The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2008 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Turning round I saw Sammi running up behind me. “Here,” she handed me a notebook computer and a memory stick. “Your presentation is on the memory stick, there should be a computer in the room, but have this one just in case.”

“Thank you, sweetheart, I’ll see you later.”

“Dr Watts, the board is waiting,” huffed the dolly secretary bird as she tapped one of her platform soles on the carpet. I said nothing, I certainly wasn’t going to apologise to her or her Jimmy Choos.”

“Ah, Cathy, glad you could make it,” was slight rebuff from Henry who was chairing the meeting.

“Yes, terribly sorry had a computer malfunction.”

“Okay, we’re a bit tight for time so please if you could go straight into your presentation?”

“Of course.” I located the computer from which the projector ran–gosh this was a smart one–it threw up images onto the glass table the board was meeting around, each one forming like a separate screen before each of the members.

I rattled off my stuff after showing a short clip of the woodland and some of the birds, then I showed them the two sites and the findings of the two surveys, the first which I considered to be inadequate and the second which involved me and was thus better–except I didn’t tell them that.

One snotty bloke of about fifty something, who looked as if he’d eaten too many corporate banquets kept looking at his watch. Finally I finished my presentation and asked for questions. He was first up, “Tell me, who is Billie King, the centre will be called after?”

I was gobsmacked–this guy didn’t do his homework. I was just about to go for his jugular when Henry stepped in, presumably to save a blood bath. “My granddaughter who tragically died at the age of twelve.”

“Thank you, Henry. My next question is, laudable as wildlife is, shouldn’t we be concentrating on shareholders, not saving squirrels or other irrelevant vermin? I mean the posters with the bimbo holding the rat was all very well, but my shareholders would prefer better returns on their incomes.”

I began to feel steam coming from my ears as my blood began to boil. I glanced at Simon who was clenching his fists.

Henry stepped in again, “Actually, since we sponsored the dormouse film our stock has risen by seven percent and the number of new current accounts amongst younger people and students has doubled. We are also the only bank with a green agenda which is attracting very good publicity.”

“I suspect an extra point five per cent interest would attract more.”

“I’m not sure it would, we have to fight fire with fire these days, and in these times of climate change and so on, to be the only ecologically responsible bank will pay dividends in the long run.”

“Long run, Henry, f’Chrissake, no one looks beyond six months in banking–get with the times.”

“George, I rather suspect that it was a similar sort of attitude amongst many of our fraternity which got us into this mess in the first place.”

“How much are we paying for this woodland and do we have timber rights for it?”

This time I decided to answer, “The answers to those questions are in my report–if you have difficulty reading it you should have notified the meeting secretary.”

He glared at me and Henry smirked. “How much are we paying you for this shit?” demanded George.

“Much less than they probably pay you for doing even less.”

That was a match to his blue touch paper. Even if I got sacked, it was worth it to see him almost pop and eyeball as he received my retort. One or two faces sniggered then regained control.

“I’ll have you know I represent a pension fund which invested a million pounds last year–what have your rodents contributed?”

Henry was about to speak when I glared at him and he let me represent myself. “I saved the bank more than that last year in energy efficiency–you should read your reports.”

“Is this true?” asked George, beginning to realise he wasn’t the most popular person in the room.

“It is, actually, and through Cathy we have also been reassessing security and that should save us another half a million a year for the next five years. In addition, through another of Cathy’s contacts, we’ve increased the computer security which alone in preventing much of the cyber fraud that goes on currently. We could be making savings of tens of millions of pounds every year.”

“With due respect, Henry...” which usually means anything but respect, “why do we need an ecologist–and why this one–shouldn’t we have gone out to tender to various universities?”

Simon clenched his fist again and looked very red in the face. However, Henry looked quite calm, even clinical–yeah, clinical–it turned out to be quite a prophetic term.

“You clearly don’t recognise Dr Watts?”

George shook his head and Simon smirked, he knew something I didn’t–like a coup de grace on its way.

“Dr Watts is a lecturer in biological sciences at Portsmouth University, being a lead on the field biology and ecology courses. She is also the lead on the recently completed first year of the mammal survey of Great Britain which is attracting a great deal of interest from the EU, and she is currently liaising with the EU to start the survey on the same sort of basis we’ve run ours. She is internationally recognised as a leading expert on the hazel dormouse and made the film the BBC have shown at least twice. She is currently researching one for the harvest mouse. The sponsorship we gave for the dormouse film provided us with a whole hour of publicity at peak time–to have run half a dozen adverts on commercial TV would have cost us at least three times as much, and been run while everyone was filling their kettle. They all saw our name at the beginning and end of the film.

“Dr Watts is also the model for the poster we did with the dormouse which has won us two awards–” that was news to me–“in addition, she is constantly seeking to improve our image with the public–who are after all, the people who loan us their money–in ways which cost us relatively little, but bring in new markets every time. Rather than questioning her salary perhaps we should be increasing it?”

A murmur of approval ran through the meeting with the exception of George who didn’t know when to quit. “I don’t recall anything in any minutes about appointing an ecological adviser?”

“There weren’t any, I appointed Cathy off my own bat and got her very cheaply, I thought.” A murmur of agreement followed his statement. Maybe I should ask for a pay rise? Only joking.

“I’m still baffled by how you chose to go for a wildlife centre to remember your granddaughter–why not a skate park or paddling pool–what’s the connection?”

“Tell him, Henry,” said someone close to his seat.

“I told you, Billie was my granddaughter, and I know she’d have approved of her name being associated with such a place–she really like nature.”

“So does my granddaughter, but I wouldn’t spend several million on such things even for her.”

“George, stick with pension funds–leave the clever stuff to me and my family.”

George looked bewildered.

“Cathy is Henry’s daughter in law,” said the woman sitting next to George–“you really should read your notes, George.” He went very red and glared at me, I beamed him a lovely smile while wishing he’d spontaneously combust–he didn’t, but his colostomy bag suddenly filled and began to leak. He gave his apologies and dashed out of the room leaving his spare bags behind.

“Thank you, Cathy,” Henry gave me my dismissal and I picked out my memory stick, and Sammi’s computer. Walking past George’s chair I picked up his spare bags and nodding to the meeting went out to the corridor. I stopped outside the gents and grabbing the first available man who was passing asked him to take them in to George.

He reappeared a moment later smirking. “A bit late I think–he’s covered in it.” I had no intention of seeing him humiliated like that now his threat had ceased so I asked the chap to find out what shirt size he was. He sighed but went in and asked.

“Seventeen,” he was about to go off when I stopped him.

“Had your lunch yet?”

“No, why?”

“Here’s sixty quid, go and get him a replacement shirt and you can keep the change.”

“Okay–you’re on.”

“Hadn’t you better tell him to wait and clean himself up. Oh and get him a white shirt. A pink tie on a blue striped shirt is so passé.” The youngster went back into the gents and I went off to find Sammi and some lunch.