Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 743 by Angharad

We spent the next quarter of an hour picking up small shards of porcelain china from the kitchen floor and wiping up the tea – which seemed to have developed the same sort of motive force as a tsunami; and spread all over the kitchen floor except the measure which splattered all over me.

“Want another one?” asked Stella, and I nodded yes, before dashing upstairs to change my pyjamas. They were pink silk with dormice printed all over them, Simon had found someone on the internet to make the fabric and then the jammies. I slipped on a teeshirt nightdress and rushed back downstairs to soak my precious night wear and try to remove the stain.

I re-seated myself at the table while my pyjamas soaked in a biological wash solution. The bucket was filled with tepid water so as not to fix the stains, and I’d have a better idea in the morning if it had worked. Morning? – ha, it was morning now, if we sat up much later it would be light again.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Stella pressed on from my interruption.

“Which one was that?” I feigned ignorance.

“Why you don’t want to marry Simon?”

“I didn’t say that, did I?”

“Not in so many words, but actions speak louder than words.”

“My dropping the cup, you mean?”

“Quite a coincidence don’t you think?” she was getting too good at this interrogation business.

“Do I?” I feigned ignorance again. “Maybe I just let it slip because I was tired.”

“You don’t look tired.”

“Stella, I am exhausted.”

“Okay, but you hide it well.”

“Except I get clumsier than normal and drop things.”

“You still haven’t told me why you aren’t marrying Simon?”

“Haven’t had time.”

“It only takes about half an hour,” she countered.

“What does?”

“Getting married.”

“Eh?”

“A marriage ceremony takes about half an hour unless you pad it out with hymns and readings.”

“Oh that, again.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Who said I didn’t want to marry Simon?”

“I did,” she said blushing slightly but looking me straight in the eye.

“Well, you’re wrong, so there.” I turned and fled the field of battle and locked myself in my bedroom. Stella knocked on my door a few minutes later but I ignored her and eventually cried myself into a dreamless sleep.

I woke to hear a knocking on the door, I was exhausted, and my eyes were sore and my eyelashes all stuck together. “Mummy, let me in, pwease.” I dragged myself off the bed and opened the door. “Mummy, me was fwightened you’d weft us.”

“Left you? Oh my darling, I wouldn’t do such a thing to you.”

“But you doa was wocked.”

“I’m sorry, my poppet, I didn’t realise I’d locked it. I wasn’t trying to keep you out.” Okay, I was lying or partly; it wasn’t Meems I was trying to keep out.

“Can we have some bweakfuss?”

“Of course, come along, sweetheart.” I held out my hand and she gripped it tightly as we went downstairs where her two sisters were waiting.

“Mummy,” they both squealed excitedly and hugged me. I wanted to burst into tears of shame, how could I even think about shutting them out of my life. But that was what I had done, even though I hadn’t meant to. I didn’t even want to shut Stella out of my life, just her questioning. I couldn’t handle her questions.

“Okay, my babies, let’s have some breakfast.” I poured out bowls of cereal, made toast and cups of squash. I made some tea and ate a piece of toast, then I made some fresh tea and toast and took it up to Stella.

“Uh,” she said looking at me with bleary eyes. “What time is it?”

“About ten.”

“Oh, goodness, I need to feed Puddin’. I thought you weren’t talking to me?”

“Stella, you're my sister, how could I not talk to you.”

“Uh?” she said accepting the tray, “Thanks.” I left before she could switch her brain on.

Today, I was going to take things easy. I had a chicken to cook for lunch and I needed to do some washing, but the weather looked fine, in fact the sun might even be shining. Oh to be riding my bike, but other things took priority, three of them sitting at the table and eating toast and jam.

“What shall we do today?” I asked them.

“Can we go to the zoo, Mummy?” asked Trish.

“I’ve taken you there before, haven’t I?”

“Yes, but I’d like to go again.” The other two agreed with Trish so I agreed we could go there after lunch.

“Can’t we go earlier, Mummy, we’ll miss out seeing it all otherwise.” Stella came down as Trish was pleading with me.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“They want to go to the zoo, and I have a chicken to cook.”

“Can’t you set the oven on the timer to switch off at a certain time?”

“I think so, I’ve never actually tried it, other than to switch the oven on at a certain time.”

“Well do that, we’ll have the chicken at teatime.”

“I suppose I could, I hadn’t thought of doing that. Yeah okay, we’ll do that.”

I prepared the chicken and the potatoes to roast, then did the carrots and cabbage and put them in water in the saucepans, they wouldn’t take too long to cook when we got back. I set the timer on the oven and sent the girls upstairs to get showered and dressed. Once that was done we made sandwiches and drinks loaded up the cooler bag with the food and drinks and off we went.

Puddin’ slept most of the time in her buggy with a parasol keeping the sun off her. The breeze at times felt cold but the sun was warm–increasingly so as we went into the afternoon. The girls tried to visit every section, laughing at the monkeys and squealing at the snakes.

They conned us into paying for a ride on a camel and Stella and I waited with the baby while they wandered off and came back. “It’s years since I went to a zoo,” Stella said wistfully, “I was frightened because Daddy said he was going to sell us to the monkey house. I wouldn’t go in there; I screamed the place down.”

“My father threatened to feed me to the lions, because I was such a wuss. Mummy persuaded him that they probably wouldn’t eat me, I was too wet. It was years before I understood what that meant.”

“I think they might have been surprised when you turned the tables on the pussycats.”

“Stella, you have more confidence in me than I do.”

“Ah, sometimes the onlooker sees more of the game. Look out here comes the camel express and our three adventurers.” She said pointing behind me.