What is said over gin and tonic

Well the crisps did start flying.

Mistress and Lesley had their first gin and tonic before my mid morning snack.

Then they had another.

Archie and I were in for the long haul. Once the drink took over, there was trouble for us dogs. I couldn’t stand the smell of the stuff myself. A combination of lemon and fizz that got spilt over the floor and tasted disgusting!

Archie was not in a good mood either. His head slithered over my left ear and we lay nose to nose.

“These women are losing all sense of decorum,” he said.

I knew better than to ask Archie the meaning of ‘decorum’ right now. He might bite me.

But our owners were already beginning to act strangely. Lesley had taken hold of one of Mistress’s hands and was holding it close to her. As if the hand had magic powers.

“You’re going to travel next year, Julia,” Lesley stated and gave a hiccup. “Very long distance, possibly to Africa.”

Mistress sat on the arm of Lesley’s chair. “I’ll be running away from my mountains of debt, that’s for sure,” she replied. “God knows where I might be.”

Lesley held her glass up to the window and narrowed her eyes. “I think it’s time the two of us took a trip somewhere warm,” she said. “I wonder if I could sell Nathan’s great-grandfather’s medals ...”

“Morons!” Archie said to me. “Disrespect to the dead, I call it.”

”Didn’t Nathan’s great-grandfather fight in the Boer War?” Mistress asked.

“He did,” replied Lesley. “Under Lt. General Lord Methuen at the Battle of Modder River. Nathan’s got a couple of medals that could be worth a mint. He keeps them in a drawer somewhere and I’m sure they’re turning to rust. What’s the point of hiding them, I ask you ..?”

Lesley’s eyes were shining.

What was she up to, that’s what we dogs wanted to know?

All will be revealed in the wag of a pug’s tail.

What was coming next, I wondered?

“We own a pair of lovely pugs between us,” Lesley said thoughtfully. “Why don’t we try some aptitude tests? May be we could show the dogs somewhere …”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lesley,” Julia replied. “These two boys are only good for following their noses.”

Archie gave one of his snorts. “If I didn’t have the nasal skills I was born with, there’d be no food at all in my house,” he growled at me.

I put a paw across Archie’s back.

“Well that’s where Marek comes in,” I said quickly.

“Now, don’t start on the breakfast menus, son. My blood pressure is already rising with these comediennes.”

Lesley stood up. She was wearing a purple track suit and a bandana round her head. For reasons I couldn’t understand, Lesley swung from one hip to the other as if she heard music that nobody else could.

“What with your financial problems, Julia, and my dead weight of a husband, we’re in a bad way,” she announced, dropping into an armchair and folding her left leg across her right knee. “I tell you, Julia. Nathan’s a lost cause. He’s begun wearing pyjamas with stars and stripes on them. It’s not a good omen.”

“Really!” said Mistress. “Marek doesn’t wear any at all.”

Lesley’s half smile seemed to stick to her teeth. “What about a gin and tonic, Julia?” she asked, looking at her watch. “It’s 11am.”

“A brilliant idea,” Mistress said. “I think a drink is the answer.”

Archie’s head flopped over mine.

“Let’s dozy do until the crisps start flying,” he whispered.

The conversations at home were becoming all too familiar. I had taken to shutting one eye through such repetitive talk. We always seemed to be on the same subject and I was praying for the arrival of my benefactor, Marek, to create a diversion.

Mistress was off again.

“Nobody, but nobody is buying my pictures,” she said to Lesley. “I’ve got paintings wall to wall and some of them are so old, they’re beginning to crack.”

Mistress was restless. Archie and I watched her shoes aiming left and right from underneath a table. Frankly, I was dizzy from the sight of my mistress’s travels.

Lesley and Archie had come round together after a distressed phone call.

“You’ll be ill if you don’t calm yourself, Julia,” Lesley announced, her mouth full of crisps. “Everybody in the Arts is making cuts. Nathan says it’s going to get much worse and that we should leave for Portugal and start a retreat.”

Lesley wiped her mouth with two varnished nails.

