Cathy bakes a cake and goes cookie? See for yourself...

Easy As Falling Off A Bike.
by Angharad
part 82.

Carrying my shopping back to the house, I had to make two trips - all right, I confess if I hadn't bought some clothes in Tesco, I probably could have made one journey and would have avoided my yucky neighbours.

I have already described Greg as being as flesh crawling as scabies, so I think you'll get the picture. If they made a short video of him for use in convents, there would be no difficulty with celibacy amongst nuns.

Anyway, he was standing alongside my car so I could hardly say I didn't see him, because closing the hatch back could have endangered his life. Thinking about it maybe I should have closed it, at least I wouldn't have had to make excuses.

"Hello Cathy," said the creepy one, "I see you've been to Tesco."

Well yes, it's like written all over the bags, duh! "Yes I needed a few things, thought I'd bake my dad a cake and take it in this afternoon."

"What a lovely idea, better than hospital food, eh?" All that was missing was 'nudge nudge, wink wink,' as in the Monty Python character.

Not learning of course I perpetuated the conversation. "Oh I don't know, you haven't seen my cooking. It carries a public health warning." I nearly added, my omlettes can empty a house faster than the fire brigade, but then I felt sad, so switched back to dealing with the worm in human form who stood before me. I shut the hatchback, the draught from which caused his hair to flap a little. He stepped further away from the car. "Oops, sorry I didn't realise you were standing quite so close," I lied of course.

" Margaret and I wondered if you wanted to come over for dinner again this evening?"

"That's awfully kind but I've arranged to go out with a friend tonight, going to the cinema."

His face looked less than pleased, here he was taking pity on a virtual orphan, and she'd declined his manly offer. "Oh well, another night then."

"If that's okay, I'm going to have to go back down to the university at some point and let them know what's happening, so I'm really not sure exactly what my movements are going to be for the next few days." I was getting so good at lying, it would have my mother spinning in her grave, except we cremated her - next time I saw a dust devil, one of those whirling wind things they have in cowboy films, I'd think of her.

"Oh, alright then, anyway the offer is there if you want to come."

"If my friend cancels, I'll let you know." I stepped towards the house hoping he'd get the hint. After all I needed to get a move on if I was going to bake a cake, that bit was real, and organise some lunch. The cafeteria in Tesco was tempting, but I decided that it was not a good policy to eat out all the time and my culinary skills could do with improvement. Hence, I was doing my own lunch.

Thanks to my fibs, I'd also have to make something I could take off with me to eat later as I'd have to stay away for a couple of hours this evening or be seen as a liar. Why was life so complicated? I wondered what was showing at the local flea pit.

Thankfully Greg took the hint when I kept looking at my watch, and I was finally free to mess about in the kitchen. I switched on the oven and then the kettle, a cuppa was the first priority.

I bunged a lasagne in the oven, I hadn't thought particularly to eat it today, but while the oven was on, it seemed sensible. As I sipped my tea I checked the recipe for a sponge. I knew how to make one, I'd done it loads of times - okay, it was twice unless you count the one which caught fire, so that's three. I mean how was I to know they were going to show a Harry Potter film that night? It was meant as a surprise for my parents and it certainly proved that all right. The kitchen needed repainting anyway...

I mixed up the flour and eggs and fat with a fork. Apparently it aerates the mixture better than a spoon and you fold it rather than stir. Hark at me, I sound like Delia Smith, what a laugh, she's a practicing Catholic who supports football, and I'm a cycling agnostic who can't cook. I've read all her books, well the ones Mum had, the plot's quite meaty in places! That's a joke, oh never mind.

I shoved the mixture into the greased tins and popped them in the oven, the lasagne smelled nice. I did a green salad to go with it. I wanted oven chips but due to an absence of cycling thought restraint may be safer on the weight front. I also set the timer, deciding that the kitchen was in fairly good decorative order.

I made some cheese and salad rolls for my evening snack and put some fruit and chocolate in the bag as well. I'd found a cooler bag in a cupboard and shoved in one of those ice block thingies designed to induce frostbite in lettuce. A bottle of mineral water made up the rest of my evening meal.

While the cake cooled I ate my lunch, it tasted better than I thought and although it was a smaller portion than the uni cafeteria, it tasted as good if not better. I think they use road kill for their meat source. I sat looking at it, the sponge that is and felt amazingly proud of myself. I could really get into baking cakes and things, I could make one for Simon...oops! He said he wanted space not Salmonella, maybe not just yet.

I wondered how much space he wanted. Did he mean as in light years or just the few cubic feet my body occupied? I suspect it might have been the latter and I sniffed under my armpit just in case that had been a factor. I couldn't actually smell anything but cake.

I promised myself that I wouldn't think of him until he contacted me again and got on with making a buttercream filling to put in my sponge, we even had some jam in the fridge which didn't have mould on the top! My Mum was brilliant, stand the jar upside down and it creates a vacuum, so bugs can't develop. She used to tell me these things, dunno why, I never listened properly. But then I open the fridge looking for jam, and see the jar upside down and it brings back memories. I miss her more than I like to admit.

I could just hear her saying, "Don't forget to wash your hands before you start, Catherine." She always used my full name. I spun around, it was as if she were there. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I felt all cold.

"Mum, Mum are you there?" I called walking from the kitchen into the hall. I checked all the rooms. Of course she wasn't there, she was dead and here was I her son, walking around in a skirt and one of her pinnies making cakes for her husband. Was I going nuts or had I already got there?

I went back to the kitchen and spread the jam on the sponge and then the cream, it looked quite nice. I popped it in a Tupperware box and did the dishes, musing on what I thought I had heard. It was crazy and obviously my imagination, it had to be. What else could it have been, a ghost? The hair on the back of my neck stood up again.

Dammit, I was hardened field worker, used to walking around woods late at night with nothing more than a torch and a walking stick, but the thought of coming back into the house after dark was frightening. Why? It didn't make any sense to me, then I thought, but that was all done as a man. Okay, a man who thought he should have been a woman and was taking hormones, but still a man. Now I was a woman, did that make a difference? I supposed it could, it would make me a potential victim to a different sort of predator.

Now my head was awash with all sorts of scenarios, from sex hungry spooks from horror films, to stalkers in the woods. Gee whizz, what was happening to me? I had a quick flash back to the bank and the woman telling me to be careful. I'd never worried before, why should I now?

Common sense and statistics tell me that young men are more likely to be attacked and killed than young women. They get involved in fights and drunken brawls and so on. However, as a man I felt a little more empowered to fight back if I was attacked. Actually, I had never done so as a boy, well only once. And more recently, I had got stuck in when those two morons got funny and Simon intervened. Then I was so angry and they were hitting my Simon. I do miss him, oh why can't I phone him?

I made another cuppa, I was close to tears. Was I unstable, I mean having auditory hallucinations? Since when had my mother ever called me Catherine? Except it was so real.

I chucked the tea and grabbed my stuff, including the cake and set off into the afternoon sunshine to Southmead Hospital.