(aka Bike) Part 942 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad
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I scrambled up from the floor and pushed past Stella to look at the baby. I had no idea what I’d see, what I did see surprised me. She hadn’t actually hit the baby, she’d hit the carrycot–the baby was in a sort of shock, her eyes were staring and occasionally blinking but she was saying nothing–no sound at all.
I picked her up and she began to cry, so I snuggled her into my chest and began to talk to her. If she grew up normal after living with two psychopathic women in the house, it would be nearly as miraculous as her early days.
Stella as sitting on the bed her head in her hands and she was crying pitifully. I think she was as shocked as her infant. I took the baby out to my room and laid her down on my bed, propped up by some pillows–at least she wouldn’t roll off. Then I went back to see to her mother.
As I went through my door, Julie came running up the stairs, is everything okay?”
“No–look after Puddin’,” I pointed to my room–“take her downstairs and give her a cuddle.”
“Sure,” she went in my room and emerged a moment later with the baby and trotted down the stairs with her, talking to her the whole time. She was quite good with babies.
Stella hadn’t moved. I shifted some clothes on the bed and sat next to her–“Hey, it’s me.” I put my arm around her and she leant her head on my shoulder, the tears continued to flow.
“I could have killed her, Cathy.”
“I know–but you didn’t–that’s the important thing–you didn’t.”
“I’m not safe to have her. Next time–I might do it,” she sobbed.
“I don’t think so–it was me you wanted to hurt, not your baby.”
“Why should I want to hurt you?”
“Because I invited someone into the house you dislike.”
She paused–“It’s me I dislike, not Siân bloody Griffiths.”
“And why is that?”
“I can’t tell you–it’s too awful.”
“Too awful? I doubt it, remember, I’m the girl who used to dissect sheep livers looking for flukes.” It’s amazing what I did when I was at university, and helping the veterinary service supervising an abattoir was one of them. The vets would vet the recently deceased animals and that included their livers–if they suspected any infection–they were sent over to the lab and I checked them over for any lurking Fasciola hepatica a form of flatworm which can be passed on to humans.
As these horrible trematodes of the phylum Platyhelminthes–and who says education is wasted–can make you seriously ill by blocking bile ducts and so on, it’s important to eliminated them if we can from the food chain. I used to earn a bit on the side, if we had a big infestation, I used to keep a few samples to sell on to a local school. They were dead–dropping them in alcohol, tends to do that, and I used to also prepare slides for the sixth formers and so on for their biology lessons. I was very good at cutting sections with microtomes and making microscope slides.
They only paid me peanuts compared to what a commercial company would have charged them, but it was a few extra quid and some of it got spent on bikes or food and some of it got spent on my girly aspirations. When I think of how I used to nervously buy clothing and shoes and makeup, it makes me cringe. Mind you it did then too, until I grew my hair again.
I’d had it long in school, but for some reason–I think it was my dad offering me a hundred quid if I got it cut shorter–I had shortish hair when I went to Sussex. I immediately began to grow it again, and in my second year it was well below my shoulders and when released from a ponytail looked quite feminine.
It did little to add to my macho image at uni, and when I wore it down, I found people assumed I was female–strangers, shop assistants and so on. Shopping thus became a little easier. I’m lying, it didn’t I still got embarrassed and flustered and half the things I bought were disasters. I did get better at taking them back, but it took me ages to learn about coordinating clothing and shoes and so on. I still had very little idea until Stella showed me how to do it.
Yes, this same weeping woman, whom I was comforting had taught me so much about becoming myself–in fact, I owe almost as much to her as I do to my parents in the creation of Cathy Cameron, née Watts.
“I don’t have to tell you, do I?” she suddenly said raising her head from my shoulder.
“No, you don’t have to tell me anything, but we are sisters, and I suspect I won’t be able to help you as much as I might if you don’t tell me. But it’s up to you.”
“You won’t like me if I tell you.”
“How do you know?”
“You won’t.”
“Does it involve children?”
“Of course not.”
“Nothing very kinky?”