“Come to think of it, Nathan is already on retreat” she pondered. “He fell off the map months ago.”

Mistress stopped in her tracks.

“Comments like those aren’t helpful, Lesley,” she snapped. “Portugal is looking as unstable as Ireland. Nathan’s got it wrong. At least Marek is out there having a go.”

“Yes, but having a go at what?” asked Lesley. “I think you’ve got to watch Marek, my sweet. Charming he may be, but Nathan thinks your man from Warsaw is definitely playing in the danger zone.”

I gave a small woof.

“For once, I’ve got to agree with Lesley,” Archie said to me. “Your master has too much ready cash for an artist, and a Polish one at that.”

I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to have another argument with Archie.

Suddenly, Lesley’s bandanna came waving towards us dogs like a giant handkerchief. She crouched beside us underneath the table, rocking on her plimsolls.

Moves like that always worried Archie and me. She had odd ideas, our Lesley. My ears pricked up.

Listen in, folks. We’re tuned to the action.

There was no doubt in my mind. I had to keep Archie on my side and that meant persuading him to like Marek. Mistress would be in an even worse state without her man.

“No money changed hands at the auction house,” I said to Archie, after a short interval.

“Humbug!” he replied.

I felt desperate. Whatever Marek was up to, he always had plenty of cash in his shabby leather pockets. Somehow I had to protect him.

“He looks after Mistress and stops her doing stupid things, like selling the family portraits,” I said.

Archie had a way of looking at me when times were rough. Now his nose came level with mine and I gave a sniff of appreciation. He did not reciprocate.

“There is more to life than a bacon sarni,” he stated.

Well, that was rich coming from Archie. That pug could eat for England. I wondered in that instant if Archie had gone off me.

“I have a new admirer,” I said rather hastily. “An alsation who asked me to call him ‘Hen’. I met him on our walk in the country the other day. He gave my left ear quite a tickle.”

The only sound in the kitchen was of the clock ticking. I felt Archie’s stomach move away from me slow over the tiles.

“I hope you’ve no sentiments in that direction, son,” he growled. I would never share a basket with a ‘homo’.”

“Never, Archie!” I cried. “I had no trouble in turning him down. Anyway, he lives in Esher.”

Archie gave a jaw chomp and there was silence again.

Outside the kitchen window, late autumn leaves were falling across the glass in a series of orange ribbons. A rush of wind brought them slamming towards us.

I shivered.

“I bet that fox is somewhere close and looking in. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t looking straight at you, kid,” said Archie.

He gave me a thump with his right paw. “From now on, we stick closer together, right?”

I gave Archie a thump straight back.

He couldn’t hear my hidden sigh. We were friends again and that was all that mattered.

Pugs' Predicament

Archie and 1 were chomping on ‘Rodeo’ bars in the kitchen, with the afternoon play on the radio. Normally, we would both be listening, but right now, my friend had a serious glint in his eye.

“We have problems in this house, son,” he said. “And in yours.”

There was silence while I contemplated this statement. Archie had a wisdom beyond his years. He stood as a barometer for the weather in the Fuller household and we were, without doubt, facing storms ahead.

“Lesley and Nathan are fighting like bantam cocks,” announced Archie. “We have Mr Fox as a new neighbour: your mistress is heavily in debt and Marek is playing with counterfeit money.”

“What does counterfeit mean?” I asked.

Archie rolled his eyes. “Where did you get your schooling, son?” he said.

I kept my mouth shut and swallowed the last of my Rodeo bar.

“Whenever I have a problem with a word,” Archie went on, “I consult my ‘Dogmatis’”.

“Oh,” I replied, feeling small in my own lack of knowledge.

“To be found on the shelf above where Nathan keeps his toenail clippers,” Archie declared.

His pink tongue lay on his lower lip. My friend, Archie, was thinking hard.

“They got the painting back, you know,” I said. “Mistress’s ancestor. Now she has no money at all.”

Archie gave a grunt. He couldn’t disagree.

What to do next, I wondered? Archie and I were going to have to come up with something fast.

Before the bacon sandwiches ran out.

We dogs will keep you posted.