Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 748 by Angharad

When I got home, after dinner, story time and beddy-byes for little girls, I called Simon. I said loudly, “Good Morning, Vietnam!” and I could hear him wince at the other end.

“I haven’t gone yet,” he sighed.

“I’m practising,” I laughed back at him.

“Oh, at what, becoming an audio hazard or a fog horn?”

“Gee thanks, Si, I was trying to cheer you up.”

“I wasn’t aware I was down until you phoned.”

“Hmm, does that mean you weren’t aware before … oh sod it … do you want me to ring off?”

“Not at all, so how has your day been?”

“I went to see Marguerite, the priest lady or should that be lady priest?”

“The one you want to marry you?”

“She’s already married, but I’d like her to marry us.”

“Wouldn’t that be bigamy?”

“If she married both of us, is there such an offence as trigamy?”

“Only in correct usage of the English language. It sounds like something Euclid did.”

“I suppose he’d have an angle on it,” I snapped back trying to prove I knew an ancient Greek or two as well.

“Good old Isosceles,” said Simon.

“That’s a type of triangle, isn’t it?”

“Well, it would be with Margaret….”

“Marguerite,” I interjected.

“Okay, with Marguerite, you an’ me; or on the other hand, Marg – a –whatever, her hubby an’ you.”

“I couldn’t handle a triangle,” I sighed, “preferred the castanets.”

“I thought that’s what they did to tom cats, or is it fishermen?”

“Yep, Spanish fishermen, dey cast-a-nets, ole. I’ve never seen tom cats do it, but they could I suppose, some look quite intelligent and fairly dextrous.”

“Cathy, what are you talking about? Dextrous moggies? Does that mean they’re on drips or something?”

“Drips? Oh dextrose? Very good Simon, for a drip that was clever.”

“Hoy, I resemble that.”

“Yes, I know,” I sniggered down the phone.

“So, tell me what happened with wossername?”

“Who? Isosceles?”

“No the woman vicar, or is she a rectum?”

“I beg your pudding?”

“Rector–that’s the word, made an arse of myself didn’t I?”

“Simon, have you been snorting something?”

“How’d ya guess? Couldn’t get coke had to use Pepsi, it’s messy and the straw hurts up one’s nose.” At this I fell about laughing and nearly dropped the phone.

“There we are, that’s what a loony looks like,” said Stella as she walked past carrying Puddin’.

“Just look in the mirror, missus,” I called back.

“I’m not a missus,” complained Simon.”

“Not you, I was talking at your father’s other idiot offspring.”

“Oh Stella, how did I guess that – hang on, waddyamean, other idiot offspring?”

“Oh, did I say that?” I sniggered, this conversation was getting sillier.

“Yes you bloody well did.”

“Oh well, if you say so, I must have done.”

“I’m waiting,” he said.

“Doesn’t your father pay you enough?”

“What?”

“Wel,l if you’re having to wait on tables in the evenings, he can’t be.”

“I’m saving for my first divorce, it’ll be a bitch, I’m sure of it, smart aleck woman will give me hell. So, I need all the money I can get.”

How could I top that one? Not without it getting very silly. “You could always talk to her nicely, I hear she’s a sucker for sweet nothings.”

“If she divorces me, it won’t be sweet nothings she’ll be after.”

“Haven’t you got to get married first?”

“Someone told me it’s cheaper if you do it before the wedding.”

“It probably is.”

“So what did you talk about with thingamyjig?”

“Oh this and that, the cost of postage in Timbuctoo, you know, like you do?”

“What is the cost of postage in Timbuctoo?”

“Neither of us knew, so we missed an opportunity to learn something.”

“Yes, I can see that, anything else?”

“The importance of Christianity in Gengis Khan’s foreign policy statements.”

“I thought he was a Mongol?”

“I hope you’re not implying he had Down’s syndrome?”

“I’m not, I’m merely stating that he wasn’t Christian, so its importance was minimal.”

“Yes, that’s what we discovered, you are so clever, Simon.”

“Cathy, why are you taking the urine?”

“What do you mean?” I had difficulty speaking I was laughing so much.

“You know damn well what I mean.”

“Okay,” I said getting hiccups from laughing.

“Have you been drinking, woman?”

“Me, how dare you? I’m a good girl I am.”

“Since when?”

“I had confession today.”

“Confession – of what?”

“That I didn’t want to marry you – just yet.”

“And?”

“That was it, Marguerite said she was busy for the next ten years and to come back then.”

“She didn’t, did she?”

“No, course not.”

“So what did she say?”

“Come back when we’re ready.”

“Really?”

“Do you think I’d joke about something that important?”

“Duh!"