The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1248 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Simon rang on his way back to the hotel from work. He was okay, had left a note for Tom to phone one of us if he was home, but there was nothing as far as he could tell. One of the chamber maids walked Kiki everyday and she seemed happy enough.

“I suppose I ought to tell you that I’ve engaged Jim Beck to find Daddy and that woman.”

“You sound like a woman scorned or betrayed which is it today?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“I’ve got loads of paperwork to do, so perhaps it’s just as well I’m not going to be distracted by loads of children.”

“You sound as if you regret us having them.”

“Not one bit, but I have got a load of work to do. So Beck is going to find them for you, what’ll you do then–have him kill her, for you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Am I? There’s a school of thought which believes she killed that poor Indian chap found in her garden.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“What if she does the same to Tom?”

“Then I’ll make sure she rots in prison.”

“Oh, I’d have thought you’d be looking for revenge.”

“I would be but I have several children who I think would have a better chance if they had a mother and a father bringing them up, rather than a lone father. So I have to moderate my initial impulse to do what’s right, and if she’s guilty, she needs to be found so by a court of law.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Let’s not prejudge things.”

“Okay, whoever you are, let me talk to my wife.” I knew he was teasing me and I was determined not to take the bait.

“Simon, I have to go, I have a dinner to prepare and we haven’t killed the chicken yet.”

“You, kill a chicken–hah, you couldn’t do that except by accident.”

“I’m going to kill several.”

“Are you now?”

“Yes, I’m doing Spanish omelettes for dinner.”

“Very funny.”

“Well destroying an egg is effectively killing a chicken.”

“Only if it was fertilised.”

“I’ve had them standing in fertiliser all day.”

“Oh well that’s definitely done the trick, if you sat in it all night maybe it would make you...oh never mind, I’m looking forward to my dinner.”

“What did you mean if I sat in a tray of fertiliser all night it might make me fertile, is that what you meant?”

“I was simply thinking a concept through without thinking of the consequences.”

“If you said that to someone in the bank, they could discipline you.”

“I’m well aware of that, I helped draft the policy and before you ask, long before I met you.”

“Oh, I’m nearly impressed.”

“What d’you mean nearly impressed?”

“If you hadn’t made that silly remark, I’d have been impressed but because you did, it shows that some part of you finds me an object of derision. Looks like I’ll be staying here a bit longer.”

“I’m sorry, it was just a half-cocked, um–I didn’t mean that personally–I said it before I thought what I was saying. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world because you are my world.”

“Fertility is just as big an issue with women as it is with men you know, and before you go on about my having made a decision which included becoming infertile, and which I don’t regret, it still rankles. I’d love to have been the mother of my own children in every sense.”

“I know that, Cathy, and we all wish you could have been, but it isn’t going to be so move on and leave that stuff behind. You’re every bit a mother to our children, so stop living with regrets–you’re luckier than some women who never get to experience motherhood in any shape or form.”

“When was a kid, I used to pass a woman who sold the Evening Post from a pitch near the market, she had awful scarring on her face and it used to frighten me when I was very young. It looked like burns on her face and she was badly disfigured but I envied her because she was female and I wasn’t.”

“But that’s crazy, I’ll bet she’d envy you now, wouldn’t she?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her for years, she could be dead for all I know. She was there in all winds and weathers and she smoked like a chimney and swore like a trooper.”

“Cathy, you must move on–stop envying others, just accept who you are and what you’ve got–you’ve done better than many women, including many who can reproduce. Look, when I was about eighteen, there was this gorgeous blonde used to come to school to help her mum who was one of the cleaners. She was absolutely drop dead gorgeous with a face and figure to fuel many a schoolboy’s bedtime fantasies and probably dirtied many a sheet or pyjama bottoms. I’d have given my right arm to have spent a night with her.”

“There’s a but coming isn’t there?”

“Yes, a sad one, she got meningitis and died at age seventeen–the whole school was devastated, ask Stella if you don’t believe me, ask her about Debbie Sweetman. Right, I have to go, I’m at the hotel–why don’t you all come here, I do miss you?”

“What about your paperwork?”

“I could finish that in a couple of nights.”

“Ask me when you have, I’ll see how I feel then.”

“Fair enough, I do love you, you know?”

“I know and I love you too, but I need to find Tom as my priority.”

“Let me know what Beck costs, I’ll go halves with you.”

“That’s very sweet of you, darling, but I expect I’ll manage.”

“The offer is on the table, gotta go...” His signal broke up and I switched off my phone.

“You’re popular today,” observed Stella.

“Who’s Debbie Sweetman?” I asked her.

“Who’s who?” she replied.

“Debbie Sweetman, Simon said you’d know her from school.”

“Nah, no one of that name in our house.”

“She worked there according to him.”

“Nah, not that I can recall. There was one young woman who worked there with her mum, she died with meningitis I think, about seventeen–dunno her name.”

“That was her.”

“Was it? Very pretty girl, a total wet dream for the boys and one or two of the girls none of us sat next to.”

“Eh?”

“Creepy Claire was one and Lizzie Lesbo was another.”

“Lizzie Lesbo? Surely that wasn’t her name, was it?”

“No, it was Dike–can you believe it, a dyke called Dike.”

“You’re making it up.”

“I’m not, we also had a boy called Fairey, dunno if he was one or not, Simon might know.”

“I can’t say I’m interested one way or another.”

“Nah, it’s not news is it, but in the hot house environment of a boarding school it was big big news.”

“Any sort of gossip amongst adolescents can make or break individuals, look at all these bullying cases using the internet and mobile phones–kids kill themselves.”

“It happened at school too, a boy hanged himself because he was found wearing girl’s knickers he’d stolen from their laundry. They called him all sorts of names and then were so upset when he killed himself.”

“Because they felt guilty, or had no one to torment?”

“I don’t know, probably the latter thinking about sixteen year old psychopaths.”

“I wish I knew where Tom was and that he was okay.”

“Yeah, me too–you snore.”