The afternoon drifted into the evening and we heard nothing. As neither of us were very hungry, we had a sandwich using up the rest of the loaf so I had to make some more bread. Stella sat in the kitchen watching me and making occasional conversation, but it wasn’t sustained. I knew she was hurting, so I avoided disturbing her.

“Do you think he’s going to ring or phone?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Sis, I hope so.”

I was just washing my hands when the phone rang, we both jumped. “Can you answer that?” Stella squeaked in a little girl voice.

“You sure?” I asked. She nodded her confirmation.

I picked up the phone, “Hello?”

“Hi, Babes, how’s it going?”

“Hi, Darling, where are you?”

“Town, bloody work.”

“My poor, darling, you work so hard.”

“Tell my slave driver father, will you?”

“No I won’t, while he’s watching you he isn’t thinking about me.”

“Gee thanks, Cathy, for nothing.”

“You’re welcome.” I tittered.

“You cruel, cruel woman.”

“Who? Moi?”

“Oui, tu.”

“Oh!”

“Oh or eau?”

“Does it matter?”

“S’pose not.”

“When will I see you again?” I missed him.
“I’ll come down to Bristol on Friday evening, God and my father, willing.”

“Good gracious, I didn’t know you had him as a client.”

“Who?”

“God, silly.”

“What are you on about?”

“You said, God and your father, willing. I assumed he must be a client, if so charge him a good fee for making you work late.”

“I thought you were a scientist?”

“Who meee? Nah, I just a dormouse watcher.”

“Dormouse juggler?”

“Oh don’t, I’ll never live that down.”

“Let’s face it kiddo, not many can claim that epithet.”

“Who’d want to?”

“I have no idea.”

“Have you made loadza money this week?”

“You have to be joking, we’re only just staying afloat, we got caught with the bloody subprime mortgage thing too. Nowhere near as badly as some banks, but it’s affected everyone.”

“Just because some banks got greedy.”

“Banks are always greedy, some of them got even greedier.”

“I hope your bank isn’t so greedy.”

“I’m afraid it is, but we do it with a bit more style than the average. When we sting our customers, they only comment on it if we let the style slip.”

“Are they all crazy or something?”

“The ones I’m thinking of are both.”

“Both what?”

“Crazy and something–as in crazy rich.”

“Simon, are all you landed gentry completely barking or something? If my bank overcharges me a brass farthing I grumble.”

“Yes but being from peasant stock, you don’t appreciate how important it is for our clients to be able to say we stiffed them, they have to be exceedingly wealthy for that to happen.”

“Rich and stupid. Okay, will you ring me and let me know what you’re doing on Friday?”

“Of course I will, so you can do a Norwich for me.”

“Norwich? This is Bristol, Norwich is in East Anglia, like the other side of the civilised world, beyond that you fall off the planet.”

“Don’t tell that to the Danes and Norwegians.”

“Okay, I won’t.” I laughed at his absurd reply to my bit of nonsense. Sometimes Simon could be lacking in humour, or there was a sort of jet lag before he actually got the joke, so maybe joke lag, would be a better description.”

“I’ve got to go, see you on Friday evening.” He rang off. I felt the sweat roll down my back. Thank goodness he hadn’t asked about Stella. Maybe my zany efforts had done the job and kept him distracted. I’d never know because I certainly wasn’t going to ask him.

“My big brother?”

“The one and the same. Phew, I’m sweating from the strain of distracting him away from you.”

“Yes, I listened to your side of it, sound as if you did a good job, although it also sounded as if you are the crazy one not him.”

“Stella, my family have never interbred as far as I know, yours probably do it all the time, or did so.”

“Rubbish, we’re not some small community on a remote island somewhere. We came from a country every bit as big as England but with only a fraction of the population.”

“Do they not lecture on sex education in Scotland?”

“How would I know, I went to Millfield; but what has that got to do with anything?”

“I just wondered if the small population was caused by ignorance of the birds and bees; perhaps it’s too cold?”

“I beg your pardon, but we Scots can do it as well as anyone, if you don’t believe me ask Queen Victoria?”

“Stella, she is dead.”

“Nah, she isn’t she’s pinin’ for the fiords. She’s just restin’.”

“Restin’? She is dead, deceased, passed on, she is an ex queen.”

“Damn, I’ve forgotten how the next bit goes, bloody Monty Python.”

“I’ve got it on tape or CD somewhere, they did for Children in Need one year and I taped it. Funniest sketch ever done according to a thing on Channel four.”

“Cathy, how can I laugh at a time like this?”

“They say we Brits laugh in the face of adversity.”

“Yeah, only ‘cos we don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.”

“Okay, point taken.”

“So when is he going to ring?”

“He might call in person.”

“Okay, you sure you’re not a Virgo, nit picker? When am I going to hear from him. I mean how much air does one guy need?”

“I don’t know. When I told Simon about my then little problem, he took a while to take it on board and decide what he wanted to do about it. Remember, men feel these things deeper than women and have much more difficulty dealing with it.”

“Okay, I suppose I’ll just have to wait it out.”

“I think so.”

“Oh poo!”

“Oh, Simon said something about Norwich.”

“Norwich?”

“Yes, Norwich.”

She suddenly began to laugh, real belly laughs. “That is like, so funny.”

“What is?” I now felt left out of some joke.

“It’s an acronym, Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home.”

“I’ll kill that brother of yours when I see him.”