“Cathy–what do you mean?”
“Anything illegal?”
“Um–depends on where you are...”
“Okay, I give up–I’m not going to guess it in twenty questions–forget it, you’re my sister and I still love you.”
“You mean you don’t want to know?”
“Not unless you want to tell me.”
“Siân and I were short of money.”
“Stella, you’re a millionaire, how could you be short of money? Your dad has a bank for God’s sake.”
“I’d spent all my allowance and my salary and I was stony broke.”
“So, you went on the game?” I joked.
“Yeah–are you disgusted with me?” I managed to keep my surprise hidden.
“No–I applaud your enterprise if not your method.” This was nearly true.
“Siân saw me with a client. I mean I used condoms an’ other safety measures.”
“And this is why you hate her?”
“I don’t hate her–not really, she just reminds me of that period.”
“So could she have got you struck off?”
“Possibly, if she’d reported me.”
“You were afraid of her?”
“Not really, well not until she got drunk and propositioned me, and offered to pay me for the privilege–then I knew she knew, until then I wasn’t certain.”
“Was she serious? Could she have been trying to embarrass you?”
“No I’d done that with her–she was crap at genito-urinary medicine, and I was very good. A few times I’d rubbed her nose in it–there’s tremendous competition between doctors and nurses. I was a senior nurse, nearly a nurse specialist and she was a lowly houseman–I gave her hell.”
“So are you frightened she’ll give it back to you in front of everyone?”
“She could–and I don’t say I don’t deserve it–but to embarrass you and Si and Tom, not to mention the children and possibly her partner...?”
“Do you want me to speak with her?”
“No–don’t, please don’t.”
“But if I talk to her, I’m sure I could make her see reason.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“Why?” I felt completely bemused by her reluctance.
“Because I don’t want you to–isn’t that good enough?”
“Okay, but I’d like you to come to dinner with the others on Saturday, and then on Sunday, I’d like to take the kids and Tom up to lay some flowers on Celia’s grave.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, it’s Trish’s birthday on the twenty fifth–she’ll be six.”
“Sometimes I wish I was, everything seemed simpler then–but I’d like you as my mother.”
“You what?” Had I heard her correctly?
“I said, I wish I was six again and you were my mother.”
“My God, Stella–I know it’s a compliment, but...”
“I’ve watched you with those kids–you love them all so much and spoil them rotten.”
“I spoil you too.”
“Yeah, but I wish...oh sod it, I’m a failure, Cathy–as a mother, a sister, a daughter, a nurse, sometimes I think as human being. You should have let me jump that day.”
“I’m glad I didn’t. None of us are perfect, but I’ve watched you with Puddin’ and with my children–you’re great with them, they all love you and so do us grown-up kids too.” I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, and felt the wetness of a fresh tear.
Comments
Still reading...
and enjoying it as much as ever. Please keep it up.
I should have known...
...before jumping to conclusions yesterday about what had happened, that Angharad would resolve things in a completely different way to how we were expecting. So Stella's anger at Sián isn't because of her relationship preferences, but because of the rather unique way Sián let Stella know she knew about Stella's unorthodox money making methods.
Still, just at a time when Cathy's finally starting to overcome her self-esteem issues, we discover Stella does as well. Talk about the blind leading the blind...
-oOo-
Having studied A level Biology and BSc (Hons) Biology, I'm glad I didn't choose the zoology modules. Perhaps that was something to do with the fact that at school, the Biology department had a pet axolotl (called, imaginatively enough, "Axie") - and one of the topics on the university zoology curriculum was dissecting axolotls. The nearest I got to dissection was overdoing the ether when counting Drosophila (fruit flies) in Genetics...
Mind you, I did do some odd things during my courses. A level Biology involved a weekend "BioCamp" at a local farm - which involved 24hr stream invertebrate sampling and recording. Imagine paddling around in a stream at 3am, then emptying the net into a tray so you can count the number of Stonefly, Mayfly and Cased Caddis Fly larvae...
