Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 738 by Angharad

“How did it go? Do I have to buy a new hat?” Stella asked on our arrival back at my house.

“New hat? What on earth for? You rarely wear hats,” I was completely at a loss to understand what she was talking about.

“For your wedding – have you set a date?”

“Weddings? Dates? No I went to talk to her about the healing business.”

“Oh. Okay, what did she make of it?”

“She was disappointingly traditionalist and even tried to suggest that she had been told of a sign she would receive. I was apparently that sign.”

“That must be a disappointment.”

“What must?”

“Expecting a sign and you turn up.” She sniggered at her own joke.

“She as good as asked for a demonstration.”

“She did what?” Stella looked shocked.

“She took me to meet an elderly couple. She’s got advanced breast cancer with secondaries in the lung and he’s got an undiagnosed colon cancer. He knows nothing about it, she now knows everything and is preparing to die.”

“You told her?” Stella looked even more shocked.

“No, we held hands and she sort of went into a trance and saw what she needed to see to enable her to die without fear.”

“I think I might like some of that.”

“Stella, you should live for at least another fifty or sixty years.”

“Okay, give me some of it then.”

“I would most likely be dead myself. All these oestrogens by then will have had some effect upon my physiology.”

“I think they’ve had a remarkable effect already, one of which I know Simon heartily approves.”

“I mean less desirable ones, like cancer or heart disease or something like that.”

“You can always stop taking them in your fifties, and have a sort of menopause.”

“No thanks, I’ll take my chances and keep my boobs.”

“You could always get implants.”

“What hormone ones?”

“That wasn’t what I meant, although you could do that, I was meaning breast implants.”

“Not at the moment, thank you. I prefer the organic ones, you know, grow your own variety.”

“But surely if you decided which size of implant you had, wouldn’t that be, pick your own?”

“Stella, that was dreadful.”

“Yeah, but it made you laugh, didn’t it.” I had to agree it had, especially as she had witnessed said chortle. “So what else happened?”

“Not a lot, as we were walking back to the house, I asked her if her daughter had a problem.”

“And?”

“She had a mark on her face, a port-wine stain.”

“A haemangioma you mean?”

“Do I? If you say so; anyway, I knew that it had cleared.”

“Wow, she’ll love you.”

“Why did I do something wrong?”

“No way, au contraire it will save her loads of embarrassment in later life. Why did you do that and not save the old couple? Was it easier?”

“Stella, I have no control of what the energy does. I’m just a facilitator, I get it there, it does its own thing. I didn’t even meet the girl, let alone notice she had a red mark on her face. I had nothing to do with the old couple, except actually meet them. I took them the energy, they or it decided how it would work out, not me.”

“So maybe it happened, the child thing, I mean, just to give Marguerite her sign, quite a distinct one.”

“Yeah, that was all I could think.” I agreed and put the kettle on.

“Maybe she influenced it?”

“Could be, it wasn’t me, not consciously at any rate, although, I would certainly have sympathies with any child with a red mark on their face.”

“Especially a little girl, you mean, as the mother of three girls?”

“Maybe, I don’t know – I mean I wouldn’t want to see a boy with a mark on his face either.”

“But isn’t it more important for a girl to be seen as pretty or beautiful and flawless than a boy?” Stella was getting very stereotyped.

“No, what about Trish and me?”

“Oh, I was counting you two as females.”

“Okay, what about Simon? Wouldn’t he find it embarrassing to have to deal with a facial anomaly or blemish?”

“He wouldn’t be half as embarrassed as I would,” Stella almost cringed.

“I think he would and it would sadly reduce his success in the marriage stakes.”

“Not as much as yours or mine, we’d be much more affected.”

“What about seeing the inner beauty? Isn’t that what it’s all supposed to be about? You encouraged Simon to do so with me when he first found out.”

“That was different, your anomaly was correctable.”

“Oh come on, Stella, mine was an anomaly, it was ten levels above a mere mark on the face.”

“I don’t think so, it wasn’t obvious without looking under the wraps.”

“Okay, so I could disguise it, but it had legal implications not to mention those of provision of heirs and so on.”

“The issue of issue?” she said laughing.

“Stella, I’m trying to be serious.”

“Sorry, Cathy, I find all of this a wee bit tedious.”

“What the healing stuff?”

“No, this examining to the nth degree anything to do with your femaleness or lack of it. You’re female now, accept it and move on. You making tea or what?”