The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3328 by Angharad Copyright© 2021 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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"Oh bugger," said Simon and emptied his glass of real ale.

"What's the matter?" I asked coming in from my study.

"England just beat Wales and France did a demolition job on Scotland. Bloody frogs will take some stopping."

"Were either of those results unexpected?" I asked.

"Not really, it was hoped with home advantage, Scotland may be able to stop the French settling into their rhythm, and they did for quite a bit of the first half but then the French started to motor and that was that."

"What about the other match?" I was trying to show some interest in things that are important to him.

"Well, when the Welsh turned up, they nearly stole it, but they gave away a soft try and it took them a while to get over it. But in the end, they made a game of it. Though their captain should have been sent off in the final few minutes for a deliberate knock-on, or at least sin-binned, but he wasn't." (A knock-on is a foul in rugby union, a deliberate knock-on is a professional foul and is usually punished with being suspended for 10 minutes or worse, so their team is a man down for that period).

"How was your afternoon?" he asked though I doubt he was that interested in me telling him.

"I took up a pair of trousers for Sammi and we chatted while I did it. She's moving after she got robbed that time, but I expect you know that?"

"Uh, yeah, she's been saving a little nest egg, so she has a good deposit and is thinking of moving somewhere like Primrose Hill or Maida Vale."

"Not 'Ampstead where 'urricanes 'ardly ever 'appen?" I did my best Eliza Doolittle and all Simon did was roll his eyes.

"Audrey Hepburn has nothing to fear from you, babes."

"Well no, she's somewhat deceased, but what is wrong with Hampstead?"

"Nothing if you have a few million to spend."

"What even down in the village?"

"It's all got extremely silly, but seeing as we're going to confiscate all the houses owned by Russian oligarchs and throw them out, prices may come down."

"How could that imbecile invade Ukraine? It's monstrous."

"I can assure you that I feel exactly the same way towards the megalomaniac as you do and quite a few of his countrymen as well. We're constantly under fire from his hackers and it's only Super Sammi who keeps the bar-stewards out."

"Did she tell you Cheltenham have been asking her to give them a couple of days a week?"

"My daughter the spook," I said smiling.

"More helping to create codes for them and trying to decrypt what other people are doing. If you remember it was her who showed them how to get into an iPhone when the 'Mericans couldn't."

"I hope they pay her something for her efforts?" I frowned.

"The bank usually cops much of it but I told GCHQ that unless they showed a bit more willing, we'd stop her helping them."

"Can you do that?"

"Yeah, bank security is almost as important as national security, if we were breached it could lead to a run on the banks and the pound would plummet and we'd all be in queer street."

"Never mind, darling, I'll always see you as heterosexual whatever they say." It was a wind-up but I can't resist.

"Ye whit?" he exclaimed.

"You know if you go a bit queer like you just said."

"I was referring to our finances and that of the bank and I said Queer Street, as in the phrase."

"Oh, I must have misheard you, Si." I was trying to keep a straight face but it was really difficult and I had to return to my study before I laughed out loud or wet myself. I was still putting the sewing machine away and tidying up the little bits of thread when he came into the study.

"See this?" he shoved his iPad towards me.

"Oh," I said when I saw the story in the Guardian about Elsevier being in league with the oil industry as well as publishing scientific papers on climate change brought about by the industry. "I suppose they can sleep at night, I wouldn't be able to but some Dutch people can be quite tough and mercenary."

"I know, I've competed with them and they are tough. I suppose the small country syndrome. They were also very cruel in running their colonies, not that we have much to brag about."

"Oh, I don't know," I added to his statement, "no one had invented the concentration camp before the Boer War, had they?"

He shrugged but neither of us suggested that it took German efficiency to produce the ultimate form which murdered millions. Compared to them, we were amateurs.

"Empires are all about exploitation, so they're not going to be nice, but it makes me smile that the most imperialist nation at present, is China. Like all tyrants, however, they will fall possibly not in our lifetimes but Putin will eventually be toppled, though whether democracy will ever happen in Russia or China is another matter."

