Weathering Gargoyles (aka Bike) Part 572 by Angharad

After baking the bread, I retired to my bed with a glass of wine and the print outs from a story I’d found on the net about some nurse turned secret agent, who was helped by some ancient Egyptian goddess. It was total nonsense but quite a pleasant distraction. Even at her worst, frying enemies or wiping their minds, as a nurse she struck me as less nasty than the one I’d encountered on the special baby care unit.

Some of the writing was corny and it was in need of a good edit, but it was entertaining and once or twice I’d laughed out loud or felt a tear in my eye. It was obvious that she was the heroine, she rode a bike and drove a Mini Cooper S–a British made one, none of yer actual German crap.

I laughed as I considered our heroine had spent more time as a patient in hospital than working on the wards, she’d also tried to die countless times and been sent back. Groundhog Day, meets Harry Potter. Very entertaining.

Simon came in as I finished the chapter I was reading, “I thought you’d be asleep by now,” he said sitting on the bed to take his shoes off.

“I am, you’re just imagining that I’m sitting here reading.”

“So the light is really off, then?”

“Of course, it’s all the carrots I feed you, you can see in the dark.”

“Right, I’m glad I imagined those answers, I was gonna jump your bones, but as you’re asleep, I don’t think I’ll bother.”

I thought about the heroine in the story, forty five chapters and she’s still a virgin. “You could always wake me up,” I said enthusiastically.

“That’s funny, I thought I heard a voice. I hope it’s not a succubus,” Simon said as an aside.

“No it isn’t, you can suck your own bus, I had other things in mind.”

“Oh my goodness, Sleeping Beauty has awoken.”

“Ha bloody ha, ‘urry up before I go off the idea.”

“You’d think after a hundred years asleep, she’d want to go to the loo, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, and call her hairdresser,” I got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where I cleaned my teeth and did a wotsit.

When I got back to the bedroom, Simon was pretending to be fast asleep in bed. “I’m a succubus,” I said grabbing hold of something very dear to him, it was surprising how quickly he woke up.

Harry Potter has to cope with Dementers, I have gigglers. They attack in what feels like the middle of the night, and wake you up, making further sleep impossible, or nearly so. They don’t drive you out of your mind, the sleep deprivation does that, so it’s more subtle than young Potter’s demons.

I yawned as one of the gigglers inserted itself in my bed, either side of me. One of them kissed me on the cheek, and asked if it could play with my makeup? I was awake enough to say, “no.” It then became a sulker, which fidgets and keeps moaning, “ ‘Snot fair,” they don’t seem to have much of a vocabulary.

At seven, John Humphrys joined the assault on my ears, the clock radio came on, and Mr Humphrys was interrogating some hapless politician or banker. I could almost hear the rubber truncheons, metaphorical of course. These days, they train politicians to resist incisive interviewers, a bit like they train undercover operatives in the world of spies and spooks, to resist interrogation for a couple of days, because by then, networks can be collapsed and withdrawn.

I wondered if I could be a spy, then decided I couldn’t, I was a lousy liar and would blush and giggle if embarrassed. They wouldn’t need to torture me, just make me blush. I started to do so spontaneously, and became very hot, so I got out of bed, clambering over the sleeping sulker who was in the way. The other one was cwtched into the back of Simon and appeared to be asleep too.

I tip-toed into the bathroom and grabbing my dressing gown slipped downstairs. If I was lucky, I might manage a quick cuppa before I had company; I love them all dearly, but sometimes a few minutes in my own space is priceless.

It was not to be. I arrived downstairs and found Tom sitting at the kitchen table drinking the Thames mud he called coffee. “Morning, Daddy,” I said pecking him on the cheek.

“Hello, Cathy, where’s Batman and Robin?”

“Sleeping with Simon.”

“Oh,” was all he said.

“I’m surprised to see you up?”

“Why? In hospitals they wake you at six.”

“Yeah, but as long as it’s with a cuppa, I don’t mind. Am I disturbing you, Daddy?”

“No, I enjoy your company, daughter. Am I disturbing you?”

“No, I love to talk with you in relative peace and quiet.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hmm, well aren’t you going to make some tea?”

“Yeah, course I am.” I switched on the kettle. “It’s good to have you home, Daddy.”

“It’s good to be home, and in my own bed–thanks for changing the bedding, by the way.”

“That’s okay, all part of the service.”

“You’re very good to me,” a warm smile lit up his face.

“Am I, maybe it’s because you are to me.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you took me in when I had nowhere really suitable to live, you accepted me for whom I really was–with no questions asked, except practical ones, and you sort of adopted Simon and Stella, and the terrible twosome as well.”

Yeah, I did didn’t I? I am good to you, aren’t I?” I know this was asked rhetorically, but I couldn’t resist.

“Most of the time, for an old fart.”

“Hey, less of the old, you young hussy,” he playfully smacked my bum as I stood making my tea.

“Ouch!” I squealed in mock pain.

“Well take note, Missy.”

“Yes, Gramps,” I said and stepped out of range.

He glowered at me, then his expression softened, “Without you and those two miniature cruise missiles, I’d never have had anyone to call me Gramps.”

“No, nor me, Mummy. It’s a funny old world.”

“Aye it is that alright, but it’s interesting how sometimes the universe seems to correct things, I mean your infertility and so on, it provided you with some children to nurture.”

“Don’t look too far down that way, because it’s deeply flawed.”

“It is?”

“Yes, if God or the universe is so good to apparently deserving causes, why does it ignore millions of presumably equally deserving cases, sometimes even to letting them starve to death?”

“Lots of that is man-made catastrophe, like Zimbabwe or the Sudan.”

“Well arguably, so is my infertility, no one forced me to separate myself from my gonads.”

“No, that’s true, but ye’re a special case, Cathy.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Mebbe those people who suffer have to do so for a reason?”

“That is such a cop out, Daddy, the only reason they suffer is because of local politics and the failure of the west to act responsibly. We have huge resources available, but because a few people in the west want more than their fair share, the others go hungry.”

“That’s a trifle simplistic, Cathy.”

“No more than your intelligent universe.”

“I can only speak as I find,” said Tom defensively.

“So can I, but it seems we put a different complexion on the interpretation.”

“Aye, mebbe that’s a generational thing?”

“Yeah, could be.” The argument was futile, we’d both stick with our pet idea, mine of social inequality that needed sorting right across the world, and his of some supernatural guidance, which I would allocate to the nursery along with all the other myths and fables. Teach them Darwin and Stephen Hawkin, then maybe we can get on with sorting things out ourselves instead of waiting for the Man in the Moon, to come and do it for us.