Easy As Calling For Spike.
by >^^< and she(the cat's mother?)
part: 3x2=6

We drove back to Portsmouth and after liaising with my group of dormouse counters, I organised an expedition for that evening. Essentially, I wanted to check out one or two of the sites for filming.

I cooked Tom a nice dinner and after scoffing my share, went off with my equipment to meet up with my group. On the whole, the dormice were holding their own, although we did come across two sickly looking ones, which I removed to take back to the lab.

I popped them in isolation cages with a source of food. They were both underweight, which in itself can kill them. The problem with animals that hibernate is not laying down enough fat. Then it isn’t the hibernation which kills them, it’s recovery from hibernation which requires a large number of calories to bring everything up to working speed and temperature. Animals which wake and then re-hibernate are particularly at risk, especially insectivorous ones like bats, who could wake and find no food supply easily available. Small animals also lose body heat faster then big ones and need to eat more food as a proportion of body weight than larger ones. A pigmy shrew has to eat most of its bodyweight every day.

After settling in the sickly dormice, I thoroughly washed my hands and went to check on Spike. She was curled up with her babies, but soon proved herself to be a total Brazil nut slut, forsaking them for her favourite snack.

Watching her nibbling her way through the nut reminded me of the day Neal, one of the technicians, tried to examine her babies while she was still in the nest. He still has the scar and claimed we had the world’s only carnivorous dormouse. I had tried to warn him to remove her first, preferably with bribery. But he wouldn’t listen, what did I know? Erm…hee hee!

I got home about two but was very wide awake, so I drafted my letter of complaint to the PCA*. Then I went to bed. I tossed and turned, wishing Simon was there. He’d left a message on my voice mail, but whilst dormouse hunting, phones are turned off, so I didn’t get it until I came home, when he’d be fast asleep.

He’d been to see Stella and was quite upset by the experience. She was still very unwell and that upset me, as I was so fond of her. I also felt some guilt for what had happened to her. If I hadn’t sent her away, she might not have cut her wrists.

I must have gone to sleep, because I woke up in a sweat. I’d had a horrible dream. I was back in the lab and Hickman had just fallen on his knife and died. I went to check his pulse and his eyes opened and he grabbed me, a la Glenn Close in the bath scene, in Fatal Attraction. I was trying to pull away but my feet kept sliding on the wet floor. Then I woke up, panting and sweating. I even put the light on and left it on.

I did finally go off to sleep again and woke about eleven. The sun was shining and I decided to cycle in for a change. I showered and dressed in my cycling stuff and packed a small rucksack with something to change into, when I got there. I would leave those things there for next time, when I cycled home.

I walked in about lunch time and asked Pippa, who was back today, if she could get me a roll or sandwich for lunch and then went off to change. I had an afternoon of tutorials planned, but my morning off was covered by my ‘supervision’ of the field group last night.

I changed into the pants and top and the cheap copy of Crocs, I’d brought in the rucksack. Pippa came through with my roll, tuna of course.

“Tom told me about the trip yesterday.”

“Yeah, not the best thing I’ve ever done, but I had to try and understand why he came down here. He was fixated on me.”

“Did he know about the gender thing?”

“Yes, he kept calling me Charlie, which was one of the reasons I threw him out.”

“He wasn’t looking to get an erm… sex change, was he?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

“So how come you were as cool as a cucumber and I was throwing up everywhere, with fright?”

“I was just as scared, but I’ve developed a way to detach myself from it and keep calm, looking for opportunities to escape or reduce the risk. They always come, you just have to recognise them and the split second window they afford to act.”

“I could never do that, Cathy. I don’t know how you can.”

“When you’ve been beaten up as often as I have, you start to learn a few tricks to fight back. The only time it didn’t work was when my father gave me the beating.”

“He didn’t, did he?” Pippa looked aghast.

“Yeah, and I took an overdose.”

“What, to kill yourself?”

“Exactly that.” I felt the tension rising.

“What happened?”

“Look, I’d prefer not to talk about it now if you don’t mind, I don’t need to revisit that old chestnut and all its associated negative vibes. Thanks for the roll.”

I wasn’t a superhuman as she seemed to think, nor was I as special as Tom suggested, unless he meant as a field biologist, I was red hot at that. It was what I lived to do, that and ride my bike oh and look after a little guy named Simon.

