The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1638 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

At two, I opened the door to a tall woman who wore a long skirt of a paisley pattern in mainly reds, on top of which was a bright green blouse, a red cardigan and a scarf of multicoloured stripes. This was set off with her bright red hair and contrasting pink framed glasses. She could only be poetess or a therapist–a colour blind one.

“Hello,” she said in quite an educated voice, “I hope I’ve got the right place, come to see Jacquie Morse, I’m Dr Elizabeth Todmorton.”

“Cathy Cameron, Jacquie’s employer–we spoke on the phone earlier.”

“Ah yes, nice to meet you, Mrs Cameron.”

She put down her brief case and we shook hands once she’d taken off her purple and black striped woolly glove.

“Would you like to use my study?”

“Sounds excellent.” I led her to my room and she stood at the door and did a panoramic view of the place. “Intriguing–oh, love the dormice.” She spotted a bronze ornament Simon had bought me ages ago of a nest of two sleeping dormice. “Wow, that’s heavier than it looks,” she said picking it up. Then she spotted a photo of a dormouse, and finally the original photo of me that was used for the bank’s poster. “You certainly have a thing about dormice, don’t you?”

“Just a bit,” I smiled, “I’ll get Jacquie, would you like a cuppa?”

“Could I have a black tea?”

“Earl Grey, Lady Grey, green tea, Darjeeling or bog standard?”

“Oh green, that would be wonderful. Are all these children yours?”

“Yes–the one on her own with the bicycle–she died last year.”

“Oh, I am sorry. I’ll sit here and fold my arms,” she said sitting herself on the leather sofa by the side of the fireplace.

I left her to play with her brief case and went and got Jacquie. “Dr Todmorton is waiting for you in my study. If you wait a second, I’ll make her tea and then I’ll introduce you.”

I made Jacquie a cup of coffee and took both drinks down on a tray, Jacquie was shaking too much to carry a cup or mug. “Just relax, she’s only going to talk to you.”

“The first time I heard that, a WPC took me to see the senior detective dealing with my case. I’ve never forgotten it since, nor relaxed when dealing with strangers.”

“Dr Elizabeth Todmorton, might I present my housekeeper and nanny, Jacquie Morse.” I put the tray down on the coffee table and left them to it, after asking the shrink to send me her account.

At three I had to go to collect the girls, and passed the Mercedes SLE parked in the drive–therapy obviously pays, for some people anyway.

The girls were in a funny mood when I met them at the school. “Okay, what’s the problem?”

“Trish asked about the Dies Irae and Judgement Day.”

“Asked who?”

“Sister Gonzales.”

“She sounds like a Yorkshire-woman,” I joked.

“She’s from Spain,” declared Trish.

“I was joking, Trish.”

She folded her arms and sulked.

“Okay, what happened?”

“She said that on the Day of Judgement only good people of faith will ascend into heaven with Jesus, all the rest will go to purgatory or hell, including the non-believers, homosexuals, transvestites and murderers.”

“Am I going to hell, Mummy?” asked Trish who had tears in her eyes. “I’m not homosexual am I?”

“No, you’re not going to hell nor are you gay, you’re a nice young woman.” This was why I worried about sending them to a convent school, some of the nuns were throwbacks to the middle ages, who believed all the crappy cant they dispensed.

“She went on about how those homosexuals who got married to each other would be going straight to hell–because the pope said so.”

“Does that mean anyone who changes from a boy to a girl will go to hell too, Mummy?”

I turned in my seat to face the back of the car, “Let’s get this over and done with once and for all. There is no heaven or hell, and any old buzzard who frightens children with threats of going to hell or purgatory is talking nonsense. If there is a hell it’s in this life and created and run by small minded individuals who believe fundamentalist rubbish, and whose prejudice makes those who are the target of their bigotry, feel like they are in hell.” I was well away on my soapbox.

“So I’m not going to hell?” Trish asked anxiously, not having computed my previous statement.

“No, darling, there isn’t one, just the nasty bigotry of some silly old women and one silly old fool in Rome.”

“Is that the pope?” she asked.

“Yeah, the old fool in the white dress, who represents the bride of the church in its marriage with Jesus.”

“Wouldn’t that be same sex?” observed Livvie.

“Probably,” I replied not having thought of it that way before.

“Hypotwits,” said Trish and they all laughed at her word mangling.

On our return, the Mercedes had gone and I made no mention of our visitor until I was able to speak with Jacquie on her own. “How did it go with Dr Colour-blind?”

“Oh I know, I felt like asking if her dressmaker had a good sense of humour, but you know these shrinks, they don’t always laugh at the same things as the rest of us.”

“She seemed okay to me, was she with you?”

“Yes, she was alright, at least she wasn’t shocked by my revelations, or if she was she hid it very well.”

“Did she believe you when you said you didn’t do it?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t–I didn’t think it was important–more the way I’d been treated ever since–until I came here–I told her that you and your family were the first group of people who accepted me as another human.”

I blushed but smiled, it was after all a nice compliment.

“I told her about last night and your dramatic rescue–and how I promised not to do anything to myself for a couple of months. She approved of your idea. I think she likes you, ma’am, because she said I was in exactly the right sort of caring environment to feel protected.”

“Good, when do you see her again?”

“Next week, she gave me a number to call her on if I felt desperate but she thought you could deal with most things from what I’d told her.”

Why do people build me up and then try to knock me down? I do my best for them as I can, it’s not always possible to do it to their timetable, and some are so ignorant even when you do what they want.

After dinner, Jacquie and I took the dog for a brisk walk, in the dark we could see Venus and Jupiter in conjunction and opposite them, Mars. According to astrology, Mars opposing Jupiter, my ruling planet, might explain why I feel so tired all the time. It’s probably as good an idea as any other.

Jacquie was knocked out to be able to recognise a few planets together with the full moon, which bathed everything in a silvery light–very atmospheric.