The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2332 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Julie sat with me while we waited for Stella. It does sound like I was acting like her mother, but the last few times she’s come home she’s been as inebriated as a certain amphibian, and I don’t want to see her have an accident while in such a state. I admit that there’s an element of curiosity burning in me as well, who is this Roger Mitchell who has suddenly emerged after two years of not seeing her, and what was the course. Was she nursing then? I don’t think so, so what course? It gets curiouser and curiouser as Alice once remarked.

I was going to bed at midnight and if she came in after that, she’d have to get herself to bed whatever her state, I needed my beauty sleep and I could just about cope with seven hours knowing that Lizzie would probably have me up for a feed or watering during the night. I didn’t have bags under my eyes, more suitcases, or it felt like it.

Julie and I chatted as I sewed and she laundered her salon uniform. She’d introduced them because the girls were starting to wear whatever they wanted and it was getting too random for her, so she found some nice light blue tunics to wear with dark blue trousers. She wears a clean one each day, so has five of them to wash, dry and iron each week.

I was sewing a dormouse for Lizzie at Trish’s insistence—all my girls had a mutant dormouse—so, while Lizzie isn’t mine exactly, I seem to be stuck with the little darling until Neal is well enough to look after her. Last week I took Dan up to see him and he was horrified. I saw no progress at all, it’s as if he’s given up caring about life since Gloria died. He seems to be waiting to die and at no more than about thirty, he could live another fifty or sixty years.

I tried to show him some pictures of his daughter, he wasn’t interested. He just stares at a picture of Gloria he has by the side of his chair and cries rather a lot. Phoebe won’t go to see him anymore, she finds it too distressing. I’ve tried the blue light, but it doesn’t seem to help him at all. It’s a crying shame it really is.

We stopped for a cuppa on the way back and Dan was visibly shaken by his ex-colleague’s appearance and behaviour. He thanked me for taking him but said he couldn’t do it again if I paid him, it was too painful. The upshot was, Neal didn’t get many visitors and when he did he couldn’t wait until they went. As far as I know the bank is still paying his fees which can’t be cheap, but I do wonder if he’s in the right place or whether his illness is now his norm, and any difference in therapy be a waste of time.

I spoke to Julie about it and she shrugged, “Has he had some sort of seizure or is that his way of dealing with his grief?”

“I suspect it might be the latter. Glo’s death was pretty awful and very traumatic for all concerned.”

“Oh yeah, she hung herself at the hospital, didn’t she?”

“Hanged herself, yes. Very strange that, I don’t think anyone was expecting it though she did ask me to look after Lizzie for her, so perhaps there were signs of it, except no one was looking. I mean, when a young mum asks you to look after her baby, you expect it to be for a matter of days or a week or two at most.”

“That’s two babies who’ve ended up here through their mothers topping themselves, isn’t it?” observed Julie switching the kettle on for a cuppa as she finished her ironing.

“Yes, Cate happened that way too. I can still see Maria Drummond lying there in her wedding dress.”

“Weird or what, Mummy? I mean topping yourself in your wedding dress.”

“She was making a statement of love for her lost husband. Reminding herself of their special day together as she slipped into unconsciousness.”

“You make it almost sound romantic.”

“In a way, it is very romantic albeit a tragic one.”

“What, people dying, romantic? I don’t think so.”

“Oh come on, Julie; think Romeo and Juliet, Cathy and Heathcliffe, Antony and Cleopatra—all tragedies but with much love in them, where the one loved the other so much they couldn’t bear to be separated. Not entirely sure about Cleopatra as she was a hard arsed woman who had her own family killed to maintain her control of the throne, but Shakespeare paints her as one of the world’s great lovers and her relationship with Marc Antony as one of the great romances with suicides to finish it.”

“Wasn’t that ’cos the Romans were coming to get ’em?”

“Yes, Octavian, later Caesar Augustus, was after them after Antony reneged on their agreement.”

“Seduced by clever Cleo?”

I shrugged, “I can’t remember, it’s a long time since I did history.”

“Yeah, you’re like so old, Mummy.”

“Less of the old, you young hussy.” I stretched then rubbed my eyes, it was after eleven. Julie handed me the mug of tea.

“You don’t watch much telly, do you, Mummy?”

“No, never have, ’d rather read a book.”

“Or sew.”

“I’m sick of these things, I must have made half a dozen of them now.”

“And that all started with Mima?”

“Yeah, when she was in hospital after being hit by a van. I wonder what happened to her parents.”

“Wasn’t there some story about her mother deliberately trying to have her killed by the van?”

“I can’t believe that, Julie. I saw Janice with Mima and she did care for her.”

“Enough to dump her on you.”

“Was that such a bad decision? Mima doesn’t seem to think so.”

“She still takes her dormouse to bed every night, Mummy.”

“I know, I tuck her in every night.”

“D’you know why?”

“I presume she’s fond of it.”

“Yeah, because you made it for her. She saw it as an act of love from you and as long as she has it she believes you’ll always love her and won’t make her go away.”

“Where did you hear that?” I gasped.

“Livvie told me the other week.”

“So Mima, despite being adopted, worries that I might send her away?”

“Or you’ll go away.”

“Like her first mother did, I didn’t realise she was still worrying about it.”

“Nor me.”

“Why would any of you think that?”

“Apart from the frequent threats you make, you mean?”

“Okay, I did threaten to donate Trish to the cat’s home along with that monster feline which seems to have attached itself to her.”

“Bramble is rather fond of her.”

“Rather, neither of them will go to bed without the other.”

A car drove up the drive, the headlights skimming across the wall of the kitchen. We heard voices and a minute or so later Stella came in through the back door. “Oh, you’re still up?”

“Yes, it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to do some sewing.”

“Oh the dormouse—remember that one you made for Mima?”

“We were just talking about it.”

“Oh, ah well, I’d best get to bed. You couldn’t sit my two tomorrow could you?”

“Tomorrow? Providing it isn’t going to be every night, I’ll do tomorrow.”

“Thanks, it’s Roger’s last night in the area.”

“What does he do then?”

“He works for the government.”

“And runs a BMW—shouldn’t he have a Jaguar?”

“How would I know, but he knows all about you, dear sis in law.”

“Why should that be?”

“I think he’s in the security services.”

“Security services—what MI5 and all that?”

“I think so.”

“Can’t you ask him?”

“Yeah, but then he’d have to kill me.”

“Oh, very James Bond.”

“Funny, he described you as Jane Bond, said they could do with people like you in the service.”

“You go on a date and talk about me?”

“Yeah, story of my life—I’m off to bed—night.”