And during my degree, I somehow became attracted to the plant side of things, despite the ironic fact that all summer I spend streaming with hayfever...
I think one of the reasons I liked Biology is that if an experiment goes wrong, you can blame the environment (or at least think of a dozen environmental variables which could have affected the results as much as human error) :)
Three years later I discover 'general' Biology doesn't get you anywhere in the field (particularly since I struggled with the Biochemistry aspects), so decided to try my hand at Computer Science. Go figure...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Each to her/his own!
I LOVED doing dissection during my Zoology degree. Our Prof was a super man who really cared about his students, and when he heard about some Wales getting stranded near Brighton he organized for us all to go down there and dissect them on the shore, documenting details of their internal structure that had not before been done. And then he put all our names on the Paper that was published, as co-authors! What a man!
At the start i thought it was going to be boring boring - had alrrady dissected a dogfish for A level, and we were down to do it all again, in first year, but when he found that we had already done it, some of us, he organised Nurse Hounds - another species of small shark, instead, and again we were able to find things not yet reported in them, different from dogfish.
Briar
Briar
Is that all.
crickey so what's wrong with a bit of supplementary income?
I knew girls even in my time at uni (1969 to 1975) who supplemented their grants by various nefarious means, (This before AIDS).
I was a mature student (No proper schooling and very late getting A level's by correspondence course at Sea,)but I owned my own house cos I saved like somthing mad whilst recovering my sanity at sea. Thus I had several lodgers in my house, (All girls, I couldn't trust boys.)and I bumped into two of them accidentally because my other life style, (merchant seaman) often took me down to Bute Street and the docks in Cardiff when I went to visit friends on the ships.
When coming out of the docks late that night (in my car.)I was shocked but not angry to see two of my own lodgers, (Occupational Therapist Students,) working the street.
I was so shocked I stopped my car and demanded that they return home to my house, (their home.) immediately to sort stuff out. I even dropped the rent to help them out.
These were middle class girls with nice mummies and daddies to give them parental support!
They weren't on drugs or anything it was just that they had got their accounts into a mess and they were supplementing their grants to get themselves out of a hole. They were more ashamed to admit to their parents that they had got into debt than they were to sell their bodies.
I suppose plenty of students use their bodies to get through college, pole dancing, hostessing in clubs, casinoes etc, etc. So what?
Who was I to judge, a kid who'd been a street prostitute aged 14 and 15. I didn't judge them then and I don't judge prostitutes now!
Stella's being paranoid or is it that she moves at the wrong level of society and being a working girl is deemed somehow to be too evil for words. Get a grip girl.
Beverly.
All is Forgiven
Angharad,
Thank you. Thank you for resolving that situation without hurting Pudden. I forgive you frightening me last chapter and will now o back and add my vote to it.
Bless
Briar
Briar
Whew!
Back from the edge, just as quick as you please! Had us scared for a second there. We never quite know what you'll get up to, you know.
This was a wonderful, tender, bonding, humanizing episode. You brought us closer to the characters, which is much more appropriate at this point in the story than another high, action-packed dramatic kerfuffle would have been.
I'd really like to actively like Stella again. I'm hoping this is the beginning of that.
Thank You Ang
Great misdirection last episode. I was so scared that something that would have lasting repercussions had happened. Stella's certainly made her mistakes.
I suppose i should
have known better than to start questioning Stella's state of mind, Because after reading this delightful chapter, I am now starting to feel more than a little silly about my yesterdays comments.....You would think wouldn't you after reading 900+ parts, That i should know by now just how good Angharad is at misleading us all...Anyway it's lovely to see Cathy and Stella friends again, And i promise next time Stella does something stupid, Not to make a comment until i've had time to engage my brain.
Kirri
Guess they do need to award
Cathy her wings because she truely does qualify as an angel when dealing with those who are down. If she could only do the same for herself.
House Shrink
As I said once before, I think this group could use a house shrink. I'm sure Henry could supply full time employment for a ring master to this three ring circus.
Michelle B
Stella's being far too hard on herself...
