The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2331 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Why can’t Auntie Stella have a bit of fun without you wanting to pour cold water on it?”

“You mean like agreeing to babysit for her?”

“No, but you are suspicious when she does go out, you shouldn’t be the only one allowed a night out.”

“Julie, I haven’t had a night out in months.”

“See, that’s why you’re taking it out on Auntie Stella.”

“I am not, I don’t mind her having some fun.”

“So why are you complaining.”

“Because I don’t need any more nieces or nephews.”

“So you’re the only one who’s allowed sex?”

“Don’t be so ridiculous.”

“Am I? You stopped me with Leon and have stopped me since. You stopped Sammi and now you’re criticising Auntie Stella. But it’s okay for you and Daddy to make the springs creak.”

“If you don’t like it here you could always move.”

“Like how could I afford to buy or rent, I’m trying to build a business?”

“Have you looked?”

“Not recently.”

“Little Cate’s house is available.”

“What? You want me to rent a house from you? That is beyond sick.” She stormed off and up to her room.

“She disnae see why she shood pay fa’ somethin’ she gets fa’ free.”

“Only because Simon, you and I pay all the bills, Daddy.”

“Aye, it’s a sair fecht but youngsters nivver appreciate whit their parents do fa’ them.”

I thought back to my teens, I probably didn’t appreciate it either, but then I didn’t ask to be born or choose my parents, they chose to have me so had to pay the consequences. Then again, I suppose I chose to invite Julie to stay. I just can’t win, can I? “I suppose not,” I agreed with him and felt myself growing hotter by the moment.

“Sometimes I think Julie is out of control, then she shows she isn’t and does or says something which is particularly astute and I’m left floundering again.”

“Aye, she’s nae sae dumb as ye a’ seem tae think she is.”

“I know, Daddy. I realise she doesn’t have Trish’s academic type of cleverness, but then Trish doesn’t have Julie’s down to earth, streetwise intelligence. I doubt Trish could run a business.”

“Och, gi’ ’er time.”

“I don’t think it’s her sort of bag, it would bore her and she’d starve to death quite quickly.”

“Dinna underestimate thae power o’hunger, an’besides wouldnae it depend on hoo she wis shown tae see business an’makin’money. Simon would hae a different model frae ye.”

“Probably, I’m disappointed in the way I deal with Julie at times, we seem to be at cross purposes or even at odds on occasions. I’m only ten years older than her but at times it feels like centuries.”

“Aye, ye’re a mither an’ that maks an awfy difference.”

“Does it or am I just old fashioned, still screwed up by the way my parents taught me to behave? It all seems so different today where parents have no control over their children and the children have no respect for anyone including themselves.”

“I dinna think it anythin’ new, there’s always been bairns wha ran wild an’parents wha couldnae control them. We jest seem tae notice it more.”

I wasn’t convinced by his argument but couldn't be bothered to debate the issue further. I left him and went up to see Julie who was busy texting someone. “Yes?” she said to me when I knocked and entered.

“If I upset you I apologise as it wasn’t my intention.”

She shrugged, “You didn’t exactly upset me, but sometimes you act like you’re everyone’s mother, including Auntie Stella and Daddy.”

“Sometimes it feels like I am. The problem is you all treat me like one when it suits you, then when I voice concerns about something you want to do, I’m made to feel like I’m in the wrong.”

“Sometimes you are wrong.”

“Because I care?”

“No we all know you care, perhaps too much at times, but it can be seen as constraining, it restricts too much.”

“Which is how I was brought up.”

“Yeah but you said your parents were two old fuddy-duddies.”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

“Okay, maybe you just implied it.”

“They were strict because they had strong feelings about how we should behave in public. I happen to agree with much of what they said. I find it ridiculous that if you can remember what happened the next day, you haven’t had a good time or enough booze. When I drive in town at night I see girls falling about the place because they’re drunk, I see them sitting or lying in the gutter unable to stand up let alone protect themselves. If that makes me old fashioned, I’m glad to be so. Very little in modern culture attracts me be it the total absorption with the pursuit of money or pure hedonism with no regard to anyone else which seems to apply to behaviour generally especially when driving. No one seems to give a shit anymore, and I don’t like it or wish to encourage it. I do care and I’m proud of it.”

I went to turn to leave and Julie said, “So do I, Mummy.”

I spun around, “Eh?”

“I care too, perhaps not as passionately as you do, but I care for those I love too. I’m also sickened by the way people act. I threw some woman out of the salon today because of the way she treated the girl cutting her hair.”

“What—you asked her to leave?”

“Ask would be a polite way of describing it and I certainly didn’t say please.”

“She was unpleasant?”

“She treated Gretchen like dirt, just because she’s Polish, she thought she was inferior—like some lackey. Told her to get her a cup of coffee. I got cross and told her to take her custom elsewhere.”

“Good for you, sweetheart.”

“That’s what one of our regulars said. I wasn’t so sure just in case she decides to make trouble for us. I asked Sammi to watch our facebook page, just in case.”

“Why does a social media page seem to be involved in everything?”

“It’s just the way it is, wait till you have to put Billie’s centre on it.”

“No way, Jose.”

“You’ll have to or miss out on half your client group.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yeah, we will.”

“Mummy, this is the twenty-first century. If you’re not on the ball someone else will run off with it. People who try to slow things down will be left behind.”

“In commercial things, maybe, in other things perhaps not.”

“It will be, Mummy, you’ll have to move with the times or get left behind. Ask Daddy, he’ll tell you. His bank’s got a facebook page.”

“Well of course they have, they want your money whether you’re a student or chairman of a company employing thousands.”

Julie shook her head, “If you can see it for that, why can’t you see it for other things? Don’t you want dozens of people to say they went to your nature centre and had a good time or learnt this or that?”

“Of course I do.”

“I which case you’ll have to do facebook or something similar.”

Oh bugger, does that mean I really will have the sort of cretin who announces they just had a shit to all and sundry, or is that twatting or whatever they call it?