Roger entered the room with a drink in one hand, a rolled up newspaper in the other and his loyal Weimaraner, Herbie, at his feet. He was, of course, wearing red trousers (Roger, not Herbie).

“Very funny as always, Roger. Nice trousers, by the way,” Steve replied, winking at Claire. “What is it this time, my beard or my clothes?”

“Oh no, dear boy,” guffawed Roger, “It’s that odious odour of alcohol I can smell.” Steve shared a knowing look with his daughter.

“How are you?” Claire asked Roger, warmly kissing him on both cheeks. Roger kissed back, before doing the same with Lucy and then with Steve, who squirmed in Roger’s grasp.

“Oh Stephen, get with the times, how else do you think men greet each other in the 21st century?”

“A friend request on MySpace?” Steve replied, freeing himself.

He laughed another too-huge laugh, and with a slap on Steve’s arm, he headed off in the same direction as Christine, “Come on, Herbie, let’s find that ruddy cat.”

In the silence, Claire looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” Steve asked. “That was a good reply, that.”

“Myspace? 1996 just rang, they want their social media reference back,” Claire said with mock disappointment. 

“Yeah well, 1982 just rang too, they want their a-certain-year-rang-asking-for-something-old-fashioned-back joke back.”

With an affectionate smirk, the couple made their way towards the large dining room for dinner with their old friends.

The Jacksons had ostentatiously provided far more food than the six of them could possibly eat; part of the couple’s famous hospitality. In pride of place at the head of the table was Roger, hovering over a lavish spread of meats and cheeses, cakes and treats. Sat to his left was Christine, full of life and gin. In the middle of the table, offsetting her parents’ over-exuberance, was Jessica – eight years old, dark hair sitting flatly across her pale face and sunken eyes. She seemed withdrawn and moody, much more like a puberty-laden fourteen-year-old when Zayn left One Direction than a breezy eight-year-old girl.

Steve and Claire sat down, Claire motioning to Lucy to sit on the spare chair next to Jessica. Approaching the chair, Lucy nervously offered a weak smile. Suddenly Jessica snapped her head in the direction of the happy-go-lucky little blonde, “Don’t you dare sit there, that seat is for my friend.”

Lucy froze. She had known Jessica all her life and whilst she’d always been, well, a little different, she’d never been mean-spirited. But something in the way she looked at Lucy made the hair on the back of the little girl’s neck jump up like a tiny army suddenly standing to attention.

After a tense pause, a reassuring Roger intervened, attempting to laugh it off in a ‘kids, eh?’ kind of way.

Jessica glowered at her parents but then quickly softened, “Sorry, Lucy, but my friend sits there, you’ll need to find another seat.”

With quiet concentration, Christine gently poured another unmeasured measure of Gordon’s. Steve noticed her hand shaking as the liquid filled the well-worn glass, his eyes darting up to Claire’s who’d noticed the same. Christine’s usually smiley face had turned into a tired, worried scowl as she looked at her only child. “Jessie, you know you have no more friends coming today.”

“But my friend . . .”

Slam. Christine hit her hand down hard on the table making Claire and Steve jump; Lucy let out a tiny yelp.

“Jessica!” Christine’s raised voice emotional and staccato, “Let. Lucy. Sit. On. The. Chair.”

Grudgingly, Jessica relented, staring hard at her mother. “Fine, but it’ll be your fault.”

Claire, staring wide-eyed at the little girl who she had once held in her arms at the hospital, looked at her husband, silently saying, ‘What the fucking fuck?”

After a dessert that could’ve fed a third-world village (if, by chance, they were in the mood for tiramisu), the conversations about old times had thawed the atmosphere, and as Roger launched into yet another uni story, Steve leaned over to Lucy and Jessica and warmly suggested they go and play up in Jessica’s bedroom.

Jessica didn’t need asking twice and left immediately. Lucy was understandably reluctant. “You’ll be fine, go see what Wednesday Adams’ room’s like,” her dad said with a wink. With a half-smile, Lucy, the ever trusting future ‘people person’, got down from the table and, uncharacteristically, sulked out of the room.

As the girls left the table, Steve looked over to Christine. He noticed her watching the girls closely; her hand gripped the glass and her once pretty face was sunken with worry. She noticed him noticing and swiftly beamed a huge smile right back. “They’re growing up so quickly.” Steve nodded.

“Hey, Claire,” a well-oiled Roger reverberated, “do you remember that fucking fancy dress party we had in second year when the police were called? What an absolute ruddy riot . . .” Claire laughed, and for a moment Steve allowed himself to zone out, lost in thought. He stared at his wife’s precious smile and found himself relaxing. “. . . next thing I’ve got Colonel Sanders in a fucking headlock . . .” Roger continued to entertain loudly, but to Steve it was a mere whisper as he gazed lovingly at the way the corners of Claire’s eyes creased and how she ruffled her nose when she laughed, how the hell had he deserved . . . 

A piercing cry filled the house. Christine leapt up shrieking, knocking three empty bottles of Prosecco to the floor, smashing every one. “Lucy!”

Steve knew the scream like any father would.

The fast feet of two little girls echoed as they came rapidly down the wooden staircase and into the kitchen. Jessica’s black hair stuck to her face with sweat as she fell into her drunken mother’s arms. Lucy grabbed for Claire and held her closely; her young body shivering, quaking.

“What happened Lucy, tell me!” Claire asked worriedly, “What’s going on?”

As her daughter peeled away from her chest, Steve noticed red spots on his wife’s white blouse. He knelt down, took Lucy’s face into his hands and looked. From the edge of her right tear-filled eye to the middle of her cheek was a deep, red and bloody scratch. Steve’s stomach lurched as his little girl sobbed in his arms.

Lucy wept, “I was just reading, just reading.”

Steve looked to his wife for answers, but her eyes were somewhere else.

“Steve. Look.” Steve followed his wife’s gaze. In Christine’s arms lay Jessica: no tears, no noise, only stillness, but across her face, from her right eye to the middle of her cheek, the same, deep, red and bloody scratch...

Read the full story in Dead Funny: Encore. Order a copy here.