The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1309 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I sipped at the latte coffee while Maureen swallowed her espresso in two gulps then she shuddered. “It might keep me awake, ma’am.”

I smiled, she looked all in. I explained what had happened with Cilla and she looked a little pensive. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“She’s quite a nasty piece of work when she puts her mind to it.”

“Hopefully I’m up to anything she might choose to do.”

“You should outgun her, ma’am.”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely what this may be about.” I picked up my Blackberry and made a call. “James, hi, it’s Cathy, I have some work for you.” I gave him the details and rang off.

“D’you think he’ll find something?”

“Hopefully more than an overdue library book.” I finished my latte.

I called Jenny to collect the girls, she was happy to do so. We spent the rest of the day walking along the prom and then driving back to near Cilla’s house, I wanted to see her son.

Two boys came walking down the road, they were talking and fooling about like boys do, laughing and shoving each other. Then they stopped talking outside the house and one dropped his bag inside the gateway.

“That’s him,” I said, “The smaller of the two, he looks a little foreign–I have grave doubts about him being your son, Maureen, unless your whole body has changed recently. He looks Spanish or Greek, perhaps even something as exotic as Lebanese.”

“He does, doesn’t he?” She shook her head and said quietly, “And to think I took her word for it all these years–the bitch.”

I saw her clenching her fists and I tried to calm her down. “Hitting her will do good, if you want to get even, we need to do it through the courts. But then if we screw her, it will affect the boy too, and he is a relative innocent in all this.”

“Yeah, I don’t want him to get hurt, he’s only a kid.”

As we were talking a third boy walked down the road and started chatting to the other two. Then a few feet and fists began to fly and in moments the three were scrapping, which was when it happened.

White van man came down the road, presumably delivering something in his white Ford Transit, when two of the kids ran out into the road between two park cars. He hit them both. One flew up into the air and landed on a car ten feet away, the other went under the wheels and was dragged up the road.

Maureen and I gasped in total shock. Maureen was about to get out to assist when I pulled her back–“Here, ambulance and police, now.” I shoved my mobile in her hand; then I jumped out of the car and rushed to assist as I could.

The boy who went under the wheels was very badly hurt and frothing blood at his mouth. He’d likely had crush injuries to his chest and was bleeding into his lungs. The other boy, Andrew, was still slumped over the car and was bleeding from his head and leg. He was still breathing.

The third boy who’d precipitated it all had scrammed. The van driver was standing by his van, shaking. People were coming from the houses to see what had happened including Cilla Bromley.

She screamed when she saw her son, still slumped over the car. “Don’t touch him,” I shouted but it was too late, she ran straight towards him mewing like an angry cat. Suddenly, Maureen stepped in the way and just picked her up and carried her away.

I knelt down at the other boy, he was bleeding from his leg, one of which looked very smashed up, and he was bleeding from his groin as well. I pulled off my jacket and rolled it up under his head, some woman ran over with a blanket and we draped it over him.

I blasted the blue light into him, telling him to stay awake, that help was coming and he’d be okay.

He made a funny face and his whole body slumped, he stopped frothing and lay very still. How d’you chest compressions with a chest that is so injured? I held my hands over his chest and imagined I was squeezing his heart between my hands. I kept doing it until the police and ambulance arrived simultaneously.

They quickly assessed Andrew Bromley and whisked him off in the first ambulance. The other boy had very little blood pressure–presumably the shock and multiple injuries.

I got out of the professional’s way and let the paramedics defib him and set up a drip. I kept massaging his heart in my mind. Maureen came out with Cilla and asked if we could run her to the hospital.

“Why wouldn’t you let me touch him?” she cried–“Oh it’s you, now I know why–you want him to die, don’t you?”

“On the contrary, Cilla, I want him to live. If you’d so much as touched him, you could have exacerbated any injuries he had.”

“I only wanted to hold him–is that too much to ask?” she almost screeched at me.

“Relax, Cilla, her ladyship knows what’s she’s talking about. She’s saved the other one.”

“What other one?”

“The lad your Andrew was talking to, he went under the wheels of the van.”

“Oh no,” she shrieked and became hysterical. I stopped the car and Maureen slapped her hard once across the face.

“What? You hit me.”

“Yes, shut up you silly cow, we’re on our way there now–carry on like that and they’ll send you away or have you arrested.”

“I only want to see my boy.” I started up again and I saw her looking at Maureen. “Maurice, is that you?”

“I’m, Maureen, Cilla. I always have been, only it took the help of my good friend and employer to give me the strength to go through with it.”

“What–you’ve had a sex-change operation?”

“Yes, Cilla. But without Lady Catherine’s help I’d have killed myself long ago. When I was at absolute rock bottom, she befriended me and gave me a job, which gave me back my self respect. Someone had a belief in me, and it hasn’t wavered one iota.”

“But why?” said Cilla quietly, “Why have your balls cut off?”

“Because they were like a tumor to me, albeit a benign one, except they secreted the poison called testosterone.”

“Is this it?” I turned into the Eastbourne General Hospital and Maureen took Cilla into the A&E department while I looked for a place to park. Bloody hell, three quid for two hours max–what a rip off. I found the required coins and dropped them in the machine and took the parking ticket and placed it on the dashboard of the Cayenne.

I found Cilla and Maureen sitting together in the corner. She was sobbing into a tissue. “What’s happened?”

“He’s gone down for X-rays, they think he’s cracked his sternum and possible ruptured spleen, they think he has a good chance.” Maureen reported and I nodded.

“I think the other one arrived while I was parking the car–hold on, the air ambulance is coming.” The noise grew louder as a yellow helicopter alighted in the car park and a stretcher was transferred to it from the ambulance. A doctor got in beside it and it took off again. The noise was deafening as the chopper took to the air and headed presumably to a trauma centre, perhaps even to London.

“The other one?” asked Maureen.

“I think so, he was in a bad way, his heart stopped at least twice, had a hell of a job to get it going again.”

Cilla looked at me in astonishment.

“Is there someone you can call to be with you? We have to get back to Portsmouth,” I asked Cilla and she shook her head.

“I’ll stay,” said Maureen, “We’ll get a cab back to her place after we know he’s okay.”

“But you haven’t any transport?”

“I’ll find my way home somehow,” Maureen shrugged.

“Give me a ring when you’re ready to come home, I’ll get someone to collect you, even if it’s only the hotel driver.”

“We’ll be alright, won’t we, Cilla?”

She nodded her eyes full of tears, “You always were such a kind man,” she said as Maureen put her arm round the other woman’s shoulder and hugged her. “I’m sorry, I cheated you.” She then proceeded to whimper against Maureen’s ample chest.

I left, feeling very confused. Could we kick a woman when she was down? I doubted it, but I was very concerned for Maureen’s safety–not her physical well being but her emotional one. This must be extremely hard for her and yet she was so compassionate to someone she despised. I felt very humble as I drove out of Eastbourne and back towards the motorway.