Eventually we had to get up, and after breakfast, I showered with Mima, this time, I insisted she have her hair washed. She protested but not for long. The reminder she was going to see Dr Rose, and that he wouldn’t like dirty haired girls, was enough.

At the moment I don’t have a lot of reason to tart myself up, as my mother would have described it, wearing some tidy togs and some makeup. Admittedly, I had been fairly well dressed yesterday, but I decided to push the boat out to see Dr Rose and I dressed Mima accordingly. Being quite girly, she easily accepted the opportunity to wear one of her posh dresses.

I wore the YSL suit with the floral blouse, yes the one that Spike had parachuted down, the same one that featured in the meeting with the EU panel and I think featured in the photos in the bank literature. Mima wore the blue dress again, it was her favourite unless you asked her to pick it over the pink one.

Lunch was a low key affair, which we had early. I wore a pinny to keep my clothes clean and we wrapped Mima in a tea towel to try and stop her food from jumping off her plate and onto her dress. We had tuna sandwiches with salad to try and minimise the risk. Thankfully it worked, and we stayed clean and tidy.

Ah, I hear you ask, why didn’t you simply dress after lunch? I didn’t think we’d have time, the appointment was for two o clock and we had to drive there and park the car. Tom’s Landrover was leaking copious amounts of oil on the drive, so he’d borrowed my dad’s car–the Mondeo estate, so I was using the Golf. It’s a lovely car and much more manoeuvrable than the bigger Ford. It’s also quite snappy with good acceleration. I had remembered to put the child seat in the Golf, after asking Tom to take it out of my dad’s car.

At quarter past one we left for the hospital, Mima with her deformed rodent and a doll, me with the latest copy of Nature, which Tom had brought home from the department. I don’t know why I took it, I didn’t really get much chance to read any of it, except one or two letters and a quick flick through the adverts for jobs–not that I want one, but just looking keeps me abreast of what the opposition are doing.

Would I like a professorial chair? Maybe, but not at Portsmouth, Bristol possibly or even my alma mater, Sussex. However, I need my PhD plus some brain cells. Mima was busy reading a story book to her doll and the abominable dormouse and I was busy looking at sits vac, when we were called.

“Jemima Scott, please sit outside room two,” we rose and walked across the waiting room to a row of seats outside the consulting rooms.

“Jemima, Miss Watts, please do come in.” Mima dashed into the room to give Dr Rose a hug, while I followed as quickly as my heels would allow me.

He looked her over and seemed really pleased with her progress. I, however, wanted him to examine something else. “Dr Rose, could you examine her ears, please?”

“Her ears?” he looked puzzled, “I presume there’s a reason for you asking?”

“Yes, I wonder if she’s a little deaf.”

“Mima not a wittle deaf, Mima’s a wittle girw.”

“If I speak quietly, she doesn’t always hear me.” I spoke just loudly enough for Dr Rose to hear me, but Mima stood there looking confused.”

“What you say, Mummy?”

“See what I mean?” I said to the doctor.

“Hmmm, indeed. Right old girl, let’s have a look in your lugholes.” He sat her on the couch while he found an otoscope. “That’s a lovely dress, did Miss Watts buy it for you?”

“No, Mummy Caffy, buyed it for me.”

“She has very good taste.”

“I choosed it,” Mima voiced quite noisily.

“You have very good taste, too, then.”

“You not eatin’ Mima,” she squawked at him.

Dr Rose looked at her with total confusion, then at me. “I think she relates taste to something that is stuck in the mouth,” I said.

“Ah, now it makes sense.”

“Mima has wittle bwain, she understands.”

“That’s more than I do, kiddo,” said Dr Rose and we both had to look away to stop ourselves laughing. Eventually, he regained his composure and examined her ears. “They look a little inflamed, possibly a bit of glue ear. Has she complained about her ears?”

“Not to my knowledge,” I replied.

“Do you get sore ears, Jemima?”

“No, granddad has a saw, I seed it.”

“Do you get baddy ears, Meems?” She looked at me and nodded with great deliberateness as young children do. “Are they bad at the moment?” She shook her head.

“I’m going to give you some drops, Mima, will you let Mummy Cathy, put them in for you? They’ll make your ears better.” She nodded and sighed, he smiled at her. “What are we going to do with you, young lady?”

“Mummy gonna make dowwy a new dwess. Mummy, vewy cwever.”

“I think she is too, she made you better in a few short weeks, didn’t she?”

Mima nodded twice, each very purposefully again.

“I did nothing, just gave her a safe environment to recover.”

“Well it was nothing short of miraculous. I have a little boy who had a similar injury to Mima’s. He’s still in a wheelchair. I only wish you could do the same for him.”

“If I could I would willingly, but I didn’t do anything, honestly.”

“He’s from a children’s home.”

“I think I have enough trouble with the powers that be, at the moment.”

“You’d have no trouble with him, the home is at a loss at what to do.”

“How old is he?”

“A little older than Mima, only he was pushed down the stairs by another boy.”

“My house isn’t set up for a wheelchair, besides, wouldn’t the social services see it as a deliberate attempt to influence this case?”

“They could, I suppose.”

“Maybe, after the case is over, assuming we win.”

“You better had, or I shall write to the judge and tell him what I think of the old buzzard.” He paused for a moment, “Look, Patrick is the next patient, let me bring him in and just say hello to him.”

“I don’t know, Dr Rose. The last time I did something like this, I went home with a kitten.”

“Please, just meet him.”

“Oh, okay then.”

“Patricia, please,” he called from the door. I assumed I’d misheard him, until I saw the child the nurse brought in. Through the door came a child in a wheelchair. She was blonde with her long hair in ponytail, huge blue eyes and a gorgeous smile.

“Hello, Dr Rose,” said the child.

“Patwisha,” gasped Mima, whereupon she scrambled across the room and gave her a hug. The other child smiled, and she hugged Mima back.

“I’m sorry, I thought you said, Patrick,” I said to the doctor.

“I did, GID, something with which, I believe you have some acquaintance.”