Easy As Boiling Up A Cake.
by Angharad
part 327

I arranged with Tom to finish early so I could go and see Stella. I worked like mad all morning, so by lunch time apart from two tutorials, I'd more or less finished. I saw the students together after asking them first and they both found the experience useful, so did I; I got off an hour earlier.

The drive was tedious, these things always are and while I drove I tried to think of some way I could help Stella. A big fat nothing came to mind; possibly because I couldn't forget Simon's warning that I'd be shocked.

I parked up at the clinic and remembered how I'd sat in the car last time afraid to see her. I felt ashamed of myself now. I went in and was escorted to her room. She was sitting in a huge armchair with a blanket wrapped around her. She looked like a little old lady, gaunt and haggard as the skin drooped around her face. It reminded me of people in refugee camps.

"Hi flower," I said as I breezed in.

She looked up at me and her empty eyes sparkled for a moment and she smiled, then the emptiness returned.

I sat alongside her, looking right into her eyes. "What are you up to?"
She tried to avoid eye contact, but I made her face me. "What are you trying to achieve?"

"Why did you come?" she said in a weak, croaky voice.

"To see you."

"To bully me."

"Not at all. I'm a scientist remember, I need to understand things. I need to understand why you are doing this."

"It's my body."

"I know that, but why are you destroying it?"

"I'm too wicked to live."

"Of course you are, I should have remembered. What was it public enemy number one? If that was the case, where would that put megalomaniacs like Blair and Bush who started a war and killed thousands? I don't see them trying to starve themselves to death."

"I did a dreadful thing," she said and a tear ran down her face.

"You ate the last chocolate biscuit?" I kept trying to make light of things. I had an idea of what was coming.

"Why are you trying to trivialise my pain?"

"Am I, or are you just wallowing in self pity?"

"How dare you?" she said more firmly.

"How dare I what? How dare I tell you the truth, when all the others have been pussy footing around the place? I'll tell you how I dare it. I love you, remember, you are my big sister and I can't just stand by and watch while you punish yourself unnecessarily with some guilt trip."

Another tear dripped down her face and I felt close to tears as well, however, I needed to keep up the outrage to make her angry, to boost her out of her torpor. My dormice were more with it than her, and they were hibernating - with one notable exception, she who eats lab technicians!

"I am guilty."

"Guilty of what? Of being the nicest person in the known universe?"

"Nicest person? I killed my own baby - does that make me nice?"

"Ah so now we're getting to it." I had to be careful about this, I was very vulnerable on fertility grounds, as I couldn't breed or even begin to know what the feeling of pregnancy was like. She could shoot me down in flash and I half expected her to do it.

"You and Tom are the only two who know about it."

"Yeah, so?"

"You are treating it as something trivial."

"I'm not, I found it sad at the time and I still do."

"Sad, yes it's sad alright. It's more than sad, it's wicked. I'm evil and deserve to die for taking a life. An eye for an eye, like the Bible says."

"Oh, Old Testament stuff. Okay, by that standard, Deuteronomy or another such book, Simon and I should be put to death, me probably twice over."

"What for?"

"Well according to that, I'm a man lying with another man, plus I'm wearing women's clothes. Quite how they'd kill me twice, I'm not sure, but I think that's the penalty."

"Now you're being stupid, of course you're a woman." There was a bit of life coming in her eyes and expression.

"Not according to the Old Testament."

"But that was written in days before they understood Gender Identity Disorder."

"I won't argue with that, but it was also written before they understood a woman's right to choose about her body and pregnancy."

"That's different."

"Is it, I had surgery on perfectly healthy tissue."

"That's not killing a baby, is it?"

"Having my gonads removed, I might have killed a thousand babies."

"Don't be ridiculous, those babies were never made. They were only ever potential babies through sperm."

"You were carrying a potential baby too. There were a hundred things that could have gone wrong and you could have spontaneously miscarried. Until it was born, it isn't a baby. Yours was in a very early stage."

"I still killed it."

"No, you stopped it living. It wasn't capable of independent life, it needed your body to sustain it. It wasn't murder, it was...."

"Convenience, it didn't suit me to have it. So I killed it."

"Isn't there a better way to resolve this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, instead of ending your life as punishment, why not do something to nurture life instead?"

"Like what?"

"Like getting yourself well again and going back to nursing, saving lives and healing people."

"That isn't a punishment."

"I don't know, some of the stories you told me of clinics you did, it sounded like punishment to me."

"Some were hard."

A nurse knocked and entered the room, "Are you going to have something to eat tonight, Stella?"

"No."

"Yes she is," I insisted, have you got some nice soup and a roll?"

"Yes, cream of chicken."

"Bring her some, I'll help her to eat it."

The young nurse gave me a funny look, but she popped out and returned a few minutes later, with a tray of soup and roll and butter. She put it down and left, telling us to ring if we needed any help.

"I'm not going to eat it." Stella looked at me defiantly.

I pulled a five pound note out of my bag and put it down beside the tray, "That says you are."

"If you force it down me, I'll be sick."

"I'm not going to force you, you are going to eat it yourself."

"I'm not."

"Okay, if you don't eat that soup and get your act together, I am not going to marry Simon."

"Ha ha, you think that is going to make me?"

"Yes, I'm serious, if you aren't there, there will be no wedding."

"Are you crazy?"

"No, I've never been more serious in my whole life. If you haven't eaten that soup before I leave here, then I am driving home and telling Simon that it's all off and he can sling his hook."

"That's ridiculous."

"Maybe, but I promise that is what I shall do."

"But I thought you loved Simon?"

"I do."

"So how can you do that to him?"

"Same way you can do this to me."

"That's different."

"Is it? I don't give a toss, that is what I will do."

"You can't."

"Just watch me, oh no you can't because you'll be dead, never mind I expect Simon and I will be with you soon enough."

"What do you mean?"

"Died of a broken heart, that sort of thing. I think they call it depressive illness, nowadays."

"That is stupid!"

"No more than starving myself to death would be, or you, for that matter."

"It isn't the same," she protested, tears streaming down her face.

"It is to me. Your call."

"That is so mean!"

"Who said life was nice?"

"You're a bitch, Cathy."

"You are telling me something I already know. Now are you going to eat this soup or do I go?"

"Pass it over."

My hands were trembling as I passed over the tray. I had gambled my biggest ever stake and could have lost everything.

She ate the soup complaining she was full ages before she was. She also burped and farted like a good 'un. She'd eaten nothing for several days, this was going to be uncomfortable. She complained of feeling sick, which was probably wind. I gave her a peppermint and she eventually burped her way into more comfort.

"Happy now?" she glared at me.

"No, I'm happier than I was, but I won't be happy until I see you at my wedding."

"Who says I was going to come anyway?"

"I do, because you'll be helping me with my dress and the other things I need to organise."

"I might." This time there was a little sparkle in her eye.

"I thought you might."

"Happy now?"

"Stella, you just asked me that; my answer is the same."

"You won again, didn't you?"

"I wasn't aware this was a contest."

"A battle of wills."

"Don't be silly, I wouldn't stand a chance against you," I smiled.

"Okay, I'll come to your stupid wedding. Just get me out of this place."

"Only you can do that Stella, but thank you for that, I shall hold you to it."

I hugged her, "You've made an old woman happier," I said and we both started laughing. She also owed me a fiver!