***
‘Eva! Eva!’ Diana called out as she pursued her friend down the village high street.
Eva turned and looked at her in amazement. ‘What on earth’s the matter with you?’
‘Earth - nothing.’ Diana giggled with enough hysteria in her voice to make Eva suspicious. ‘It’s still here, isn’t it?’
‘Are you having one of your turns?’
‘No. No, I’ve just seen Spalding. He reckons it’s all over now.’
‘Rather sudden, wasn’t it? At least now I know where you’ve been for most of the day.’
‘Where did you think I was?’
‘I was looking for you earlier on. I couldn’t find Yuri either.’
So much colour left Diana’s face that Eva asked, ‘You are ill, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ insisted Diana. ‘Did you find him?’
‘No. Why should you be so concerned?’
Diana shrugged awkwardly and, as the handbag she was holding on her shoulder slid down her arm, it split at the seams and deposited its contents on the pavement.
Eva looked at her in disbelief for a moment, then at the remains of the handbag. She pulled a plastic carrier bag from her pocket to scoop the items into it. Then the astronomer found the reason for the mishap. It was no larger than a goose’s egg, but had the weight of a dozen horseshoes.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘A friend. It’s a touchstone.’ Diana guiltily tried to snatch it back.
‘No chance,’ Eva told her. ‘You should donate this to science.’
‘Meaning you want to chip pieces off it and grind them into powder?’
‘Could be difficult with this stuff.’ Eva chuckled as though she was on the track of quark that would solve the riddle of the Universe. ‘This is something else.’
‘It also happens to be mine,’ Diana at last managed to seize the rock back.
‘Where did your friend get it, then?’
‘She caught it. I want to find out where Yuri is.’
‘Where did she catch it, and why do you want to find Yuri?’
‘In a cave, and I want to make sure he’s all right.’
‘I can see you’re going to be a bundle of fun from now on.’ Eva sighed. ‘I preferred you when you were having hot flushes.’
Diana ignored her. ‘Come on,’ she said, clutching the heavy rock in one hand and the carrier bag in the other. ‘We can take your car.’
‘I’ve got to get some things to the observatory first.’
‘Oh, all right. But don’t take long.’
Unable to think of any explanation for Diana’s fidgety behaviour other than that some rogue chemical reaction was going on inside her body or, more probably, her head, Eva sped in and out of the observatory as quickly as she could. She was reluctant to leave Diana for long in case she decided to drive off without her; given her jumpy condition, the car wouldn’t have appreciated the experience.
‘Everything all right?’ Diana asked as she returned.
‘All right?’ Eva was baffled. ‘What catastrophic event should I have suddenly discovered to be going on inside the observatory?’
‘Everything’s all right then.’ Diana seemed to relax a little.
Putting Diana’s behaviour down to relief at having got through the menopause, and suspecting she had contracted something else in its place, Eva drove on, reluctantly keeping to the ten-mile-an-hour speed limit through the grounds of the museum. She caught sight of the two shaggy museum assistants coming towards them.
‘Hello, here comes hair incorporated,’ she said.
‘Don’t be so rude,’ scolded Diana. ‘You’re hardly that immaculate yourself.’ As the two young people approached she wound down the window. ‘Hello, John. Hello, Fran. Things all right?’
Wondering why Diana kept asking if everything was all right, Eva stopped the car so they could talk.
‘Fine,’ said John.
‘Fine,’ said Fran.
‘Nothing happened around here for the last few hours has it?’
‘No…’ said John hesitantly, not knowing whether he should be honest or let them find out the unpleasant truth for themselves.
‘Well, what happened?’ Eva demanded in exasperation.
‘You won’t like this...’ Fran began, but didn’t have the courage to continue.
‘I think you should get down to the meadow at the back of your cottage, Di,’ John advised her. ‘Only whatever you do, don’t walk across it.’
Not waiting to ask what they were talking about, Eva started the car and broke the speed limit until they reached the lane that bordered the top of meadow. There she suddenly braked.