"I hope you're right, babes, but not too violently, it upsets interest rates and stocks and shares and remember the people who suffer the most are always the poorest."

"Like the new student loans arrangement, they'll have to pay it for another ten years and they reduced the threshold from twenty-seven to twenty-five thousand before they have to start paying it back. The poorest students will suffer the most, this government are real elitists and they spend most of their time trying to kill off the poor while aiding and abetting their corrupt friends in business." I was on my soapbox now and it took him a few minutes to calm me down.

"Where's our child-care expert?"

"She's out with the little ones, feeding the ducks or something."

"Not with our homemade bread, I hope?" Simon said indignantly.

"So do I, bread is no good for ducks or aquatic animals, it just rots at the bottom of the pond or stream and sets up fungal or bacterial conditions in the water, I gave her money to buy some grain to give them, which is natural and doesn't damage the environment.."

"Well, you learn something new every day." I wasn't sure if Simon was being straight or winding me up, so I just responded, 'Yes dear.'

"Where's Sammi now, you said she was in here?"

"She was while I was shortening her trousers."

"I can't believe you can do that, let alone actually do it."

"Why? I shortened my dad's trousers when I was fourteen, about the same time that I did the first Lady Macbeth."

"He let you do that but beat you up for doing some embroidery," Simon shook his head.

"Well of course he let me do it, they were his trousers."

"But you were deputising for your mother?"

"I was doing it under her instruction, sort of, I actually pretty well did it all by myself as I'd done a pair of hers and some of my own before that. In some ways, I wonder if she was cocking a snook at him because of his homophobic stance."

"Goodness, I haven't heard that expression for years, was never quite sure of what it meant."

"What, cocking a snook?" I asked and he nodded, whereupon I put my thumb to the end of my nose and spread out and wiggled my fingers.

"You feeling all right?" he asked chuckling.

"I was demonstrating how to cock a snook."

"Oh that's what it means, trust my clever wifey to know."

I huffed on my nails and pretended to polish them against my top. As we were talking Cate and Lizzie ran in shouting to us that they'd seen an otter.

"Goodness, you are lucky girls aren't you? Do you know that most people in this country have never seen one, so that makes you special."

"Hi Auntie C, Uncle Si, I think they saw one, could have been a mink I suppose." We all chatted about where they'd seen it and so on, while Livvie gave her younger sisters a drink of juice and a biscuit, thereby guaranteeing they'd have no teeth in a few year's time. I made the two littlies come with me to clean their teeth.

"Auntie Cathy, Debbie tells me you're teaching on Monday, may I come along and watch."

"What an earth for?" I asked offhandedly.

"Debbie is a very good teacher, she's taught me loads more than we did in school."

"I would hope so, Sarah, we're running a university."

"Yeah, well anyway, I asked if I could come and hear her lecture and she told me not to bother with the monkey when I could see the organ grinder. I didn't know what she meant, so she had to explain it to me."

I shook my head, "The expression is something like, don't deal with the monkey if you can with the organ grinder," I smiled at her.

"Yeah, Debbie told me that much."

"It goes back to Victorian times when there were people who had mechanical organ things, which ran on a basic clockwork type programme and were powered by turning a handle. They were I suppose something between a musical box and a pianola, you know they run on a continuous programme made out of card or something similar which has holes cut in it and they catch on something which makes a musical sound, they sound very mechanical and tinny. Anyway, these people were like buskers today, only they often had a monkey attached by a chain to the organ and the monkey held a cup or mug for people to put change in. I presume the monkey was there to attract the attention of children to part with their farthings or ha'pennies."

"That wouldn't be allowed today, would it?" queried Sarah.

"I doubt it, primates are known to suffer stress doing things like that plus they have been known to bite small fingers, so not a good idea in any sense."

"We've done awful things to animals haven't we?"

"Yes, we've destroyed biodiversity all over the world but this country is one of the most bio-diversity depleted in the world."

"Crazy, we've had charities fighting for wildlife and the countryside for more than a hundred years and we're more depleted than anywhere else in Europe? How come?"

"Simple, a small number of people control most of the land and until recently some of them felt that they could do exactly as they liked on it. It may have been the case years ago but now they're supposed to adhere to the same laws as the rest of us."

