Ottercombe Bay – Part Three: Raising the Bar - Bella Osborne

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a jolt. They were exceptionally long.

      ‘Right, thanks,’ she said again inadvertently waving the bag of poo at him. ‘I’ll let you know about Tuesday.’ And with that Daisy, Bug and a full bag of poo hurried off into the evening.

      Daisy felt odd and she spent the walk back to the cottage mulling over why that was. She hadn’t seen Max since the rescue and whilst she had felt a total idiot at the time those feelings had passed. Something had changed, like sand beneath a wave. There was a lot more to Max than she’d given him credit for; anyone who put themselves in danger voluntarily was worthy of further consideration.

      Back at the cottage Aunt Coral was curled up in the living room watching her soaps. Daisy shut the door and stayed in the hall, she didn’t want to disturb her. She crouched down to unclip Bug and the smell hit her. ‘You stink.’ The stench of rotten fish hung over the small dog like a cloud. ‘Come on, it’s bath time.’ She’d seen Aunt Coral do it. She knew which was Bug’s shampoo. How hard could it be?

      Daisy soon knew the answer. She had put a few capfuls of doggy shampoo in the bath and added a couple of inches of lukewarm water. She had picked Bug up but she wasn’t entirely sure what had happened next because now she was covered head to toe in foam along with half the bathroom, although Bug had barely got his feet wet. Every time she put him in the bath he frantically scrabbled about creating masses of foam until he managed to jump out. Catching him was tricky, he could duck and weave better than a New Zealand All Black. Bug pawed at the bathroom door to get out.

      ‘No way. You’re not leaving here without a bath.’ She put more water in the tub; perhaps her water to bubble ratio was off, she wondered. As the water level increased so did the bubble mountain. It rose above the edge of the bath and both Daisy and Bug watched it grow like an out-of- control experiment. Perhaps she’d put too much shampoo in? She switched off the water, put her arm in to check the temperature and then turned her eyes on Bug – he just gave his usual wide-eyed stare.

      ‘Right,’ said Daisy. She meant business and lunged towards him. Anticipating his dash to her left she grabbed the wriggling bundle and deposited him in the bubble-filled bath and he promptly disappeared. Daisy parted the bubbles but there was no Bug. Could he drown in that much water? She started to panic and frantically swept giant lumps of foam out of the way and onto the bathroom floor. ‘Bug,’ she called. It wasn’t that big a bath, where the hell was he? She could hear him scurrying about under the suds but she couldn’t see him. As she gave one big sweep of her arm to remove another layer of bubbles the bathroom door burst open. Daisy jumped in fright and Bug leaped up from the foam, out of the bath and escaped downstairs trailing streams of bubbles behind him.

      Aunt Coral surveyed the foam-covered bathroom and Daisy who looked like she’d stuck her head in an out-of-control candy floss machine. ‘What happened?’ asked Aunt Coral looking bewildered.

      ‘Bath time,’ explained Daisy, blowing foam off her nose.

      ‘For whom?’ asked Aunt Coral, shaking her head and retreating fast.

       Chapter Two

      The evening at the Exeter Gin Bar started off well. She’d had a message from the builder to say the wall was down and the water was connected, so although it was November and they were seriously behind schedule things were starting to happen. Max was wearing the same outfit he’d worn to Reg’s funeral, with the exception of the tie, and it reminded Daisy how well he scrubbed up. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, he was particularly uncommunicative and appeared more interested in looking out of the train window than talking. Although she had impressed Jason with her newly acquired bat knowledge.

      The Gin Bar was a short walk from the station. It occupied what had once been a tailor’s and still retained a lot of its olde-worlde charm. Ross, the owner, was exuberantly friendly and had loads of useful tips for setting up a bar and some great contacts in the trade. He went through some basics around different standards and types of gin and what, in his opinion, made certain ones stand out from the crowd. This was a conversation Daisy could now contribute to and she was pleased to see both Ross and her friends look impressed with her newly garnered knowledge.

      They quickly segued into a full-on tasting session, which Tamsyn had seemed to treat as if it was Tequila shots. None of them seemed keen to spit out the gin and even though they were only having a sip of each it felt to Daisy like it was all adding up. But then this also felt like a bit of a celebration now her own bar was back on track. Ross stocked a lot of gin varieties and in an hour they only scratched the surface, but Daisy jotted down the ones they all liked the best. When they moved around to the public side of the bar and began working their way through the gin-based cocktail menu, Max excused himself and disappeared outside.

      ‘He’s not much fun tonight,’ said Daisy, who felt her efforts at chatting to Max had been thwarted by his disagreeable attitude.

      ‘Got a lot on his mind,’ said Jason, with a knowing nod.

      ‘Under a lot of pressure at work, is he?’ Daisy asked. She knew it was uncalled for but, as far as she could see, Max didn’t have any major problems in his life.

      ‘Pasco.’ Jason put his finger to his lips after he’d said the name, but the finger wasn’t in the centre of his lips – he was drunk too. ‘And his ex, Jenni with an “i”, got engaged.’

      ‘Jenni with one i,’ said Daisy, with a giggle.

      ‘Poor woman.’ Tamsyn shook her head dramatically. ‘I didn’t even know Jenni only had one eye.’ Nobody was sober enough to explain.

      ‘What happened to Jenni?’ asked Daisy.

      ‘Went off travelling and didn’t come back,’ said Jason.

      ‘Did she die?’ asked Tamsyn.

      ‘No.’ He shook his head for emphasis. ‘She hooked up with a mechanic in Dover and missed her ferry.’

      Daisy was still processing this when Ross passed some cocktails and straws across the bar and said something, but it was lost as a pack of wild girls entered the bar with feather boas flowing and t-shirts declaring it was Olivia’s Hen Night.

      They teemed around the bar forcing Daisy and Tamsyn to grab their glasses and retreat to a table in a dark corner. ‘How are the job ideas coming along?’ asked Daisy

      ‘I’ve been thinking about what I was good at in school and seeing if there’s a link to a job.’

      ‘Good approach. What’s on the list?’

      ‘Spelling and Irish dancing,’ said Tamsyn.

      Daisy opened her mouth but she couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so instead she focused on the cocktails. ‘They all look different,’ noted Daisy, pointing at them. ‘Shall we have a try of each other’s with the straws?’

      ‘Nope. One, two, three …’ said Tamsyn and she tipped back her drink in one smooth motion. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘I could do another of those.’ She pointed a finger in the general direction of her glass.

      ‘You didn’t even taste it,’ said Jason, with a shudder. He and Daisy tried each other’s cocktails with their straws while Tamsyn looked on.

      They were distracted by a kerfuffle at the bar caused by the hen party making whooping noises. ‘It’s like the mating call of the baboon,’ said Jason, glancing distastefully at the noisy group. A few of the party broke into a slurred rendition of the stripper music.

      ‘Looks like they’ve got some traditional hen night entertainment,’ said Daisy, trying to get a better look at the man among them, who wasn’t actually having to strip as the women seemed to be doing that for him. A shirt flew out of the crowd landing on the floor between Jason and Daisy. They were giggling as they looked at the pale blue shirt until realisation finally struck them.

      ‘Max!’

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