Easy As Getting Upset.
by Angharad
part: 385

"What do you mean?" I asked Neal.

"You've been away a long time, Cathy."

"I'm sorry, but some idiot shoved a knife in my lung."

"Yes, I know. I came to see you in hospital."

"Did you? I'm sorry, I don't remember."

"You looked pretty ill, we weren't sure you'd pull through."

"Oh ye of so little faith."

"Yeah, sorry, but it did look bad."

"Cut to the chase, Neal, what are you trying to break gently to me?"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Sorry for what? Spike isn't dead is she?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? It's a straightforward question."

"She's not here."

"Don't be silly, of course she's here." My stomach was flipping faster than a pancake on Shrove Tuesday.

"They've all gone."

"What? You're joking, tell me you're joking." I was excited close to hysterical. I pushed past him into the lab. It was empty, the tanks were gone.

"Where are my dormice?" I screamed.

"Calm down, Cathy." Neal urged me whilst Stella stood open mouthed behind him.

"Calm down! I'm going to bloody kill someone, just tell me who. Who is responsible for this, they are dead?"

"Tom, I suppose."

"Tom? You're joking?"

"He authorised it."

"Did he now, well he can authorise his own bloody funeral, because I am going up there now to kill him."

"Calm down, don't be so bloody ridiculous." Neal grabbed my arm to stop me. I ripped it from his grasp.

"Get your hands off me," I snarled at him, "don't you ever lay a finger on me again."

I stormed up through the faculty, Neal had followed behind protesting until I told him to go forth and multiply, in the Old English form. Pippa was at her desk. She looked up, possibly hearing my cleats clomping on the floor.

"Is he in?" I said as I continued towards his door.

"Yes, but he's got..."

"Too bad," I wrenched open his door, he was sat with several other senior staff and the Dean. "Where are my dormice?" I said loudly.

"This is neither the time nor the place to discuss this, you are on sick leave, please go home."

"Not until you tell me where my dormice are?"

"Excuse me ladies and gentlemen," Tom grabbed me and manhandled me out of his office. "For God's sake go home. I told you not to come in."

"Where are my dormice, what have you done with them you stupid old man?"

"That does it, Cathy, you are suspended. Get out of here."

"Where are my dormice?" I grabbed him by the lapels and began lifting him up against his door.

"For goodness sake, Cathy, think about what you're doing." Stella tried to separate us.

"If he's killed my dormice, I'm gonna kill him." I ranted loudly.

"Call the police," Tom, gasped at Pippa, my hold on his lapels now choking him.

"Let go, Cathy," Neal and Stella pulled me off him. They dragged me away screaming threats at him. They took me down to my office where I collapsed in tears. All my work had gone, it had been a waste of time. I was so angry, that I wrecked my office despite Neal's attempts to stop me. Then, still crying with sadness and rage I grabbed my bike and set off for Tom's house. I wanted revenge and a certain spaniel could offer one variety.

I didn't see Stella following me. Perhaps it was just as well she did, she found me a few minutes later with Kiki and a large knife. I was stroking the dog, feeling for her carotids.

"What are you doing, Cathy?" asked Stella.

"Go away, this doesn't concern you." I snapped at her, without looking.

"It doesn't concern Kiki, either."

"She has to suffer to show that bastard I mean business."

"I think he got the message. You're very lucky they didn't call the police."

"If they had, I'd have killed him before they got there."

"You want to serve a life sentence do you?"

"No, I'd have killed myself as well."

"Put the knife down, Cathy. Let the dog go, she hasn't done you any harm has she?"

"Neither did my dormice, but they got rid of them."

"They lost the funding. You forgot to fill in the form."

"That's propaganda," I snapped back at her.

"I've seen it, while you were annoying Tom, Neal showed it to me. You didn't send it back to Natural England."

"No, no, I can't have forgotten."

"It's partly my fault, so perhaps you should kill me, not the dog."

"What do you mean?" I was confused.

"It was when I was ill the first time, so you forgot because you were looking after me."

"So where are they, the dormice?"

"They released all the younger ones and those they thought would survive in the wild."

"What about Spike? Where is my Spike?"

"The guy who looks after the rats, he's got her. She's quite safe, Neal pops over once a week to see her. Put the knife down, Cathy, please."

I allowed her to take the knife away from me, then collapsed into a hug and we wept together. Finally, I agreed to go up to my room. I didn't sleep, I packed. Stella was asleep in her room, so I sneaked in and took her key, locking her door.

For the next hour I shoved as much stuff as I could into my car, putting the two bikes on the rack. I would come back for my workshop kit, I had enough tools to cope with minor problems. I locked the garage, returned the key to its place and sneaked up to Stella's room and unlocked it quietly. Then, it was back downstairs, and off in my car. I couldn't see out the back window it was so packed up. I drove out of Tom's drive for the last time, I hoped Simon might collect my workshop stuff. I never wanted to go there again.

I had scribbled my resignation to Tom, it was slightly better than, 'stuff your job and your university', but not much.

I drove away from Portsmouth, not sure where I would go or what I would do. Then I turned around and drove to the university, parking carefully out of sight. My keys, which were master ones, opened the labs used by the performing rats. Their master wasn't there. Ten minutes later, I ran out carrying a small cage with a pile of straw in it, a bag of hazel nuts and my oldest friend. Then once more I drove away from Portsmouth, or should I say, we drove away from Portsmouth - Thelma and Louise, we weren't, but it was the end of many things and the start of something new, perhaps.