, then yanked open the stiff front door to a gorgeously sunny summer's day, even at nine-thirty in the morning. After much coaxing, I got him to walk the few paces out onto the stone doorstep before he promptly sat down and looked up at me expectantly as I wrestled the front door shut.

'I know, I know, it's not like we haven't been doing this for years,' I sighed, as I grabbed the long metal handle attached to a skateboard parked at the side of the porch and pulled it around to line up with the raised flagstone. Sumo immediately stepped onto it, then plonked his arse back down, his fat pink tongue hanging from the side of his mouth as his eyes shot back and forth, surveying his domain. 'Ready?' I asked, and he gave me his "I was born ready" look.

I hooked his lead over the handle, on the off chance he decided to make a run for it, then started walking up the path, pulling the skateboard along behind me. I knew we were the joke of the village. The twenty-something spinster with the dog that went for a walk without actually walking. But I'd tried everything, he just wouldn't walk unless he had to. I'd never met anyone as stubborn as this dog. And being stuck indoors all of the time wasn't healthy for him. So "walkies" consisted of him sitting on his arse as I tugged him along on this contraption Dad had made for me, which had required me adding an "extension" to the sides of the skateboard for Sumo's ever expanding overhang to rest on. Granted, pulling him around the nicely tarmacked pavements of the town centre route I used to take him on had been far easier than the rough country lane I lived on now, but I'd had someone adapt it with shock-absorbing suspension and all-terrain wheels. It was like a gym workout for me, without the extortionate fees. I cursed out loud as I caught my arm on the holly tree, which was overhanging my front path. I assumed it had been here longer than the cottage, and was what had inspired the name "Holly Cottage." I glanced down to see a white mark where one of the vicious leaves had marred my skin. Luckily it wasn't bleeding, that wouldn't have been a good look in my sleeveless dress. We headed out through the ornate black metal gate and onto the lane, and I turned to pull it shut.

'Morning, Abbie, and a fine one it is at that,' came my neighbour David Jones's voice. I was really fond of the elderly couple next door. They were like surrogate parents to me, but they could both talk the hind legs off a donkey about nothing. Today I really didn't have time to waste. I had a taxi booked to take me to the bride's parents' house so I could get ready there.

'Morning, David.'

'Taking Sumo for his walk?' he chuckled, as he leaned over his gate and angled his head around his hedge to look at us both, as if he'd been expecting us. Nothing happened in this village without everyone finding out. And his wife, Daphne, was the most ardent collector of all the news.