My tutorials weren’t too arduous and I was able to get down to doing a quick write up of the sites, we’d visit them in daylight to fully evaluate them, and Des was the final arbiter, being the cameraman cum director/producer. I wrote the script and narrated it.

Then it was home time. I changed into my riding kit and passed Pippa as I walked through pushing my bike.

“It’s dark, I hope you have lights for that thing.”

“I do, and they worked this morning.” That guaranteed nothing, the world of rechargeable batteries was a separate universe where anything could happen. However, they did work and I got home safely albeit a while after Tom and his noisy chariot.

I put the Scott away and locked the garage. It was starting to rain, had it happened a little earlier, I’d have got soaked, I only had a weatherproof jacket on, so my legs would have got cold and wet.

As I went in, Tom handed me a glass of red wine. Apart from, thank you, what else could I say? I took it with me when I went to shower but didn’t drink it until I’d had a long cool glass of water to re-hydrate me.

We had some steaks in the freezer, so that’s what I cooked, braising them in a red wine and tomato sauce, into which I’d added garlic and onion in moderate amounts. Then I sauteed some new potatoes after par boiling and slicing them. It turned out quite well.

I had only moments before loaded the dishwasher, when Simon called.

“Hey babe, how are you?”

“I’m okay, I suppose.” I told him about the incident with Hickman and how I planned to write to the Police Complaints Authority.

“You do get into some scrapes, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but I always come through them, don’t I?”

“Indeed you do, I can’t think of anyone else who would, mind you.”

Well, just watch this scrape,” I said to him in a silly voice and he laughed.

He went on to tell me about Stella, and he was quite worried. Henry had been to see her and was of the opinion she had lost the will to live and was thus, simply waiting to die.

“What? Stella–but that’s awful! What can we do to stop it?”

“If I knew that, I’d have done it babes, long ago.”

“There has to be something, hasn’t there?”

“I don’t know, whatever it is it had better happen soon, she is just fading away.” I could hear the emotion in his voice.

“I’ll go and see her tomorrow,” I announced, hoping in the two hour drive, my mind might alight on an answer to her problem.

“Thanks babes, but prepare yourself for a shock.”

“What do you mean?” I felt a shudder pass through my body.

“She has lost so much weight.”

“But she was already like a stick insect, how could she lose weight?”

“She has. I have to go, lover. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

“I thought you said, Sunday?”

“I’ve managed to wriggle out of a few things and free up the weekend.”

“Oh damn, I wish you’d said,” I replied.

“What! Why?”

“Well, I’ve arranged to help clean the church and work at a soup kitchen, and run the marathon, not to mention catering for a royal visit.”

“Catering for a royal visit?”

“I told you not to mention it.”

“You are crazy? The last time you went near a church was to talk to that woman priest.”

“No, it was to attend my father’s funeral.”

“Oh yeah, sorry, forgot that. But you don’t normally go near them, as for marathons–huh! You just be there tomorrow evening or I shall be most displeased.”

“Huh–hark at you, my lord and master, not! I’ll remind you that I am an emancipated and self-directing, autonomous woman.”

“Wow! Can we include that in the wedding service–Do you, Simon, take this emancipated and self directing, autonomous woman to be your wife? What am I supposed to say? Duh–would you?”

“Have you finished taking the urine?”

“Who me? What about you?” He complained loudly.

“I’ll be here I suppose, but only because you asked me nicely and promised to take me out to dinner.”

“When, did I do that?”

“Just now,” I loved it when he got confused.

“No I didn’t.”

“You did, you just didn’t notice.”

“What? Are you crazy? I know what I said.”

“See you just said it again.”

“Said what?”

“Be ready to go out for a slap up meal with me when I get home tomorrow evening. Don’t you remember?”

“No I don’t, but I suppose if that’s what you want to do, we’d better do it. Can you make some reservations?”

“See, you just forgot.”

“Yeah, if you say so.”

“Now you understand.”

“Understand women, who me? Feminine logic is the original oxymoron, it arose in the Garden of Eden.”

“Without women, Adam would be still waiting for puberty.”

“Yeah, maybe. I have to go, my battery on this phone is bleeping at me. See you tomorrow, wear something, you know, sexy.”

“My cycling shorts?”

“Bah!” then he rang off. It was such fun teasing him, I only wished Stella was better, that was now a real worry.