The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1799 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Jacquie helped me clean a pile of new potatoes which I then threw in a saucepan to boil. “What are we having?” she asked.

“Wait and see,” was my answer mainly because it didn’t have a name or a recipe, I was making it up on the spot. I peeled and chopped some garlic while she cut the florets of several stalks of broccoli and washed them. I mixed the garlic with some butter. In the fridge were the remains of a piece of boiling ham which had been used for sandwiches. I asked her to hard boil half a dozen eggs and while she did so, I chopped the ham into small cubes.

Next we chopped up some red peppers and sliced into quarters some cherry tomatoes–boy was that tedious. By then the eggs were done and after cooling them in cold water, we shelled them and chopped them as well.

The potatoes were finally done and the broccoli likewise. I drained both and asked Jacquie to help me chop them into smaller pieces. Finally I shoved all of it into a large earthenware dish I’d previously warmed and added the garlic butter allowing it to melt throughout, before I gave it a good stir.

Jacquie sounded reveille and in came the troops whom I despatched to various water sources to wash their paws.

To my surprise but definite delight, my hotpotch meal went down very well, especially with a bit of salt and pepper for ‘them what likes it.’ Once sated the mob dispersed to do whatever mobs do leaving Jacquie as my solitary helpmate in dealing with the aftermath of the chimps’ tea party.

“Where did you get that recipe?” she asked me, though in reality she wasn’t usually interested in food or cooking.

“Why?”

“I thought it was incredible.”

“Inedible?” I teased.

“No, Mummy, incredible–the blend of the various textures and tastes–it worked really well.”

“Why thank you.”

“Who taught you that one?”

“Necessity.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The mother of invention–I made it up as we went along.”

“You did?”

I shook my head, “Yes, I looked at what we had in the fridge. Now if we’d given everyone a small slice of ham, some boiled potatoes with broccoli a tomato and bits of pepper with half a hardboiled egg, they’d have looked at it and thought it was pretty measly. But if you give it novelty by chopping it all up, mixing it all together and adding garlic butter to give it some taste, they are captivated by the novelty and as all of those things could be eaten together as well, I knew they’d all mix.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever make a wife.”

“Do you want to be one?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, until you do, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I’d like to live like a normal woman.” She sounded like my transgender children.

“Jacquie, you are a normal woman.”

“I mean like you.”

I blushed. “I’m not normal, am I?”

“What you mean the blue light and the cycling?”

I shook my head while laughing and felt quite dizzy for a moment. “Darling Jacquie, I think we both know what I meant.”

“Oh that–I’d forgotten about that–you act so normal all the time, even bawling Julie out about short skirts and too much makeup like any other mother of teenage daughters.”

“I don’t bawl at Julie, I just persuade at volume.” I offered still blushing.

“I’m off then, Mummy,” said Julie strolling into the kitchen in a dress which barely covered her genitals or her breasts, and heels which were so high they would probably be useable for altitude training.

“You’re not going out like that,” I said loudly.

“What’s wrong with it?” Julie challenged.

“You look like a tart in it,” I spat at her.

“Which one raspberry or blackcurrant?” she cheeked me.

As I became angrier so my voice rose in volume and finally, Julie ran off crying that I’d ruined her life as she ascended the stairs and slammed her bedroom door.

“You bawled her out, Mummy.”

I was surprised by that revelation, I only raised my voice because Julie was screeching back at me, at least for a few minutes–was that actually bawling? I accepted it probably was a bit loud and thus possibly in the bawling spectrum, if there was such a thing. To my very middle class upbringing, barrow boys and fishwives bawled, not lecturers in dormouse droppings. Eau dear. Was I turning into a fishwife? I winced and Jacquie noticed.

“You okay, Mummy?”

I nodded. I was speechless after this revelation–the shame of it could get me drummed out of Eton and the Guards–if I had been a member of either–thankfully I wasn’t. Never quite sure which guards that applied to, probably the Coldstream, which I think might be the senior branch, but I wasn’t sure and not interested enough to look it up.

Julie appeared in a top and short shorts with footless tights and ballet shoes. “Is this frumpy enough?”

I could see her bra straps but otherwise it was acceptable as decent by today’s standards. “It isn’t frumpy but the other was way over the top except for someone on the game.”

“Isn’t it lovely, my own mother describing me as a prostitute?” Julie was heading for an iceberg in my size and shape. “Instead of complimenting me on how everything was coordinated in colour and style–she tells me I look like a tart. When I try to make a joke of it she just yelled at me. Now, because I look like a refugee from an Oxfam shop, she deems it acceptable because I look so awful, I have no chance of meeting anyone nice...”

Jacquie stood and looked at me with her mouth gaping. I must admit I’d heard more coherent logic from adolescents but I was inured to the guilt which was being pitched at me with such skill. Thankfully, it contained no kryptonite, so I was unscathed.

“As refugees go, you look very nice, dear.” I said and walked away to my study listening to the raucous laughter from the two girls I’d left behind. I’d set myself up quite deliberately to cause them to think I was silly and it defused the tension which had built up.

I was quite unrepentant–before she had looked like a common prostitute, now she looked like a girl on the prowl. I presumed she was meeting her friends, but she didn’t say so. At least she had some experience of dealing with boys–not that that always helps, but she had a bit more idea than Sammi did–she was a real novice. I hoped she was safe and having fun with her policeman friend but not enough to end up with her knickers off unless she was resourceful enough to adapt to the moment–not sure I would have been able to.

Anyway, it isn’t my problem is it? I tried to warn or caution her–if she pays no heed she must deal with the consequences–but she is under my care–oh boy–these wretched girls–at this rate I’ll have grey hair by thirty.