The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1534 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

We entered the hospital and on announcing our names to the receptionist, a woman in about her late thirties came out to us. She was very tall, at least six feet tall and quite broad with it, but I was pretty sure she was a natural female. Anyway, she stood head and shoulders above Julie and me.

“Good to meet you, Lady Cameron, I’m Serena Smollett, the medical social worker.” She acknowledged Julie and then led us both to a small consulting room where we all sat down. “I haven’t given you the full story, I’m afraid.”

Somehow that didn’t surprise me, but at least she was what she said she was and no one was trying to kidnap or kill me. “Perhaps you’d better do so now then,” I said quite dispassionately.

“We don’t know who she is, except her name is Jenny.”

Julie and I looked at each other, it was as we feared–had this bloke beaten her up or what? I kept quiet and waited for more information.

“She had a letter addressed to you on her person, which was all she had–no bag or anything.”

“Do I get to see the letter?”

“I have a copy here, the police have the original.”

“What did she do to herself?” I asked realising that a letter probably meant a suicide attempt. Julie looked at me in astonishment.

“She jumped off a motorway bridge.”

I bit my lip and Julie was genuinely shocked, shouting, “No,” raising her hand up to her mouth.

“How badly is she injured?”

“Very, multiple fractures, head injuries–she’s in a bad way. You know her though don’t you?”

I nodded, “I think so, if it’s who we think it is, her name is Jenny Bell and she worked for me as help and nanny. She left suddenly a few nights ago, left a note saying she’d found a new man and was moving in with him.”

“I see.”

“Why is she here and not Southampton which is the trauma centre?”

“She arrested twice in the ambulance, we were nearer so they brought her here. We’re trying to stabilise her enough to be airlifted to Southampton General.”

“Poor Jenny, Mummy, why did she do that?”

I put my arm round Julie and hugged her, “I don’t know, perhaps this lady can explain why.”

“It’s in the letter, it’s a bit incoherent but you will probably make some sense of it.” She handed me a sheet of obviously photocopied paper and I recognised Jenny’s rather immature scrawl.

‘To Lady Cathy Cameron,

If you reading this I’m dead. Im really sorry I left you in the lurch but you had Caroline to help you now and I had this chance with someone I really fancied. Im ashamed to say I took the little statuette thing from you desk Ben talked me into it. He sold it for two thousand and as soon as he had the money was off. Ive been a real fool and deserve to die for doing that to you. I hope you understand, can you bury me in my parents grave.

Love

Jenny.”

I felt a tear run down my nose and Julie took the note and kept saying, “No, no, no,” tears flooding down her face.

“The police are involved, but they said you’d recently lost your little girl in a cycling accident, so they’d come and see you tomorrow–they have to investigate any suicide attempt, and it did cause problems for several road users who witnessed the attempt. Whether there’s charges of theft to be laid is up to you, but they’ll explain that anyway.”

I took a deep breath, “I’m disappointed in her, I thought she had more sense. I’m also disappointed that she needed to steal something, if she’d needed money, I could have loaned her a couple of thousand.”

“We all do silly things when our eyes are clouded with affairs of the heart,” commented Serena.

“She is going to be alright, isn’t she?” Julie wailed.

“I don’t know, it’s in the hands of the surgeons, and might I say, God.”

Julie looked at me and I shrugged. I knew what she was thinking, go and heal on her, but nothing inside me was telling me to do that. Given that it didn’t work for Billie, for whom I’d have swapped my own life, it didn’t entirely surprise me that I didn’t feel driven to see Jenny. Maybe I was losing the power to heal?

Serena’s bleep went and she excused herself and went presumably to a phone. I sat hugging Julie. “Go and heal on her, Mummy–you’ve saved people like this before.”

“When I did, the energy was telling me to do it, it isn’t at the moment–maybe later?”

“No it’s ’cos she ripped you off, isn’t it–you’re punishing her, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m disappointed in her, my father gave that statuette to my mother on their wedding anniversary.”

“The ballet dancer one?”

“Yes.”

“Stupid men, I’m glad I’m lezzie–fuck them–stupid men.” Julie buried her head in my shoulder and sobbed.

Probably three or four minutes later, Serena returned with Ken Nicholls. “Cathy, how nice to see you again. How d’you know this unfortunate woman I’ve been assisting with?”

“She was my nanny and help.”

“Oh dear.”

“How bad is she?”

“I’ll be surprised if she makes it, frankly, she’s in a real mess and is too sick to move yet. As soon as we can she’s off by chopper to the spinal unit at Soton.”

“Can I see her?”

“She’s in recovery at the moment–but as soon as she goes into ICU, I’ll let you know–if you can do some of your magic–she needs it pretty badly.”

“Can we wait?”

“Of course,” said Serena, “I’ll bring you some tea unless you’d prefer coffee.”

“Tea’s fine.”

While she was off getting the tea, I introduced Julie to ken, she looked like a panda and scooted off to the loo to wash her face.

“It’s that bad is it?”

“I’d say she has about ten percent chance of survival and about one percent of ever walking again.”

“The silly girl.”

“What’s this I hear about her stealing something?”

I showed him the note she’d left. He read it and shook his head. “Valuable, was it?”

“It was gold, a statuette of a ballerina about three inches tall. It was my mother’s.”

“What fools we are when we’re in love.”

“Or think we are.”

“Well that as well. I’m going to have a shower and change into a human being again. If you do perform your magic, let me know–they’ll page me–I’ll tell them to let you see her in ICU. I think she might be beyond anything even you can do.” We shook hands and he left.

Julie came back, her eyes red, but much of the offending mascara and eyeliner was gone. Serena came back with two cups of tea on a tray. She put them down and excused herself, more work to do.

“She’s going to die, isn’t she?” Julie said tearfully sipping her tea.

“It’s highly likely.”

“Are you going to just let that happen?”

“No, I’m going to see her as soon as she comes out of recovery. I’m going to need your support with this.”

“Of course.”

“So I’ll need you to be as positive as you can be.”

“Okay.”

“I mean that–when you see her, she’s going to look pretty awful.”

“Okay, Mummy, I’ll be positive.”

We sat and hugged and possibly even snoozed for a little while when there was a knock on the door and someone announced that Jenny had been moved to intensive care.

“Now watch what you say, she might be unconscious, but she could also possibly hear you, and negative things can have negative effects.”

“Okay, Mummy, I’ll be...Jesus Christ, she looks...”

“She looks okay, Julie doesn’t she. Hello, Jenny, it’s Cathy and Julie, we’ve come to say hi and hope you feel better soon. I still need you, you know, assuming you want to come back to our madhouse. All the family say hello and get well soon again.”

I waited for the nurse to go and sat down beside her, Julie went round the other side of the bed. What I did next, I had no idea because all I could see was her life system growing smaller by the moment. It looked very much as if she was going to die.