The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1751 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I managed to make myself a tuna sandwich although the smell from the fish and chips nearly had me heaving again. I left them to it and took my sandwich and cup of tea into the study. Simon came along eventually to see how I was.

“I’ll be okay for the trip, if that’s what’s worrying you?”

“I’m not that shallow, Cathy, I’m just concerned for you, that’s all.”

I took this in the spirit I hoped it was offered and stood up to give him a hug, then the lights went out. I remembered standing up, but not much else. He caught me apparently shouted for Stella and she in turn called the paramedics.

They could find nothing wrong except my blood pressure was a bit low and so was my blood glucose–probably because I hadn’t eaten much for a couple of days. Simon had carried me upstairs while I was out of it and I stayed in bed after having a wee and brushing my teeth.

Simon came to bed with me that night, assured by the paramedics that I didn’t have leprosy or legionnaire’s disease and wasn’t likely to be infectious. What I’d had wrong with me was as likely to be stress as anything else. It does catch up with us, even me. Simon accepted that as, as rational an explanation as anyone would be able to offer.

I don’t like being sick, but I was so tired all the time, I had no feelings about anything other than exhaustion. I was told later that when Henry found out about my illness he suggested that Simon take me away immediately to rest and recuperate and to stay away until I felt stronger. Of course Simon turned down his suggestion and the one where he offered to come and take the children up to London until they went away. Simon was of the opinion, which he shared with me but not his dad, that had they got wind of how challenging our lot were, they’d suddenly find there was a reason why they couldn’t take them away. He suggested they find out the hard way while abroad.

“I’ll try and get the message through that if they play up, they won’t be invited again.”

“Yes, keep doing that.”

“Oh I will don’t worry. Si, d’you think they’ll be safe?”

“Of course they will, why?”

“I suppose I’m just worried about them.”

“Look, it’s the first chance we’ve had to go away by ourselves.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Just let go, Cathy. We’re going away and that’s it. You can languish by the roadside if you like, but it’ll be watching the Tour de France.”

“Don’t tell me, there’ll be some corner of a foreign field that’ll be forever England.”

“Don’t be daft, besides, should it be Scotland not England, that’s only for dead poets.”

“Don’t they have dead Scottish poets then, except Burns of course?”

“Course we do, but don’t bury them abroad.”

“Brooke was only buried in France because he was fighting the war over there.”

“Skyros,” said Simon enthusiastically.

“What?”

“Skyros, it’s a Greek island.”

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s where Brooke is buried?”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, I’ve been there. He died from septicaemia from an insect bite.”

“Obviously a German or Turkish one, then.”

“We did Brooke at school, and I got tired of hearing the Old Vicarage.”

“Is there honey still for tea?” I asked quoting the penultimate line.

“Oh don’t–look, I know it’s sad and all that, especially for his parents as they lost their other boy in the same war after he’d only been called up a short time.”

“I didn’t know,” I said feeling saddened by it.

“Like I said, we did Brooke in some detail.”

“We did more Owen and Sassoon.”

“Sounds like a firm of hairdressers,” he smirked.

“Wasn’t Brooke a pretty boy?” I asked, I had in the back of my mind he was.

“Oh yeah, he swung both ways which screwed him up somewhat, especially given the period. I mean he died in 1915 at age twenty seven I think, so pressures were on people to be conventional.”

“Poor man. Fancy going to war and dying because of an insect bite.”

“Loads of them did, malaria and so on.”

“Of course, Byron died of dysentery in Greece, didn’t he?” I thought it was Byron.

“Yep, mad, bad and clean out of toilet paper.”

“Oh don’t, Si, he couldn’t help it and at least he died fighting for a cause in which he believed.”

“Yeah, these days he’d have died from some sexually transmitted disease, so might Brooke.”

I shuddered at this suggestion, but it was probably correct. Byron was a notorious womaniser and Brooke had had his share of lovers of both sexes, so what with the spread of HIV and other nasty personal diseases, they could well have caught something and died from it, although HIV is much better understood and treated these days–however, it still kills people.

“Didn’t Lord Caernarvon die from an insect bite?” I asked.

“Oh yes, so he did–thereby perpetuating the curse of Tutankhamen.”

“But several people died after the grave was excavated.”

“Cathy, I thought you were the rational scientist who pooh-poohed these silly stories of curses and things.”

“Yeah, if I was feeling stronger, I probably would be. I mean it happens–even today–people get bitten by a horsefly or something similar and it gets infected and they end up with an ulcer on their leg.”

“What about all the kids in Africa with sleeping sickness or malaria?”

“I think I know how they feel,” I said yawning. Ten minutes later I was asleep.

On the next morning, Dr Smith phoned me to see how I was–he’d had some report from the paramedics and was following it up. I reassured him that I was fine just very tired. He called by that lunchtime and examined me. He was pretty sure it was just as I suspected a stress related thing. He prescribed some pills to help me pick up but I tore up the prescription as soon as he left–I didn’t need Fluoxetine.