The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1533 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

After lunch, Caroline and I went to collect the girls, and Simon went for Danny, who must have thought it was his birthday. The girls found us sitting in the car talking when they came out of the school grounds. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed the time until parents and children came walking past the car. I was tempted to go and look for them, but they knew where I’d be. Trish told us off for not waiting for them inside the school, and she had a point, but I told her not to try to patronise me or she’d be walking to and from school. She sulked all the way home, saying the equivalent of, ‘Come back, Jenny, all is forgiven,’ which made me want to smirk all the way home.

Simon was already there when we got home and Danny had gone to change to his play clothes. I sent the girls off to do the same and they all hemmed and hawed up the stairs. However, when they came back down, they each had a chocolate biscuit and a glass of milk waiting for them. Caroline offered to play chess with Trish, who was clapping her hands with glee.

While Fischer and Spassky fought it out on a chessboard, I got the dinner started. For a complete change I did corned beef hash with peas. I peeled a mountain of spuds and boiled them, then creamed them and mixed in two large tins of corned beef, which I browned under the grill while the peas warmed.

Surprisingly, it went down really well, so I’ll have to put that on the menu now and again. The fresh fruit salad and yoghurt also seemed to disappear double quick, and Caroline complained about putting on weight, yet she ate as much as anyone, more than Julie or I did.

After the youngsters went off to play or do homework, we adults sat round the table feeding the little ones and talking about Jenny. I don’t know about her ears burning, I’d have thought her whole body must have been getting very warm.

After about twenty minutes Trish reappeared and challenged Caroline to a rematch. Caroline had won the first rubber and Trish wanted revenge. Caroline mimed that she’d let her win and I told her not to let her under any circumstances, because given a little while longer and she will win, Trish that is. Intellectual challenge drives her like a pendulum, and she will overcome it however long it takes. I reckoned about two or three weeks, although having said that, she hadn’t yet beaten me at chess.

Julie was probably the member of the household who best knew Jenny, and she was horrified that she’d done the equivalent of a moonlight flit. She’d been up to the empty room and it was empty–all her clothes had gone, as had her personal effects, so this had been planned for some little while, and she must have removed things for days beforehand. She could, her room was private and she cleaned it herself. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in there before this latest incident, which coming so soon after the loss of Billie, really got me down.

The consensus of the discussion was how disappointed we all were with Jenny. Life went on however, and we had Billie’s interment which everyone attended. I laid the little papier má¢ché casket into the hole which had been dug, and we all threw some soil on top of it while saying goodbye to our loved one. We left the cemetery staff to fill in the grave and went home feeling very tearful and upset. Tom offered to have her name inscribed upon the marble headstone, which I very much approved.

A couple of days later, after dinner, Trish still hadn’t managed to beat Caroline, who it transpired, was the school chess champion, although Trish was getting better and I really thought I wouldn’t play her again, retiring unbeaten by our very own Isaac Newton.

Caroline, Stella and I were chatting with Julie who was trying to persuade me to have some eyelash extensions. I told her I didn’t want them, but Caroline was half interested. Julie was starting to do electrolysis training, and it just happened we had a nice victim lined up for her to practice on. We were all laughing about this when the phone rang.

Livvie called me, saying it was for me. “Who is it, Liv?”

“The hospital.” She went back to her homework.

That had me completely puzzled, everyone was here so no one had been whipped in by ambulance without me noticing. I picked up the handset. “Hello, Cathy Cameron here?”

“Lady Cameron?” asked the voice, don’t they ever listen?

“Yes, how can I help you?”

“Lady Cameron, we have someone here who has given you as next of kin.” My stomach flipped, had I forgotten someone?

“Who?”

“A young woman who is in theatre at the moment having a clot removed from her brain.”

“Who is it?” I asked my blood pressure now somewhere up near the roof.

“She won’t tell us her name, but said you knew her–she then became unconscious. Could you come down to the hospital as soon as possible?”

“I can’t think of anyone who’s missing–this isn’t some sort of joke is it?”

“I can assure you, Lady Cameron, we don’t have time for sick jokes at the Queen Alexandra Hospital.”

“Why isn’t she being operated on at Southampton? That’s the neurological unit?” It sounded fishy to me.

“We had the neurosurgical team travel here, she was too poorly to travel.”

I smelt a distinctively fishy odour and told the woman I’d be there as soon as I could. Then I checked the display and found it was a withheld number. Hmmm. I checked the number for the hospital enquiries, and after about ten minutes of being walked round the houses at premium rate, I spoke to someone.

“Did someone call me from there about someone in surgery? My name is Lady Catherine Cameron?”

“Hold on, I check for you.” I began to feel I’d thwarted a crude attempt to get me out of the house for some reason–probably not for positive ones.

“Hello, Duty Social Worker...” the voice sounded vaguely familiar.

“Hello, this is Catherine Cameron...”

“I thought you told me you were on your way here.”

“Sorry–I wondered if I should bring anything for this young woman, whose name I have no idea of.”

“Look, Lady Cameron, all I know is that she told us to contact you, then became unconscious and is in theatre as we speak. What you bring is up to you, but I’d be grateful if you could come down and help us identify her.”

“I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

I asked the others to put the kids to bed as I had to dash to the hospital, as someone was asking for me. Julie jumped up and grabbed her bag and followed me out to the car.

“This could take some time.”

“I can’t have you going there on your own, Mummy.”

I put my arm round her and hugged her. “Thank you, darling. If it seems to be an all-nighter, I’ll get Simon to come and get you.”

“We’ll see, I’m a big girl now.”

“I know.”

“It’s not Jenny, is it?” she asked as I drove as quickly as I could to the hospital.

“I did wonder, but why would she give me as her next of kin?”

“Search me, but you are sort of all round good egg, aren’t you?”

“Sometimes.” I parked and Julie got the ticket. If we were going to be here any length of time we’d have to get a special ticket to avoid being clamped–bloody hospitals. Then we set off to the high dependency unit where the social worker had arranged to meet us. My tummy was full of Rajah Brook’s bird of paradise butterflies, my record with social workers is hardly a happy one. Julie noticed my nervousness and put her arm round my waist, and I put mine about her shoulders–together we’d deal with anything.