Chapter 7

Alice takes Stella through the leather clad bodies as they step inside, she says. "You need a drink, what are you having?"

"We, er, brought a bottle of wine, it's there on the side." Her voice hollow, distant and weak.

"I asked what you want, not what you brought, answer me properly." Alice demanded her voice stern and unyielding, she had recognised something within Stella.

"Gins good, if there is any." She replies with a little more presence.

"And?"

"Tonic or lemonade."

Alice opens cupboards until she finds a pint glass, she half fills it with ice and takes a bottle of lemonade from the counter. "Follow me." She orders as Pam enters the room.

She catches on to the situation and follows the pair of them as they go to the lounge. Finding a bottle of Gin she pours enough in the glass to make the ice float, then a splash more, finally topping it off with the lemonade.

"Here, drink." She orders.

Obediently Stella complies sipping the liquid.

Pam waves to Alice to attract her attention, when Alice looks at her she mouths "pictures" to her silently. Alice nods to say she understood.

"We don't want to be disturbed, so lets go upstairs."

Becky escorts Olivia to the lounge and gets her seated, spying the spirits on the side she goes to them.

"What's your poison?"

"Uh, oh, vodka, vodka and coke please, don't worry about ice, the cokes underneath, in the cupboard."

"You're probably needing this." Becky says passing her a drink, then pours herself one.

Olivia takes it from her with a muttered thanks. She is feeling like a stranger in her own house.

"Right, Pooch said to tell you how I know him?"

"Pooch? What's that all about?"

Becky laughs. "What's his name?"

"Uh, David hunt."

"Full name, David Ashley Hunt. Right ... well, at school, I think it were Podge, worked out D. Ash Hunt, see, Dashunt, gettit?"

"Uh no, not really."

"Y'know Dash hound, a sausage dog."

"Sorry you got me I don't understand."

"Wait you're american, what do you call them thats it Daxhound almost get it right with that one, Dachshund in German." She explains. So for a while he was Dash, Dasher, Sausage and Pooch, then as soon as he was sixteen he got a Puch maxi, that's a moped, er a little motorcycle with pedals so people settled with Pooch, the boys had long since stopped calling him sausage." Becky says with a giggle.

"Oh, you mean a wiener dog, got it yes." Olivia says, as Becky speaks.

In full flow Becky carries on talking. "We were going out with each other since when we were about thirteen, when I went off to Uni we finished but stayed friends, to be honest our last year or so together that's all we were. What is it you yanks say Friends, errr."

"With benefits, yeah." Olivia finishes for her.

"Anyhow I got my degree and was looking for a job, when he gets a major slappin, cos of Nimal, that's young Ashleys dad, you know Dinger."

"Yes Dave, uh Pooch told me about this."

"So you know he was in the hospital for a while, an you know that although we had gone out years before, and still we were, and are I hope, still bloody close."

"I do now."

"Well when we split up, I still to this day ain't really sure why, but sometimes I think it was because we had become too close, daft as that sounds, I think it's really the only way to explain it. So when he was being treated an' recoverin' I was visiting most days and so was Kemp."

"Kemp? The man that was just here, the man that just arrested Ted?"

"Yeah that's him, my old man, but he was just a sergeant then, it was him that called for help and managed to distract at least three of the bastards that were givin' Pooch a kickin'. I think everyone agrees, Kemp saved Pooch's life that night."

"Anyways Corin, the bird he were livin' with ... No If I go off on her he'll give me shit. Fuck, 'ow do I put this? It was a trauma y'know, I'm sure you can understand. Well it took 'im a while to get, get on top of things, get back to being how he was, or anywhere near it. Well in a nutshell, Corin, well, she couldn't stay the distance and she buggered off one day. He gets home from work, an there she was. Gone, taken all her shit with her, she left him a note. I read it, it weren't nice, especially seeings how he was just getting his shit together.

Becky finished her drink and stood up to get another.

"It was about a year maybe a bit more since he got out of the hospital and Pooch, the real Pooch was coming back to us, a little more each day, then she did that to him the fucking bitch."

"What do you mean the real Pooch."

"He was off, you know, not himself, but he were getting there. Well her leaving was just another kick in the bollocks for him, knocked him right back it did, and he became the angry twat he was in the hospital."

"Angry, that's not like him." Olivia says ignoring the fact that he had been angry with her only days before.

"Well he had every fucking right to be angry, first he gets one hell of a kickin' just 'cos he helped a mate out and then his bird, his fucking fiancée no less, fucks off and leaves him just as he's begun to see he's being a prick and managing to do something about it."

"He became, well, difficult to be around. Angry, antisocial and generally a pain in the arse, but everyone stayed by him, especially Nimal. I think what finally got through to him, was him almost losing his job. If he wasn't so good at it I think he would have. Anyways, to cut a long story short he was on a final warning at work and when got his shit together. He did buggar all but work. Work work work and when he wasn't working he was working on bikes, he built two lovely chops. Nimal had one and Podge has the other. Three years later he up and fucks off to yankland, after that you'll know more than me."

"So, how did you all come to be here, tonight?"

"Last week. Wednesday it was. Kemp gets home and tells me he has some news. When he told me Pooch was back, well I screamed the house down, I think the next door neighbours must have thought I was being murdered", she chuckled. "I was bloody embarrassed when those two uniforms knocked on the door."

"Anyway, after they had buggered off Kemp tells me that Pooch needs help and starts to tell me about your little problem when there's another knock at the door, It's Podge, Dinger had brought him a letter, from him, Pooch. The letter told him to go see Kemp so there he was, soon after it was like a club meeting in me house."

"So how did, uh, Kemp convince them all to help."

"Just the words, Pooch needs you."

Olivia is dumbfounded.

"The hardest part for him was persuading them not to kick seven bales of shit out of Detective Prince there and then."

"I still can't believe that's my husband out there."

They fall silent as they hear footsteps in the hallway, the front door opens and closes, they hear footsteps outside the door. The lounge door opens. David sticks his head in and says. "You can come out when you're ready ladies, all the undesirables have gone, Becks when you're done can you have a word with Alice, she's upstairs in the little room."

He closes the door and almost immediately opens it again. "Liv, do you remember that evening when we went into the Nags head."

"Uh, yes."

"Do you remember me saying that if people found out who I was, we wouldn't be getting out of there till the early hours."

"Of course I do, why?"

He smiles at her. "Well, the venue has changed, umm ... Becks, help."

"I think he's trying to say, your having a real party and it might get a little, boisterous but not to worry. I think he may be worrying that we as a group might be a bit much for you to handle once we get going." She turns back to him. "that about it Pooch?"