The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2839 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“Don’t those nails uh—complicate things?” said Diane as I took the file of mail from her.”

“At first but I’ve adapted, I’ll need to be shot of them when the dormouse season starts...”

“Why?”

“Because we actually handle the little darlings.”

“Ah—I could see a difficulty there.”

“Quite, but if you have two daughters who have a beauty salon, you have to encourage them occasionally.”

“Oh absolutely.”

I flipped open the folder and started to read my mail and she left closing the door behind her. It was nice that I didn’t have any meeting this week so I do things like scheduling supervision of the few people I look after, reply to my letters or do some of the survey work while I was in work not at home. If I’m not careful, I could quite easily become a seeming workaholic like Daddy, who leaves before me most days and returns home quite a bit later than I do, but then the university were so glad to have me act up as professor, that they agreed to me only working the same hours I was before because I have young children and because my husband works away from home most weekdays.

It was Monday, yet again—how is it that time goes twice as quickly at weekends than it does during the week—unless you’re trying to finish something to a deadline. The young first year who’d walked out of my lecture after I put him down from his heckling was making great progress and since he’d started to actually think about what he was doing and enjoy it, his work had improved beyond recognition.

When I told him so he replied, “That’s all due to you, Professor, you’re the first one who’s seen through my act and got to the real me but instead of deriding me, you encouraged me. It’s hard work but I’m enjoying it.”

“Good, keep it up and make something of your life—you never get a chance to repeat or relive this time, enjoy it but also work hard, at your age you usually have the energy to do both. It starts to wane in your thirties as other pressures take over, so enjoy it while you can.”

“I will, thank you.” He went off to make another date with my diary the keeper of which was Diane and my phone rang.

“Hello, Cathy Watts,” I said into the handset.

“Hi, Babes, can we do a dinner party at short notice?”

“How short?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Like to tell me the whys and wherefores?”

“Can I tell you tonight?”

“Why the secrecy?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Any dietary requirements of our guests and how many?”

“Not that I know of, there will be two.”

“Is this a family thing or do we need to feed the children separately?”

“No, they can be there, may help, but I’ll need to borrow your study afterwards.”

“Okay. Are they foreign or British—simply from a menu point of view?”

“That should be fine whatever you want to have.”

“Is this a bone china and silver cutlery affair?”

“No, good everyday is fine. No—put out the nice stuff.”

“Okay, I’ll speak with David.”

“Thanks, Babes—see you later.”

“Love you,” I said thinking he’d put his phone down but he replied with the same.

I had another cuppa and called David. He was quite pleased to do something more challenging and if he did a good job, Simon was usually generous in his bonus and his car needed re-taxing at the end of the month. His major query was what did I want on the menu and did I want Amanda to wait on table. I told him I’d speak to him when I got home but I didn’t think I’d need Amanda to serve but it would be good if she could do some extra cleaning so it didn’t look like a pigsty. He told me he’d pass on the message.

I wondered who these two mysterious guests were and why he couldn’t tell me anything about them—that was quite unusual, so what was going on? Would we all be sworn to secrecy afterwards? Would it be a problem for Sammi or Stella, as it appeared he didn’t want anyone to know at the bank from the way he was talking. I was all very strange and I was slightly distracted when trying to dictate a letter to Diane.

“D’you want me to come back later?”

“Uh no, let’s do it now.”

“You seem somewhat distracted, Prof.”

“Simon wants me to host a dinner party tomorrow night for two guests but couldn’t tell me who they were or why he was being so secretive.”

“Secret deals behind closed doors—shouldn’t that be beer and sarnies?”

“Diane, this is not a union pay negotiation, nor the signing of a treaty between some foreign dictatorship and the bank.”

“How d’you know?”

“I know Simon and he wouldn’t contemplate working with some autocratic general or Middle Eastern potentate—or not in my house. I wouldn’t allow it.”

“You have that much power?”

“Not so much power as he respects my feelings on such things.”

“What a lefty Guardianista?”

“Yeah—’oy, watch it.”

She left me and chuckling went off to make more tea. She knew that would calm me down.

We did finish the letters in time for her to type them and me to sign them before I went off to collect the mouseketeers. Danielle was still limping from an injury the day before. They had foolishly tried to play on a soccer pitch, which, from her description, was more like a paddy field than Old Trafford. She’d been brought down by a late tackle while scoring the only goal and ten minutes later, the ref abandoned the match. She’d somehow twisted her knee as she fell and it resisted any attempt from Trish or me to heal it. I suggested it didn’t work on stupidity and making them play was an act of pure folly.

“I agree,” she said, “an’ it wasn’t my idea to play, but they considered it was playable.”

“But it wasn’t?”

“Mummy, it was like water polo in the shallow end.” That had both of us laughing until she moved her leg and it pained. So it was back to other methods, arnica and cold compresses. She took a stick to school with her—one of my walking poles—which I spoke to the headmistress about.

“I’m surprised you hadn’t been able to sort it—you usually do.”

“Perhaps it’s telling her to rest a bit more often.”

“Isn’t that you do when you get our ripe old ages or beyond?”

“Probably. I have mentioned before that the energy does tend to do its own thing.”

“A true act of God,” she said making the sign of a cross.

“I’m not sure about that, but in the interests of world peace will agree to differ.”

“Cathy, you should have been a diplomat.”

“Eh? I’m a Sagittarian—diplomacy doesn’t exist in our dictionaries.”

“D’you believe all that star sign nonsense? Yet not in Jesus or even God the Father.”

“Nah, it’s all mumbo jumbo—except every now and again some of the characteristics seem apposite.”

“So is gullibility a Sagittarian trait?”

“You want a diplomatic answer?” I fired back and we both went on our ways laughing.