The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1289 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Lady Cameron, how nice to see you again.” The way Sister Maria was smiling meant she wanted something.

“Good afternoon, Sister Maria.”

“Could I have a quick chat in my office, girls, please play in the yard for a few minutes while I speak with your mother.”

I rolled my eyes to the girls and followed the headmistress into the school. She invited me to sit. “I hope none of my girls have been in trouble have they?”

“No, not at all, in fact they’ve been especially well behaved recently. However, it was something they said, or rather Trish said.”

“She hasn’t said something unfortunate has she? She is inclined to use words she doesn’t comprehend fully and sometimes out of context.”

“You might consider it was unfortunate, but I don’t.”

Now I was curious, what could she have said that was going to have that effect? I soon found out.

“You’ll be aware of this,” she showed me a photocopy of a review of the Scottish play done by my school when I played Lady M. as it appeared in the Evening Post.

“Yes, I remember it from its original publication.”

“It suggests that you were a wonderful Lady Macbeth.”

“It also suggested tips for horse racing, no one with any sense backed them.”

“You are far too modest, Lady Cameron.”

“Surely you didn’t bring me here to comment on my acting skills from ten years ago?”

“Yes and no,” she went on and I thought we might now be coming to the point. “We’re doing the Scottish play, and we need someone who’s done it to help coach one or two of our actors.”

“I can’t do something like that, I’m not a trained actress, what I did, even if I were to remember it, might be quite unsuitable for someone else. Also given the total fiction of Shakespeare’s play compared with what is known about the real Macbeth, and the reasons why he was rather anti-Scottish and the fact that the king was technically Scots, it’s all nonsense. As I’m technically Scots too, I find it rather insulting.”

“I suppose with a name like Cameron, you would have Scottish ancestry, although on your husband’s side.”

“I was born in Dumfries, I think that makes me Scottish, and my maiden name was Watts, if you remember–a Scottish name. I also have to plead too many demands on my time to do anything else–my sister in law is unwell at present and I’m having to look after her toddler as well as my own brood. Simon keeps telling me he’s going to have the house remodelled as a giant shoe.”

Sister Maria snorted and then laughed heartily, “You are so funny, Lady Cameron, I wish you were one of my teachers.”

“Please don’t wish that on me, dealing with undergrads was bad enough. No, teaching youngsters is a vocation, teaching at a university is aggravation.”

“Oh, I’d have thought your students come with hearts and minds prepared.”

“They do but it isn’t necessarily in the same direction that we’d like them to go. Their hearts are prepared to fall in love with as many partners as they can, and their minds are prepared to focus on this to the exclusion of their studies.”

“You’re forgetting I’ve seen you at work, you’re a good communicator, very attractive and know what you’re talking about–it’s a winning combination.”

“Attractive to whom, old men with beer bellies and pebble glasses?”

“No to younger men and as a role model for younger women. After your talk, we had a hundred per cent rise in the number of girls taking biology at A-S Level, who want to be...”

“Television presenters,” I offered.

“Why yes, did I telegraph that conclusion?”

“A bit; however, I think you should point out that being a film maker is different to just reading someone else’s script. I wrote and directed it and co-produced it with Alan. I had to do the research for it and sit down and decide what I wanted it to say, which was more than, ‘dormice are cute’ or ‘making this is a dawdle.’”

“I’m well aware of that, however, I’m not sure the girls always appreciate that.”

“I might be prepared to come and tell some of the girls that.”

“I wondered if you might, we have some very high aspirants, I’m sure your advice would be listened to.”

“You trapped me like the professional you are, Sister Maria, and my ego walked straight into it. If you have a whole load of wannabe Lady Macs waiting for my definitive interpretation, I shall scream blue murder and leave.”

“Would I do something like that?” she smiled like an angel, but I knew there was a demon inside her.

“Yes, especially for the benefit of your pupils.”

“My eyes are fine, apart from some myopia.”

“I always thought that was a species of plant.”

“Very funny as always, Lady Cameron.”

“I think I need to get home and get the brood fed and watered for the night.”

“Would moving Dunsinane wood to Glamis have upset many dormice?”

“It wouldn’t now but we don’t know what things were like in those days, distribution was likely to have been quite different. If I get that question, I shall treat it with the contempt it deserves.”

She looked horrified but I knew she was quite capable of relying on my dislike of public scenes to prevent me reacting too theatrically to any such question.

“Lady Cameron, you astonish me,” she gasped and I gave her an old fashioned look. Then she sniggered, “As if I would?”

“Nah, you’d rephrase it seeing as I’d heard it already. I may be as daft as a dormouse but I’m nae a’bodie’s foo’ d’ya ken?”

“Aye that I dae, hen.” She said with a much more convincing accent than mine had been.

“Maybe it’s you who should coach your wannabe actresses, though I suspect Lady M would have been more a hielander, than the Lallans we’re using.”

“Very likely, but you see it needs someone with fresh eyes to interpret that fact.”

“Get them to watch Mel Gibson in Braveheart to see how not to do it.”

“What about, Christopher Lambert in Highlander?”

“I don’t remember that one.”

“There can only be one,” she said and pretended to cut my head off.”

“Oh yes, I saw that at the uni film club, with Sean Connery playing a Spaniard or something and sounding like Bond, Jamesh Bond.”

“That’s the one.”

“Mind you he does the same in all his films, he doesn’t so much act as win you onto his side so you’ll believe he’s acting.” I opined, not liking him that much or his alleged violence towards women.

“Isn’t that acting by any other name?”

“Oh very clever, headmistress, brava.”

She took a deep curtsey and smiled. “So can we set a date for your talk on film making and Shakespearean theatre?”

I simply groaned, I’d been out manoeuvred again.