Sarah laughed loudly, "Like hell they do."

"We all know that we're still trying to find out about the two sea eagles which were killed in Dorset and Hants last year."

"How could someone kill those magnificent birds? It's a crying shame, Auntie Cathy."

"I agree entirely, but I think you have to bear in mind that it's suggested that one of them was found near where they catch wild salmon, it's big money and they possibly see the eagles as a threat to their livelihood, whereas in fact we know that is rubbish and there are probably compensation schemes for them anyway. The problem is that those sorts of people don't wait to see how they can be compensated, they just strike out and the birds die.

"I remember a report about a researcher who was flying a peregrine from the wrist as they were filming how the birds snuck up on their prey species without the prey working out that they were under attack. So this falcon was flying with a small camera on it and some farmer in this country, came out and shot it."

Sarah looked shocked, "Is that true?"

"Yes, though I don't know if he was prosecuted. Given those birds are worth thousands and are all protected be they captive or wild, he should have been. Had it been my bird I'd have beaten him to death with his own gun."

"I think I'd have helped you, Mum... I mean, Auntie Cathy."

She was blushing furiously, "Sorry, Auntie Cathy, but in some ways, you're more like a mum to me than my own mother."

"I can't comment on that, Sarah, but she is your mum and I have enough children of my own."

"Sorry, perhaps I'd better go and see where the little ones are or do some study."

"Go and do some study."

"Thanks, Auntie Cathy, oh Uncle Peter said he might pop round sometime this evening."

"Oh, okay, do we know why?"

"He'll tell you."

"That sounds ominous," I said to an empty space, I suspect caused by discretion being the better part of valour.

Peter did arrive just before dinner, we were late waiting for Danielle to return and the rugby had also made us later. I invited him to stay for a meal but he rather brusquely declined. I almost asked him who'd taken his lollipop?

We went to my study and he cut straight to the chase, "Cathy, I'm concerned that you gave Sarah a car for Christmas. I thought she'd just borrowed it, but she informs me you gave it to her."

"She needed a car to get about and if they own them they tend to take better care of them. It's only a runabout, so what's the problem?"

"It's only two years old and worth far more than a young woman in her position should receive. How can the rest of us compete with you, we can't afford ten thousand pound gifts?"

"I'm not in competition, she needed one, Simon mentioned that he'd been offered quite a nice little thing at a bargain price, so he bought it."

"And you gave this to someone who a few weeks ago was a complete stranger."

"She isn't now, so what is the problem?"

"She works for you, Cathy, she isn't a relative."

"I'm well aware of that, I still don't see what the problem is."

"You're buying her, aren't you?"

"What?" I was horrified and a cold sensation happened in the pit of my stomach.

"I've been told that's how you operate, you entice or seduce them with your money and before long you have another daughter. Well, not this time, Lady Cameron, I'm taking her back with me and you can stick your car as far up your backside as you like." He wandered out into the hallway calling Sarah.

"Yes, Uncle Peter?" she arrived to greet him.

"Pack your stuff, we're leaving."

"What for?" she asked and he just shouted at her to do as he said.

"What's going on?" asked Simon when he heard the raised voices.

"I'm taking my niece away from here before she," and he pointed at me, "get's another girl to add to her collection."

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Simon.

"Look, Cameron, I know how you people operate, seducing children to come and live with you because she can't have any, can she, she's a boy just like Sarah is really."

"Peter, what has got into you?" asked Simon of the very angry man shouting at him. "Look let's go and have a drink and talk this over like two civilised people," he tried to steer him into the lounge.

"Get your hands off me, Cameron or you'll be sorry."

"In what way, Dominic?"

"I'll hit you."

Simon shook his head, he'd eat the other man for breakfast and come back for extra servings. "Go home and calm down, we'll speak of this tomorrow when everyone's slept on it."

"She's coming with me now."

"No I'm not, Uncle Peter, I'm staying here."

He made the mistake of grabbing at her and Simon told him to let her go, Peter swung at Simon who dropped him with one short punch. I called the police.