The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2641 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“Six months, Mrs Cameron,” smiled my dental surgeon, Amy Wilde. It had been a rush to get there and I was on the phone to Delia when I was called into the surgey for my exam. Usually I have one of the kids with me but last time I came with them I had a rotten cold with a hacking cough so they saw everyone bar me, who had to wait two months for the appointment. We were all out of sync now but that was the least of my problems.

I had asked Delia to warn the secretary of the Professorial Council, a different one to the University Council, more concerned with academic matters than the politics of running a university, that I would possibly be a tad late. When I arrived at the office, Delia told me that the secretary wasn’t impressed as I’d known about the meeting for three months. As I was one of the more recent members I suppose I should have felt a little chastened but I felt like offering her the finger and telling her to swivel—pompous cow, and she is only a reader not a professor.

I ambled along to the committee room and feeling all the members’ eyes were upon me, sat down with a degree of elegance in the only chair available. I nodded at the chairman, Professor Mullins from the department of medical jurisprudence—a very clever chap. He smiled back and said quietly, “Glad you could make it, Lady Cameron.” I smiled and nodded back to him. The secretary’s eyeballs nearly came out on stalks. Seems like not everyone knows my alter ego. I wondered if we could build a bat cave under Tom’s house, if the meeting got boring, I could day dream about that instead.

“We were just discussing the concerns about the quality of new entrants, despite reasonable A S levels, several departments have observed what they consider to be a reduction in the quality of the intake students which they believe is being shown in the quality of their work during the first and second terms.”

I waited while the rest of the members muttered rather than said anything directly. Oh well here goes, “Given that many of them will be coming straight from school and will also be away from home for the first time shouldn’t we accept that the first term is often more about them making the transition from school kids to undergraduates and attempt to integrate them rather than worry too much about academic standards? In my own department we devote most of the first term to doing just that and usually be early in the second one they’re working much more successfully.”

One or two nodded, some others gave me hostile looks and two others were astonished—how can someone get to be a professor and have no cognitive functions? The secretary gave me several more hostile looks during the meeting, in fact every time I said anything.

The meeting closed after two hours of more boring inanities, the secretary scribbling frantically into an A4 pad. Date of next meeting was set and I added it to my diary—academic variety of course.

As we they were leaving I made small talk with one or two others, the chairman wished me a good lunch and disappeared. I walked up to Josephine Charteris, the secretary of the meeting and as she was putting her pencils away in a zip up pencil case—I’d replaced my Waterman in its leather case and placed it back in my lap top bag.

“Exactly what is your problem, Josephine?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Every time you looked at me today I got a definite sense of hostility, I’d like to know why that was.”

“You were late.”

“Five minutes.”

“Late is late. I was brought up to believe tardiness was lack of commitment or discipline.”

“I see, so you fumed at me for two hours because I was five minutes late?”

“Yes.”

“Are you always so dedicated to such single mindedness.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t believe you. Oh you were cross because I was a few minutes late but I felt your hostility ramp up when I was addressed as Lady Cameron. I take it you weren’t aware of my married name?”

“I knew someone on the staff had bagged a title, I didn’t know it was you.”

“So why the hostility?”

“You’re mistaken, it was surprise not hostility.”

“I don’t think so. I think it was pure jealousy.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is it? Could it not be because not only have I made it to professor quicker than you, but I’ve married an aristocrat who happens to own a bank plus a castle in Scotland and have a whole load of children?”

“I’d be careful about making such allegations.”

“So how come your prof is on long term sick leave and they haven’t temporarily upgraded you to cover it?”

“I don’t live with the dean.”

“Simon and I were sharing Tom Agnew’s house long before I was asked to cover his secondment to the dean’s office.”

“Didn’t do you any harm though did it?”

“I think I know why you enjoy Physical Anthropology so much.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yeah, you’re really at home playing around with dead bodies being closer to them than living ones.”

“You’ll regret that, you stuck up bitch.”

“Not tonight, Josephine—story of your life, eh? And you started it. Bye.” I walked out before she said something which would provoke me into clocking her one, much as I’d enjoy it.

Later, at lunch with Tom I related the story of the meeting and he looked concerned. “Be careful with her, she has a memory like an elephant...”

“And a face to match,” I smirked.

“...I wis gang tae say, she nivver forgets an’ will save her powder until she can really harm ye.”

“But why should she want to, until now I’d never said much to her at all.”

“Perhaps she is jealous o’ ye.”

“But that is crazy.”

“Aye, that’s women f’ ye.”

“I suppose so—hey, what d’you mean that’s women for you?”

He sat chuckling as I rose to the bait once again. “Miserable Scottish git,” I muttered under my breath and he laughed so hard he was in danger of harming himself.