Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 704 by Angharad

I spent an uncomfortable night alone in our bed. Simon was so concerned about me, he slept on the couch downstairs to avoid disturbing me. I so wanted to feel his arm around me, but he thought he was doing the right thing and I did eventually sleep.

Sometime, it felt like the middle of the night, except it might have been light, I heard the door crack open and loud whispered voices discussed me. Then the door shut about four times–they couldn’t seem to get the catch to click. I felt a surge of warmth in me, nothing to do with magical lights, simply an emotional response to being cared about.

I dropped off to sleep again, and Stella woke me with a cuppa. It was after three and I was horrified. I enquired about the children and was told that they had finished school and were out playing in the drive and garden, on their bikes.

“How do you feel?” she asked me.

“Lousy. In my body, I feel okay, in my heart I feel angry with myself. I let a little girl die and let down another.”

“Did you? I wouldn’t have thought you did either of those things.”

“The little girl died when I blacked out.”

“Well you could hardly have controlled that, could you?”

“I should have done. I could have done. I should go and see Sam and offer to help him.”

“Do what?”

“Well duh–make his patients get better–what else?”

“Make your children’s lives harder, and your own impossible.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know damn well what I mean. If you’re setting yourself up as some modern day miracle worker or Jesus figure, you’re going to threaten their lives and destroy your own.”

“Modern day Jesus figure?”

“You know what I mean, he was a lot better equipped to cope with it all than you are, and he still got killed over it. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

“Thanks for your concern, but if I have a gift, shouldn’t I share it with everyone?”

“I see, so if you won the lottery would you share that with everyone?”

“Depend on how much it was, I mean a tenner wouldn’t go far would it?”

“Even if you won twenty or thirty million, it wouldn’t go very far, it wouldn’t even enable a pound to everyone in the country, barely thirty pence. Not worth having, is it?”

“When you put it like that no, but what about if I had twenty or thirty million and I was able to help one or two individuals: you know, like buy a house or create jobs?”

“That’s much more feasible and realistic. You can’t help everyone, it isn’t possible and besides, not everyone wants help. Some prefer to mess up their own lives without the intrusion of some super geek.”

“Super geek? I beg your pardon.”

“Granted. How, are you going to sit there all day or are you going to interact with your own children instead of those of complete strangers?”

“I feel I ought to go and see Daisy and apologise.”

“What, for being ill?”

“No, for agreeing to see her every other day.”

“That was a bit ambitious too, it took no account of your own needs or those of your family, I mean what happens if I’m taken ill, who’d look after Puddin’ for me?”

“Trish and Meems, they do quite a good job.”

“They do, but I think I’d prefer another woman did it, not her children. Anyway, I thought you’d written a letter to her–Daisy, that is.”

“No, I tore it up. I’ll go and see her and take the two older girls with me. She’d like that.”

To cut a long story short, we had lunch–for me, brunch, and I tidied up the older pair and we went to see Daisy, except, we didn’t see Daisy. We got to the ward and I went to her bed and it wasn’t hers any more. I found a nurse and with anxiety dripping off me like sweat, I asked her where Daisy was. Given my failure yesterday, I was terrified she’d had some sort of relapse.

“She went ’ome with ‘er dad yesterday–well, they couldn’t find anything wrong with ‘er, so they ‘ad to let ‘er go.”

“Oh, did you hear how her mother was?”

“Improvin’ by all accounts, apparently some witch cast a spell on them both and they were saved, but she couldn’t save a very sick little girl, she died.”

“So, some witch was it?”

“So they say, I wasn’t ‘ere yesterday, was I, so ‘ow do I know?”

“Okay, we’ll be off then.” I gathered two very disappointed girls to me and we left.

“Did that nurse call you a witch, Mummy?”

“Not directly, she assumed I was one or what she’d been told about me, made me one.”

“You’re not a witch, are you?” asked Livvie looking less than certain.

“What do you think, Livvie?”

“Umm–no, I don’t think you are.”

“What about you Trish? Do you think I’m a wicked witch?”

“Sometimes,” she said after some deliberation. “I mean, like when you don’t let me eat chocolate or play on my bike.”

“That’s usually when you’re about to go to bed, Trish.”

“Oh alright, I can’t think of anything.”

“Maybe it’s because there isn’t anything to think of?”

“Nah, I’m just tired,” she said dismissively.

“Gee thanks, Trish, you wait, I’ll turn you into a toad when you’re not looking.”

“Don’t worry, Trish, I’ll take you to the garden pond,” said Livvie.

“Thanks, Livvie, ‘cept I doan wanna be turned into a frog.”

“I said, toad, young lady.”

“Alright then, toad, they’re all the bloody same.”

I nearly choked on my surprise. “They are not the same and I’ll thank you to not use such language, young lady.”

She blushed and said, “Sorry, Mummy. I thought froads and togs, oops, I mean trogs and foads, I mean those green hoppity things. I thought they were all the same.”

“They’re not, darling. Frogs and toads are both amphibians…”

“That’s what I meant, ambivalent?”

“No, darling, amphibians.”

“Ambiphians.”

“No, am-phib-ians.”

“Am-phib-ians,” she repeated, “ yeah, smelly wet things what hop.”