The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1553 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I awoke to voices and sleepily reached to switch off the clock-radio, only to realise it wasn’t coming from there. I opened a bleary eye and saw it was after two in the morning, and apart from the moon and the security lights it was pitch dark. I lay back and closed my eyes. Security lights? I almost fell out of bed as my foot caught in the duvet as I tried to get myself downstairs to investigate the noise.

I grabbed my dressing gown, something I hardly ever wore normally, preferring to dress before going downstairs. I tied the belt and scuffed into my slippers. I’d be a real fright to any would be burglars with bed hair and a maroon and pink dressing gown. I stepped noiselessly down the stairs walking on the sides of the stairs and leaning against the wall to keep my weight off the treads of the stairs.

Downstairs I heard muffled voices and saw the kitchen light switch on and cupboards open and shut. Damn, my knife block was in there, I could be stabbed to death and no one would know until the morning. Worse, I’d left my purse and mobile phone in my bag which was hanging from the back of the chair I’d occupied when drinking a cuppa with Stella before going to bed. I’d noticed its absence when I got upstairs, but was too lazy to come and get it. I doubted I would be again if I lived to tell the tale.

I heard two male voices, they were heavily muffled by the kitchen door which like most doors in the house is solid wood as a sort of fire door and in keeping with the rest of the place. They seemed to be searching for something as cupboards opened and shut with more noise than I’d expect from burglars, and surely the cars in the drive should indicate there’s someone home.

I crept to the door and leant against it to listen to the voices–yeah, I know, it sounds like I’m schizoid–and as I did so, the door opened and I staggered into the kitchen ready to fight for all I was worth.

“Oh hi, Babe, where’sh the can opener, I’m shtarvin’, Tom’sh hungry too, aren’t you?”

“Where’s Julie?” I charged him.

“She’sh with you, ishn’t she?” he drawled having difficulty standing still without wobbling to and fro.

“If she was, d’you think I’d be asking a couple of drunken fools where she was.”

Simon blinked at me a couple of times. “She’sh with Carolina, I think.”

“Caroline? She was being courted by Monica.”

“Yesh, exactly what I wash thinkin’–ishn’t it, Tom.” I glanced at Tom who was sitting in a chair trying to stop the room spinning by the look of his actions.

“Simon, you are a great disappointment.”

He looked at me and laughed, “You’re lovely when you’re angry.”

“Bah,” I screeched and slammed the door shut, probably waking the children and registering a blip on the Cambridge University seismic apparatus. I’d grabbed my bag and took it with me upstairs. Once up there I phoned the hotel and discovered that Julie was recorded as staying the night in the family suite. I thanked the night porter and silently cursed Monica if she’d so much as thought about touching Julie. I was also composing a letter sacking Caroline if she as much as touched my daughter either, even though I knew Julie was officially an adult–albeit a very young one.

Sleep became impossible and I lay there and fumed while I heard the voices drone from downstairs and occasionally cupboard door's bang. It went quiet and I thought I heard the back door open and close, then a short while later the same again. I must have dropped off because I woke when the clock radio came on and the dulcet tones of Jim Naughtie asking awkward questions of some cabinet minister.

I dragged myself out of bed and saw that I was alone. I pulled on the dressing gown once again and scuffed my slippers on before walking noisily down the stairs. On opening the kitchen door the sight which confronted me made me want to cry and laugh at the same time. Simon was sitting at the table fast asleep his one hand wrapped in a bloodstained hankie, in front of him on the table was a tin of corned beef and a hacksaw. Alongside this was a loaf and a tub of Flora margarine. Tom was sitting on the floor snoring.

It was when I went to clear the debris off the table I noticed the deep scratches and a groove cut into the oak table, which was about a hundred and fifty years old–the table not the scratches. I went absolutely ape and threw a bucket of cold water over both of them before reading the riot act. I wished I’d had it on video, it would win prizes for stupidity, from all three of us but I was just so mad. I left them spluttering and floundering and told them to clean it up before I got back with Julie. Dashing upstairs I washed and dressed and then jumped in the car to go and get her. It was half past seven and my temper was not improving.

At the hotel, I got the cleaner to let me into the family suite and found Caroline and Julie both fast asleep in separate beds in separate rooms and alone. I rousted them both and told them to hurry if they wanted a lift home. Julie groaned about feeling ill and I offered to help her out to the car naked, as it might wake her up, because she was going to work if it killed her.

It was actually after eight when I got them both in the car and then home. The kitchen was better than I’d left it, then I discovered Stella and the girls had done most of it–Simon couldn’t because of his bad hand. She’d had to dress it for him, he cut himself on the corned beef can. Serves him right, drunken fool–he couldn’t find the can opener–which was in the drawer under the draining board of the sink, where it always was. I pulled it out to show him and felt like beating him over the head with it.

Danny was eating his breakfast in the dining room to avoid the mess and what he knew would be the whirlwind the two men had unleashed viz. my anger. He went off to play football on his bike and I had momentary qualms but he was gone before I could say anything.

I got Julie washed and dressed and dosed with paracetamol and a cuppa before taking her to the salon, apologising for her zombified state to her boss who laughed. However, she didn’t laugh when I told her that Julie would be unavailable for a couple of months due to her forthcoming surgery. Instead she clapped Julie on the back, told her that was wonderful news and suggested they should have a drink at lunchtime to celebrate whereupon Julie groaned, rushed to the loo and was violently sick.