Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 811.

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Wuthering Dormice
(aka Bike)
Part 811
by Angharad
  
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“Cathy, Babes, talk to me,” through the fog in my head I could hear Simon’s voice a long way off. I could feel someone touching my body lifting me up. My face was hurting and I wasn’t sure why. “Lay her on the couch,” I heard Simon’s voice in the distance and my body was lifted and gently put on a bed or settee.

Inside my head, it felt like a swirling dust was spinning around like the gathering of tornado and I was hoping I could contain the storm when it broke. “Mummy, Mummy,” I could hear Trish’s voice and desperately wanted to listen to it, “Mummy, please wake up.”

I heard a groaning noise, then realised it was coming from inside me. The dust storm in my brain was giving way to a searing pain which seemed centred behind my eyes. Someone pulled open my eye and shone a light in it, then did the same with the other–it was blinding.

“Okay, she’s not unconscious, we have pupil response,” said a strange male voice. In the background I could hear a chorus of ‘mummies’ from all three girls.

“What is it then?” asked Simon’s voice.

“Concussion, I think, the bruise that’s coming out on the side of her face tends to indicate she hit something on the way down,” the strange voice continued. It wasn’t strange per se, but it wasn’t one I knew.

I felt something cold applied to my face, or the side of it and it felt nice, numbing some of the pain that was coming from that area.

“How many fingers have I got up, Cathy.” I heard Simon say loudly.

“Mummy, Mummy–wake up! Mummmmmmeeeee,” called an excited child’s voice, which I think was Livvie.

“I don’t think that’ll work here, sir,” said the stranger.

“It’s what we always did in rugby when someone took a belt on the brain.”

“Yes, sir, but they have to have their eyes open first, your wife clearly doesn’t at the moment.”

“Um...oh yeah.” I could imagine Simon sulking, his hands pushed deep into his jacket pockets as he walked away.

“What’s her name?” asked the stranger.

“Yeah, Cathy Watts,” Simon called back.

“Her name is Cathy Watts?”

“It used to be, she’s Lady Cameron now,” said a woman’s voice I presumed was Hilary. I obviously hadn’t actually warned her that we weren’t married yet, or if I had, she’d forgotten. Then again, with me in zombie form–was I bovvered?

The argument between Simon and the stranger continued but my ears were no longer interested in listening to it. I wanted my children near me, but how could I tell them? I felt as if I was hovering around inside my body rather than fixed as we usually are. Then things started to spin and I started vomiting and my eyes opened.

The first thing I saw was some sort of plastic cup being held in front of me, which contained…well, you don’t really want to know, do you? It stank of you know what, and I retched again. Nothing came up and Hilary appeared with a glass of water, for which I thanked her and sipped quietly. Three worried faces were staring up at me and when I spoke to them, they just beamed back at me.

“We was so wowwied, Mummy,” offered Meems–always straight to the point.

I looked at them, they were filthy dirty and cuts and grazes all over them.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“We felled frough the floow,” said Mima.

Trish translated, “We thought someone was chasing us and we ran, Kiki didn’t look where she was going and ran into a tree–she squealed so loudly, Livvie let go the leash and the dog ran off.”

“Didn’t you hear me calling?”

“No, Mummy, we just ran and ran and we found this old building behind some bushes, so we hid in there and Mima went to explore it and the floor gave way and we all ended up stuck down a hole.”

“You ended up–down a hole?” I repeated, shaking my head, except it hurt so I stopped. There must be Irish in her family somewhere.

“How did they find you?” I asked.

“We heard a man shouting and we all shouted back. But he couldn’t see us for the bushes and when he came in, he fell down the hole too.”

“An’ he was hurted,” added Mima.

“Hence the ambulance I saw?”

“Yes, Mummy, he bweaked his weg.”

“So how did they find you?”

“He had a phone with him,” said Livvie, “and he told Trish what to say, an’ they came an’ found us.”

“So you’re all okay?”

“Yes, Mummy, but you have a horrible bruise on your face.”

I touched my face and it hurt, “I expect I have.”

“You feel okay, now?” asked the strange voice and I could see it belonged to a paramedic, a man of about thirty.

“Yes, thank you, I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble.”

“No problem, Lady Cathy.”

“Thank you very much for helping me and my family.”

