The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2782 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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I know I’m being sentimental and that she’d already lived possibly twice as long as wild dormouse, but I felt as upset as when I’d lost a friend or a much loved pet. Spike had known me woman and boy, so to speak and had never turned a hair. She’d got used to being handled when quite young and seemed to enjoy or at least tolerate it with me, mind you I always rewarded her for her indulgence of my needs so perhaps her tummy loved me more than the rest of her.

Normally any animals we lose are given a post mortem and then destroyed by incineration. It’s unlikely they’re carrying any diseases but we do it anyway. Against the guidelines I decided to take her home with me and bury her in the orchard, under one of the apple trees. I left early after telling Tom I had to go home. I knew he’d be cross if he found out the real reason so I feigned sickness—well my heart was broken.

I changed and taking her little body enclosed in a small cardboard box, dug out a small hole under the roots of a healthy looking tree and after hugging the box and saying goodbye to it, interred the box and its precious contents, shoving a stone over the freshly dug earth. Then I returned to the house and after making some tea went to my study and did some work on the survey. I didn’t bother with lunch except to have another cuppa and biscuit, did another hour’s work and set off to collect the girls.

They picked up immediately that something wasn’t right and pestered me all the way home. When we got home, I told them what happened. They had all had some contact with Spike, even Hannah had met her and had a little hold while she munched a nut or piece of dried fruit. They all wanted to visit her grave and after they’d changed and had a biccie and a drink I took them out to the orchard. At Mima’s suggestion we planted a couple of bulbs in the soft earth and I then replaced the stone.

“Are you going to get a headstone?” asked Danielle.

“For a dormouse?” it hadn’t occurred to me, after all she was a woodland creature and I’d buried her as close to one as we had, where I knew she’d be safe.

“Yeah, why not?” clamoured Trish and Livvie, who’d both handled her several times.

“It would be expensive and I’m not sure she’d approve of something so artificial.”

“It would be nice to mark the grave, though, Mummy,” observed Hannah.

“Yeah,” the others agreed.

In the end I agreed that I would make her a memorial stone. I would find a flat stone and inscribe her name and her age on it. They wanted to know how and could they help, but I said it would be something simple for a simple animal who though much loved was still at heart a wild animal.

“Like Bramble, Mummy?” asked Livvie.

“No, she’s a monster—she’s not just wild she’s crazy with it.” Then as if to refute my description she walked up to us, tail aloft and rubbed herself round my legs, then let Trish pick her up and we returned to the house. By this time Stella was home and the girls told her where we’d been and what we’d been doing. I withdrew to my workshop and taking a suitable stone with me, got out my little hand drill thingy and after writing in marker pen discovered that engraving stone isn’t that easy.

Eventually, holding the stone in a bench vice and wearing protective eyewear, with some difficulty I started actually engraving what I wanted rather than making spiral marks all over the stone.

They called me to the house at six, more than two hours after I’d started. After dinner I returned to my task and finished the stone.

‘Hic iacit Spike, much loved dormouse and mother. 2007-2015.’

I finished it with some scrolls at the bottom, showing I was getting better at the job. By now it was dark, so I locked up my workshop and went back home. Simon made me a cuppa. It was ten o’clock.

“Where are the girls?” I asked unaware of the time.

“In bed, Tom read them a story. They told us about poor old Spike.”

I nodded swallowing back a tear.

“We thought you’d like some space.”

“Thank you.”

Then he wrapped me in a huge hug and I wept in his arms. Stupid I know, but that mouse and I had been through lots together. Tom, although he knew I’d gone early, said nothing except to ask how I was. I felt ridiculous, she was a research animal I shouldn’t have bonded with her but I had, I’d fallen for those black sparkling eyes and the russet velvet coat and I felt she had some special relationship with me. I was probably deluded in thinking that, how can something with a brain smaller than a pea develop that sort of emotion? Then I remembered how she’d found her way back to me after she’d been lost during Mima’s first visit. Coincidence? Probably—but perhaps not. I guess I’ll never know.

Needless to say I dreamt of her being held by Billie who reassured me she would look after her and I woke up crying. Thankfully I didn’t wake Simon who slept on when I slipped out to make a cuppa. I needed to get myself under control, but for a moment it felt as if everything I loved, died. I wept for a bit then rationalised that everything alive does die, it’s the only certainty in life and the price we pay for being alive. So it would follow that everything I loved would eventually die unless I died first, in which case they’d still die but I wouldn’t be aware of it.

I finished my tea and went back to bed and as far as I know I slept like a log.

The next day while in my office Pippa phoned and Tom insisted I go for lunch with him. It was back to the routine and we discussed the job description I was sending out to one or two journals and putting on line via the personal department. When I returned to my office, there on the desk wrapped in tissue was a photo in a silver frame of the original photo of me holding Spike for the brochure they’d used for the bank.

I picked it up and I ran out to Diane who was typing. “Where did this come from?”

“Asprey’s?” she replied loking at the frame.

“Very funny. Who put it on my desk?”

“Not me,” she said adding, “Pippa popped in for something while you were at lunch.”

“Did she now?”

“You sounded like Professor Agnew then.”

“I hope not, he’s got a deeper voice than I have.”

“No, the accent, you sounded Scots.”

“Och awa’ wi’ ye,” I scorned and returned to my office. I sent a thank you email to Tom and Pippa. No wonder the auld scunner had wanted me to go to lunch. I love him to bits, the old goat.