The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2060 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The next day was Monday, even I could work that out, and that meant the kids had to be readied for another week at school. I rolled out of bed my shoulders and back a bit stiff, then I remembered I hauled a man off the bottom of a swimming pool and it might have something to do with it. Sloping into the shower, I noticed the wet towels on the floor, so Simon had been this way–why can’t he put the towels in the laundry basket or hang them up to dry–not just leave them on the bathroom floor? Men–I felt like screaming, but it would just give me a sore throat, and not all of them were that untidy.

It took me all of fifteen seconds to tidy up and then went in the shower where the warm water eased the stiffness in my back and limbs, then after drying and dressing it was time to rouse the sleeping school children and the older ones as well and organise breakfast.

Little Lizzie woke up and I had to feed her. Stella had been kind enough to do it yesterday and would probably do it during the day, but it was my turn now, so I was making toast and tea with a baby clamped to my breast–so now you know why we have two arms. I managed to scoff a piece of the charred bread myself along with a banana, and I also downed a cuppa before handing the replete infant to Jacquie who was going to change and bath her–not necessarily in that order.

Phoebe was still having awful problems of conscience over the baby, who was her niece after all, but I insisted she carry on with her course considering her far too young to sacrifice her life to help her brother and his little girl. I knew from listening to others that in the end she would be left with all sorts of regrets because you can’t relive a lost youth however hard you try. I know this from my own short life, I didn’t have a proper girlhood, and even watching the children doing so, doesn’t compensate. Life as a woman is harder without serving the apprenticeship before hand.

I agreed we could go and see Neal for evening visiting, he was still in hospital and when we last saw him he was very sad. I began to wonder if the hospital was doing him any good and I sent Simon a text asking him if we could afford to send Neal to the clinic which Stella had attended and seemed to improve so much–though it did nothing for me–I did remember being saved by the phantom cat.

Simon texted back, that if it got rid of the baby, it was a good idea. Well, he didn’t actually say that, he said if it made Neal well enough to look after the baby, he’d find some charitable fund to pay for it.

I took the girls to school and went on to the university, I had invigilating to do, and took my laptop with me and discovered that Neal shared the same GP as us. I sent him an email asking him to call me after lunch explaining why I wasn’t free until then and added my mobile number.

Every so often I’d wander up and down the rows of desks in the examination hall and cast a wary eye over the victims of the torture we’d set up for them–these were internal exams to check how many had stayed awake occasionally in the lectures. I had two questions to mark, and a colleague had two as well. That’s even more boring than invigilating, marking exam papers, ask any teacher and they’ll tell you. Unfortunately, you can’t fall asleep during the marking because the borderline cases require careful assessment to see if they deserve a chance to continue, face a resit or an interview before being sent down. We are an academic establishment not a nursery for adolescents, so those who won’t make the grade no matter how hard we try to help them, have to learn the realities of life at some point. It’s never nice to take someone off a course, but it’s even harder to watch them struggle in vain against the tide of ignorance washing over them, especially for three or four years–so we go for academic euthanasia and end it.

I recalled a remark about evolution that one failed student made on his final exam paper–it was final in his first year, he didn’t have the inclination or intention to work, so he got the push. On a question I marked on evolution he wrote, ‘Evolution is about the adaption of individuals to their environment. Miss Watts has evolved the most wondrous pair of tits I’ve ever seen, however, quite what use they currently have in a biology department I’m not sure, but I could quite easily become adapted to playing with them all day. This is evolution in action.’

It wasn’t, it was a demonstration of lack of evolution and thus a dead end, most of his contemporaries were much better adapted to coping with the course and evolved into graduates, he ended up working in a supermarket stacking shelves. I’m not being superior here, because someone has to do the job, but a biology degree would have given him more options for a career than tins of baked beans. Needless to say, he wasn’t interviewed just terminated when I showed the remark to Tom who grinned then pretended to get cross when I pointed out how sexist the remark was as well as patronising. He wrote a snotty letter to the lad telling him his presence was no longer welcome.

I had just collected in the papers when a colleague came through and said the local press were looking for me. “Did you tell them where I was?” I asked anxiously.

“Cathy, I might not be as clever as you but I’m not entirely stupid you know. I told them to speak to your manager.”

“Prof Agnew?”

“Who else?”

“Okay, thanks.”

I sealed the box the papers were in, signed through the seal and took them over to the offices, giving them to Pippa. “Gee thanks,” she greeted me, “what I always wanted, except the ink leaves stains on your backside.”

I chuckled. I’d heard variations of it several times and it still made me smile or even laugh depending upon the overall performance. Pippa’s was very good and got a chuckle. “Oh that nice Mr Jackson from the Echo was looking for you.”

“Was he?”

“Seems you dragged a body from a swimming pool and although he was well dead you made him breathe again–sounds about right–did you walk across the pool to get to him?”

“Very bloody funny, I don’t think. I saw him knocked into the pool–some big bloke fell off the diving board and hit him when he was bent over the side talking to a swimmer.”

“But you did pull him out?”

“Meee pull an unconscious man from the pool–be real–I’m a girl, remember? No muscles–two men pulled him out, I just raised the alarm.”

“Pull the other one, Cathy, Tom told me you’d dived in to save him.”

“How would he know, he was in his usual semi-comatose state after a Sunday dinner and two glasses of wine?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” she said seeing his door open and my adopted father emerge before I did.