“That’s okay, it’s what we do.”

“I know, but I suspect a bit of gratitude never goes amiss, does it?”

“No, ma’am it doesn’t. I must be going.” He shook hands with me, then with Simon and he left. Simon left the room with him and I’m sure a bottle or two of Sir George’s best brandy went with them.

I discovered there were no intruders, no one should know we were there–until we had ‘Emergency, Camera, Rescue’ turn up–because of my family and my failure to look after them properly. While there were no bogey men to get them, they could have killed themselves in that derelict building, whatever it was. It was still my fault. I was definitely a failure as a parent and doubly so as a mother.

George told me later that he would have the old building demolished in the spring and some fencing put up there temporarily. What could I say? I still considered it was my fault not his, my children should not have been running about willy-nilly, without me being there.

In bed that night, Simon was so tired, he asked me a question and fell asleep before I could answer it. I felt emotionally exhausted but managed to dream of dormice without them turning into monsters, so I presume my mind must have eased, or it was the pain killers I took for my face–boy what a bruise that was–in some ways, I was pleased we weren’t expecting any visitors.

Until some time a day or so later, when I had lovely green and purple smudges around my left eye and over my cheek down to my jaw, and I learned the Deputy Chief Secretary to the Treasury was visiting to see Sir George and when he learned Henry and Simon were there, he insisted he see them too.

Lady Hilary, being used to these sorts of impromptu dinner parties, killed the fatted calf and then proceeded to try and help Stella and I to find something posh to wear from her wardrobe.

I tried to wriggle out of it, but they all insisted that I should attend the dinner party. I did think about throwing myself down the stairs or something to avoid it, then remembered how sore my face was after falling over, so covered in copious amounts of concealer and base foundation–I felt like Coco the Clown, all that was missing was the red nose.

If said minister or his wife noticed, nothing was mentioned–especially as the dinner party was old fashioned enough for the girls and boys to separate after the meal–they went off to talk business whilst the ladies went off to play netball–ha ha fooled you–we went off to the drawing room and played bridge and talked and drank sweet sherry.

I withdrew early, feigning a headache–I don’t play bridge and despite being from Bristol, I do not like Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry. It might be a quality drink, but all sherry to me tastes like I imagine cat’s wee would.

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Comments

You Are MEAN Angharad!

If Cathy ever knew what you and Bonzi have done to her in this chapter, I think that she'd revolt.

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine
    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

Phew!

Nothing like playing with us...

I bet you enjoyed making us squirm for no reason :)

Hopefully we'll soon get back to whatever passes for normality in the Cameron/Watts household - the girls going back to school, Cathy doing more nature survey analysis, and possibly - just possibly - checking up on Spike.

 
 
--Ben


This space intentionally left blank.

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

So who was the guy who fell

So who was the guy who fell thru the floor with the girls? They are all very lucky to not be more badly hurt than they were, including Cathy. Jan

I got sucked in!

You set the trap and I walked right into it. Nice work. But you do know that no good gag should go unpunished.

I think Cathy should file a grievance with the Hague for cruel and unusual punishment. Forcing this poor Dormouse lady to glam up for a dinner party, now really. Definitely out of her comfort zone. Why couldn't you have the children find a dormouse colony while trapped in the old building. It would have brightened her day and gave something for Cathy to do.

Thanks for another great episode.

Hugs,
Trish-Ann
~There is no reality, only perception~

Hugs,
Trish Ann
~There is no reality, only perception~

Awww,

Bridge can be a lot of fun! Not played since my uni days though. *sighs* It's like two games in one!

Glad the tikes are okay. Guess Cathy'll be getting better soon now too. Do understand her blaming herself though. *sighs*

Thanks,
Annette

Daddy

NoraAdrienne's picture

runs bridge games and tournies down in Florida. He's a retired C.P.A. (accountant) so counting isn't a problem for him... His problem is staying awake during conversations with the family when he comes north to visit ;)

I can imagine Cathy

fascinating the group with her conversation about the contents of owl pellets and dormouse populations ... then there is proper archery practice or how to take down a terrorist.

Russians

There are still Russians out there. It ain't over by a long shot.

Actually, scotch tastes like

Actually, scotch tastes like cat pee.
Nobody tried to catch the poor kid, just let her bounce.
What's wrong with those people.

Cefin