Easy As Farting On A Bike
by: Bonzi cat
part 262.

I muddled through the morning dealing with emails about the survey and then one incoming one from Rat Poo Films, which turned out to be from Des. I decided I wouldn't answer it for a couple of days, make him sweat, until I saw he'd copied it to Henry. Damn! Now I'd have to respond.

I noticed it was nearly twelve, so I called the hospital. "Hello, it's Cathy Cameron, Stella's sister in law, is it okay to see her this afternoon."

"I should think so Lady Cameron, but be aware she is still very weak and shouldn't be over stimulated."

"I won't outstay my welcome." I promised them.

I rang off and decided I'd do some shopping on the way to the hospital until another thought crossed my mind. I hadn't been to the room I'd been renting for months. I wondered if there was any mail plus I needed to sort out my belongings some time and give the place up.

I pulled on my coat and with my handbag over my shoulder and Stella's overnight bag in the other hand, went down to the car. In less than half an hour, I was there and there was quite a mound of mail in the box which I dumped into a plastic bag I had in the car. I dumped it in the boot with Stella's bag.

Inside the room, it smelt a bit musty from not having been aired but it was remarkably normal apart from some rancid milk in the fridge and some powdery ice cream in the freezer compartment. I cleaned those out and switched off the fridge wedging both doors open.

I thought the best thing to do would be to bring in some bin bags and dump most of it. I had a quick flit around checking for valuables and disconnected the old laptop which had been monitoring my postbox for months. I popped it in its bag and took it down to the car along with a few bits and pieces of clothing and shoes.

Then I went to say hello to the Patels, they hardly recognised me and insisted I stay for a cuppa. I purchased one of their sandwiches for my lunch which I ate whilst drinking the tea.

I spent a good hour with them telling them about my adventures and Stella's misfortunes. They were enthusiastic about the good bits and sympathetic about the bad. I really did like them and decided when I did name the day, I would invite them to my wedding. I wanted some ordinary folk there as well as Simon's friends, family and other assorted chinless wonders. My relatives would probably take up half a row, my colleagues the rest of it and my friends maybe a few more seats. His family and friends would probably take up half the church.

"So now you have had your operation, you are a proper woman," said Mrs Patel.

"As close as a pig's ear like me gets to a silk purse, yes." She looked oddly at me. "It's an old saying, 'You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.'"

"Ah yes, I am familiar with it, it was your use of pig not sow's ear which confused me."

I apologised, it seemed the ladylike thing to do. She poured me another cup of tea and I ate a biscuit she offered, a chocolate Hobnob. If she hadn't put them away, I'd have eaten several more, they are addictive.

At half past one, I walked back to my car and went off towards the hospital. I parked up paid for a couple of hours and grabbing Stella's bag went off to see her, via the loo. I had two cups of tea which needed relocating. I freshened up my hair and makeup and went up to the ward.

I had to wait outside along with two other women until two o'clock. The ward had a sign outside saying,'closed to visitors'. At two on the dot, the door was opened and the sign removed.

"Hello Lady Cameron," said one of the nurses.

I smiled back at her and nodded. The two women who were waiting with me gasped and one said something to the other and they both chuckled. I assumed they found the title amusing, if it was anything else, I was going to ignore it anyway.

"You know where Lady Stella is?"

"I do, thank you." I nodded again to the nurse and after knocking entered Stella's temporary boudoir.

"Hiya Sis," I said bursting in only to find she had gone to the loo and wasn't actually in her room. I sat on the end of the bed to wait for a few minutes before scrambling a helicopter from RAF Kinloss.

I was almost about to ask where she was when she came shuffling in and almost fell into bed. I could see the bruising on her legs as she got back into bed and felt very angry. Those brutes, I hope they all paid for their wickedness.

She had weakly hugged me when she'd entered the room and I had helped her lift her feet and legs on to the bed. She felt cold and I soon had her wrapped up in the bed clothes.

"I've brought you three nighties, I pulled them out of the bag and put them in her locker, and I then showed her the rest of the stuff I'd brought. She smiled but was obviously exhausted.

I explained about the dress and she smiled, it wasn't a problem to her. I was sitting on the bed talking to her and could see she was nodding off to sleep, so I hugged and kissed her and went to leave.

She squeaked, "Don't go Cathy, stay with me while I sleep, then I know I'm safe."

"Can I run down to the shop and grab a book to read?"

"Course you can," she smiled.

I darted off and instead of going to the shop, I got my old laptop from the car. I thought I might do some more letters or even outline a paper I wanted to draft sometime on dormouse behaviour, but not the diving into cleavage behaviour. I also brought with me the bag of correspondence from my 'flat'. I had plenty to do while she slept.

On the way back in one of the two women I waited with said loudly to her friend, "Look out it's Lady Muck again."

I stopped walked back to them and said, "Not quite, it's Lady Mac, not muck. Good day to you." Before they could react I had gone with a wave of laughter following behind. I quite enjoyed it.

I spoke to the nurse as I went back and she wasn't entirely happy but accepted that Stella had asked me to sit with her for a while.
I sat holding her cold hand until she nodded off to sleep, then I gently tucked her in again and began slowly and quietly going through my mail, using my penknife - actually a Swiss Army knife, to slit open the letters.

Most of them were junk and I ripped them in half and tucked them into a second plastic bag I had. Half way through the pile, I had a shock.

'You thought I'd gone and left you girly boy, but I haven't.

Ha ha.

An Ill-wisher.'

I felt quite sick and wanted to rip it up and throw it out the window. Instead I put it back in the envelope and then got a pair of latex examination gloves from the pack by the wash basin in Stella's room and looked through the pile for any more.

Annoyingly, the date on the postmark was almost illegible, all I could make out was '07' which probably referred to last year.

I found no others and decided whoever it was had stopped sending them, perhaps because it was Mary after all, or if it wasn't her, they had given up on the idea. However, I kept the offending piece just in case.

There was a letter from Mum's solicitor with a nice cheque in it. I should have notified him of my different address, although I'd moved since that again anyway. I had a couple of months to cash it, suddenly, I was a woman of substance! At least I could pay for my own wedding gown now. I'd start a building society account tomorrow, and hopefully accrue a few more pounds before I got married.

The rest of the mail was nothing much. I had to pop out and renew my parking ticket, but Stella was still asleep when I got back. It was dark outside by then and I could happily have cuddled into bed with her, instead I yawned and switched on my computer and settled down to play solitaire instead.