The Missing Turkey

A disobedient dog, a ruined lunch and new friends – this was going to be a Christmas none of them would forget

- Jo Thomas

It was all Nigella’s fault really.

‘Enzo! Enzo!’ I try and call into the cold, crisp early morning. I pull my dressing gown around me and allow myself just a moment to listen to the silence that Christmas morning always seems to bring, and breathe in the familiar salty sea air. I look over the bay, the waves gently lapping their way up the shore, and a soft mist sitting just above the surface. Around the bay of Swn Y Mor, the houses are nestled into the hillside around the town with the church at its heart. Soft yellow lights are appearing in bedroom windows as the world begins to wake up on another Christmas Day. Just like me this time last year, before my entire future was whipped away, when Ben told me in the new year he’d met someone else and was moving out.

Enzo had been a Christmas present from Ben to me. A small bundle of fluffiness, that maybe he felt helped to ease his guilt, knowing he was leaving. I had to move out of the house too, but I love my little cottage here. A fisherman’s cottage looking out over the bay, in the middle of a row, just big enough for me and Enzo, although when he wags his tail he knocks everything flying around him. Next door, on one side is a family second home and the other side the cottage is rented for holidays. I can see the lights on in the kitchen as I creep out into the dark morning calling Enzo’s name, as quietly as I can.

‘Enzo! Where are you?’ I shiver, pulling my dressing gown around me. ‘I need to get to work! I’m going to be late at this rate!’ I reach the gate. He must have opened the gate on his own when I let him out first thing. He’s clever like that. He puts his paw in and shakes the gate until the latch jumps up and he’s out.