The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1739 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The joys of marking exam papers–I don’t think–or should that be they don’t think, or they don’t read the questions properly. I honestly wonder about the kids I’m teaching–how did they get here in the first place, because some of them don’t seem able to read or write coherently, so how did they get the required A-levels? I don’t remember the university offering free places as raffle prizes–so maybe they got lost going to a party or something and stayed. It certainly seems that very few came here to study or learn anything. I mean, one had spelt dormouse with three Os, as in door-mouse. One of the first things I tell them is that the name originates from the Latin dormio to sleep. In other words a mouse that sleeps, given it hibernates for half its life, it’s a reasonable epithet.

Marking these things is the nearest I get to true masochism: did you know the green stuff in plants is chlorine plasters; that, the reason Carl Linné gave rise to the binomial system of naming things with Latin names, was because he couldn’t speak English. The seashore is called the littoral zone, because it contains lots of litter, washed up by the tide. Did you know Charles Darwin was born in Australia, and that they named the town after him? No, neither did I, nor I suppose would the man himself; but then I’m not sure he’d have voted for evolution of the species by natural elections.

I stopped for a cuppa before I pulled all my hair out. While I was making it, Tom came through. I grumbled about the standard of the answers to fairly broad questions and he told me it was what happened when we had a housewife superstar working there. I shut up after that.

Something I hadn’t appreciated was that Gareth had a brother, a twin brother called Geraint, who had called by to see Tom and collect his stuff. Geraint didn’t know his brother was engaged–they’d fallen out after the death of their parents–they were killed while abroad, working for the British Council.

According to Tom, he thought he was seeing a ghost when Geraint walked into his office. He’s a pilot with Virgin, and a good friend of Richard Branson. He was unaware that he was an uncle and Tom invited him to dinner that evening to meet his nieces. I reminded Tom that only one of them was Gareth’s, the other was Des’ daughter.

He simply shrugged and wandered off reminding me to cook something nice for our guest. Yeah, wonderful. He did resist the urge to say that, as mistress of the house, it was my job to organise such things. If he had I’d probably have gone off in a sulk for the next week: that he didn’t showed he was getting to know me far too well.

About four papers from the end, I called James and told him to meet me at a particular pub at one o’clock. It was then half past eleven and I hoped I could get the rest done by then.

I did but it was a real trial. I went off to meet him in something of a strop because when I thought about Tom saying about the housewife superstar business, it suddenly occurred to me that these weren’t from our university, they were from Sussex–unless he meant that my television film encouraged loads of teenagers to want to study ecology or biology. However, it seems that many of them have little idea of what they were getting into. Mitosis–something on the end of mi-feetsis.

I drove out to the pub, to the north of the city and parked. Not being sure which car James was driving, I waited until exactly one before I got out and entered the pub. He wasn’t to be seen. I ordered a drink and sat at a table declining to order any food until James arrived.

At twenty past one, I sent him a text message asking where he was. I got no answer. At one forty, I called his mobile, but it wasn’t answered. I began to worry. If he was delayed he’d have said. He’d have done the same if he’d got lost. Something had happened and I doubted it was just his car breaking down.

I called Andy Bond and explained what had happened so far. He shared my concerns but suggested that if James had come across something he felt needed investigating, he’d go ahead and do it without realising the time. I agreed it was a scenario I’d considered as possibly one which had happened.

I went off shopping for dinner as Tom had suggested I do. I got some lovely braising steak at Morrison’s and bought a few more bits of veg suitable for a casserole, so a braised steak and onion casserole would be the meal–nothing too exciting, but it cost me twenty pounds for sufficient steak for everyone.

I had a sandwich, prepared the casserole and popped it in the Aga. Jacquie seemed to have coped quite well with the children and I thanked her for doing so. She was really pleased that I did so, that she nearly burst with pride. I slipped her an extra twenty pounds as an unofficial bonus.

I just had time to send Simon a text about our visitor to dinner before dashing off to collect the mouseketeers. I advised them that we had a visitor for dinner and who he was. They weren’t sure if it was a treat or a nuisance. To be honest, neither was I.

Simon sent me a text back to say that Sammi had impressed his IT manager and it was his suggestion that the bank sponsor her through university on the understanding that she worked for them for four years afterwards–the length of her course or pay back the sponsorship money. Given that she was living as one of our children, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Simon also said they’d be heading home early to be back for dinner at seven, but I wouldn’t hear how Sammi had fared by her own estimation until our guest left.

The girls went and changed and got stuck into their homework, so it would be cleared for later on. I wasn’t sure how much Geraint knew about what happened to Gareth, and I certainly didn’t want to be the first to break it.

I was far from looking forward to this meal and seeing someone who looked so much like our murdered friend, it was going to distract me and I’d be on edge the whole time in case I said something I shouldn’t.

I still hadn’t heard from James and I began to worry in earnest. I called Andy and asked him to list him as a missing person. The day was not improving.