The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3046 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 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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“Is everything all right, madam?” asked the waitress.

“Uh, yes—fine thanks. Could you do me a tuna jacket potato and some ordinary tea?” She nodded and I settled down to think about the meeting I’d just had, on several levels. What did I think of Tony Hancock? He seemed to know what he was talking about and raised several valuable points as well as his beating the drum for equality.

Not sure about his eyesight if he thinks I’m beautiful, but that’s his problem. I liked his idea of trying to attract more women into science careers but wasn’t so sure about having beautiful scientists helping to promote it as that could be seen as sexist at the same time it showed that not all beautiful women are bimbos, in fact many are quite ruthless operators and leave trails of destruction behind them.

I’d heard a thing on the radio about mankind and warfare and one of the pundits suggested that every second generation after a period of peace will see war as an option to problems because they haven’t witnessed the horrors of it. It rang true to me, like everything else in life, youngsters come along and think they just invented sex and the wheel, ignoring the thousands of generations that had gone before. The solution was to keep alive the memory of war and the sacrifice of those who were injured or killed to remind people that warfare is dreadful; that there is no glory in watching your friends get maimed or killed or doing the same to the enemy. It is a total insanity because no one can win one, the cost is too high.

The jacket potato was quite tasty and they gave a reasonable amount of salad with it. I finished my lunch and the reverie that went with it, then after paying the bill drove off towards my parent’s old house. En route I got some flowers and once back at the house changed into the casual trousers and shirt I’d brought to wear home.

I gave the house a quick check and everything seemed to be in order so I packed up the car and locked it up again, setting the alarm as I did. Finally, I went to the cemetery and tidied up my parent’s grave and put the flowers in a vase. Telling them I still loved them both, I left before the tears became too heavy and had to sit in the car for a few moments to compose myself. I saw Reverend Peabody walk past but don’t think he saw or recognised me. The last thing I needed was a conversation with him. But I felt I needed to talk to somebody and rang Marguerite who fortunately happened to be free for an hour. I drove there probably too quickly for it to have been with legal speed limits but time was short.

“How lovely to see you again, Cathy.” Marguerite gave me a huge hug before letting me enter the house. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake,” she said chuckling, “but if you had any sense you wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole—I’m a rubbish cook, so have a choccie biscuit, they’re quite safe.” She laughed at her own disclosure and busied herself with a huge teapot.

“So let me get this right, you heard a programme about war and thought of your parents, is that correct?”

I nodded.

“Then after rationalising your feelings—everything stops at death—you wondered if it did? How am I doing?”

“Okay I guess.”

“So you popped along to speak with me to reassure you?”

“Yes. I feel ashamed of it now.”

“Don’t you move.” I sat still taking another biscuit for something to do with my hands. “Now, I’m afraid you either have to accept that things don’t just stop when someone dies, though at times it may feel like it. Bereavement is one of the most shocking things that can happen to anyone. It challenges everything from your faith to your position with the tax man. But then you have no faith, do you?”

“Uh no, no I don’t.”

“Yet you perform miracles and see dead people—you’re certainly an interesting case.”

“Glad you think so.”

“Who’s been pinching your sweeties?”

“No one—look, I’m wasting your time. Thanks for the tea.”

“Sit down and tell me why you really came.”

“A bit of intellectual weakness. I went and tidied their grave earlier and that made me think of them and I suddenly felt very sad and alone.”

“It’s a big scary world out there.”

“Something like that.”

“You were most unfortunate to lose both parents in such a short time with all the other things that were going on. It would have been nice to have them to help you through the transition, not just into womanhood but also into becoming a foster mother and girlfriend then a wife. Crikey girl, you somehow managed to survive a veritable tsunami of stress.

“I’m not sure I understand why wonder woman is sitting here drinking my tea, because anyone who’s dealt with such a situation is either superhuman or helped by something superhuman.”

“What, Trish?”

She nearly fell off her chair laughing. “How is she?”

“Fine as far as I know, as cheeky as ever but that intelligence frightens me.”

“Embrace it, just think how it frightens her if she ever stops to think about it.”

“I hope she doesn’t too often. She’s already different to most other girls, she doesn’t need to see other things as well.”

“Oh she’ll know that too, she misses nothing and she carries your gift as well, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but thankfully, it isn’t fully developed yet.”

Marguerite smiled, “You still see it as a curse, don’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I’m inclined to want to say that it would be the most amazing gift ever, but I respect your judgement, Cathy, and you say it is as much a problem as a gift.”

“Very much—if I were to do as much as it sometimes wants me to, I’d be world famous and wouldn’t have a moment to myself.”

“I can see that, so perhaps you’re right in your assertion. But it could do so much good.”

“Like killing the messenger—it happened before—oops you know about that.”

She rolled her eyes then shook her head.

“It hasn’t blunted your tongue.”

I said nothing because all that I could think to say would have been very bitchy. Why do people of faith look upon agnostics as beneath them or to be treated like children?

“You struggle with your agnosticism, don’t you?”

“No more than you do with your fairy tales, however implausible they may seem.”

“Absolutely. But I also believe that no one is given a task greater than their ability to bear it.”

Not that old and ridiculous chestnut. I looked at my watch, “Oh bugger, I’m running late. I’ve got to go.” Retreat? Only from committing a massacre. I respect her too much to punish her for her lack of intellectual rigour.

“Want the loo?” she said probably thinking all sorts of things besides that.

“Good idea, thanks.”

I left a few minutes later and hoped I’d kept our friendship intact or should that be, in tact.