Many women have had similar experiences, and her attitude about herself is male-identified, valuing herself in terms of a patriarchal system of "purity" and "net worth" in the marketplace of male desire.
In the novels and the cinema, James Bond has sex with women by the dozen for external reasons, to maintain his cover, to ferret out secret information, all of which he needs must do to justify his salary and pension. Is 007 a prostitute?
The question is interesting, since the word tends to be reserved for those, male or female, who are available to men. We've gone to the trouble to define a special word for men who sell their services to women, "gigolo," which is a profession that many men actually admire. Cool! Have sex with a lot of women and get *paid* for it. How sweet it is!
The fact is that almost every woman alive has had sex when she didn't particularly feel like it (including Cathy with Simon, if she stopped to think about it), whether as a form of "relationship therapy," to wheedle a favour from an existing lover, to satisfy a potential boyfriend or husband and avoid "losing him" to another female, as a "thank you" for an expensive date, or as the easiest way to avoid a physical confrontation or rape in which one might be hurt.
The feminist response to Stella's self-loathing is "So what? It's your body and you can do what you want with it, however inadvisable some activities may be in terms of potential dangers, they're dangers that one can choose to take with no particular moral consequence."
We allow people to take jobs as deep sea divers, with great risk of death, and pay them well for the most part. We're supposed (as the hypothetical male audience) to applaud James Bond's many conquests, and to see those who take risks as heroes, as long as they're male.
It's mostly men who see women as Vestal Virgins who are "defiled" by any sexual activities outside their appointed limits. Women are far more practical.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Sheesh,
That was close! Do you realise, Angharad, that I only managed 4 hours sleep last night, worrying about Stella and Puddin'? Maybe I'll do better tonight.
S.
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 942.
I was afraid to think about why Stella screamed, glad that it was a false alarm. Now, Stella needs to let go of her past. She needs to talk to Sian who I believe will listen and not do anything to hurt Cathy and the kids.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
The best word and line Cathy
The best word and line Cathy could have used with Stella is "SO, your point being?" As I recall in the Bible, Jesus was seen in the company of 'sinners', including prostitutes; and he was berated by the Jewish 'muckity mucks' about it. I do not recall him condemning those women, just going about and saying "sin no more." From Stella's comments, that is what she did after she got her financial affairs back in order. I agree with Cathy, the three of them need to sit down and talk it all out, they may all become very good friends in the end, as maybe Sian has hidden doubts about Stella 'ratting' her out about her lifestyle. Jan
Ho boy...
That's desperation. For young girls to do things like that. She could have gotten into such trouble!
Somehow, I NOW get the feeling that Siân will be far less trouble than Stella's thinking. She does sound a tad more mature than Stella hints at (& acts), though she appears to also enjoy the random "wind-up" (Hmm, come to think of it, a lot of characters in this saga appear to enjoy winding others up. Yeah, I know, I'm slow to only now be realizing it, and also realizing that perhaps at least one of the authors of the saga also enjoys winding up the audience. LOL
Thanks for me memories... I'm looking forward to more exciting (or not-so exciting) episodes of "As the Mouse Jumps and Climbs". :-)
Anne
Too ashamed to tell Dadeeee!
ROTFLMAOU or something like that! I'da never thought it of Stella. LOL
About this time last year, I was so poor, that I was going to attempt to sell my bawdy. LOL Hyeah, Like Id get more than a few coins. LOL
Gwen
Stella
I love Stella. If she were real I would be in love. People have commented on this, but in many ways she is much like Cathy, in that she has a low self esteem. I think we have seen some of the root of that. Her Dad has done her no favors, he as a son, but she doesn't have a mother. I think everyone, especially women, need their mothers. I know I miss mine.
Hookers get paid to have sex, male or female doesn't matter
So Stella used to make those oval knitted rugs, that is, she was a hooker. Therefor she wanted to get pregnant, because someone who hooks, always take precautions. So Sian, while drunk wanted to conjoin with Stella, and figured if she paid, it would happen, because Stella was a prostitute. Yep, that's simple, and flattering.
Cefin