‘Go on. Go on,’ urged Diana. ‘It must have been something pretty appalling for Fran not to have come straight out with it.’
‘I can see something else pretty appalling. It’s big-bottomed, pompous, and coming up behind us fast.’
‘Daphne.’ Diana sighed as she heard the hooves of her horse rattling on the gravel. ‘Is she trying to catch up with us?’
‘Looks like it.’ Eva sprang out of the car like an excited ferret to face her.
‘Come back,’ protested Diana, more concerned about what was happening on the other side of the hedge. ‘Don’t start anything, Eva.’
But the mounted empress of almost everything she surveyed had arrived.
‘Someone of your position speeding, Dr Hopkirk?’ Daphne smirked. ‘You must be in a hurry to go somewhere. Don’t let me stop you.’ Then to Diana, ‘I’m so sorry you won’t be able to walk across the meadow any more, but it was such a waste to let it lie fallow like that.’
‘She’s set land mines in it, Mog,’ declared Eva.
‘What’s wrong with the meadow?’ Diana demanded. ‘It’d better not be anything that’s going to harm the children.’
‘Oh, I am sorry, it won’t be safe for them to play in it any more.’
‘What have you done, Daphne?’ Diana insisted.
‘Why not take a walk down there with me and see?’
‘I’ll walk behind the horse then,’ Eva agreed. ‘Some sights are better from the back.’
This was too much for Diana. She started the car and drove off to a gap in the tall hedge, much to the amazement of Eva, who knew she had never managed to pass a driving test.
He astronomer turned back to Daphne, and had hardly begun to pass on advice about how to tackle disorders brought on by inbreeding when Diana’s voice could be heard calling out, ‘Oh my God! Eva! Come here this instant!’
Eva broke off her conversation and dashed down the slope.
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed when she had a clear view of the meadow.
Daphne, smugly convinced she knew what they had seen, let her horse amble after them. The snippets of conversation that drifted up to her were somewhat puzzling, though.
‘Oh my goodness, Yuri. What are you doing?’
‘Don’t pull its tail like that, Kitty. It’s very cruel ... and don’t do that, Tom. That isn’t very kind either.’
As Daphne reached the gap in the hedge an amazing sight met her eyes. Yuri had his arm around the neck of her bull and a gin bottle in the other hand. Vicky was carefully stroking its thick hide, Tom was holding onto an ear, while the twins were swinging vigorously on its tail.
‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Yuri?’ Diana was scolding. ‘Fancy tormenting the poor animal like that - and drinking in front of the children.’
‘This bull is my friend,’ protested Yuri. ‘And when I finish this drink, I drink no more.’
‘I’d ask for that in writing if you could hold a pen steady,’ grunted Eva. ‘And what have you been up to? It looks as though you’ve wrestled the bull into submission.’
Yuri looked dutifully down at his torn T-shirt and frayed trousers. Without reaching up to his head, he knew his matted hair would take a long while to untangle.
‘When you’ve finished playing with your friend, you are going straight into a bath
,’ ordered Eva. ‘And where were you when I called this morning?’
Diana was very interested to hear his reply, even though she knew the answer.
‘I visit the fairies,’ hiccupped Yuri, ‘and I play with little big green men who turn pink and all different colours, and talk to furry long-legged thing a hundred thousand million years old.’
‘I asked where you’d been,’ snarled Eva, ‘not what your latest delusions were.’
‘For him it was probably real,’ remarked Diana.
‘Like your voices?’ retorted Eva.
‘What did you call on me this morning for, then?’ Yuri asked, altering his grip to hang on to the other ear of the bull for support.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Then it could not have been that important that I was not there,’ Yuri told her with blissful indifference.
Eva continued to watch in disbelief as her husband and the children waltzed the placid bull in circles. ‘He’s gone totally mad now.’
‘Perhaps,’ replied Diana. ‘What did you want to see him about, anyway? It wasn’t anything to do with those exercise books of Yuri’s you’ve got in the back of your car, was it?’
Eva shot her a sideways glance. Diana could almost hear the mental snarl that accompanied it.
‘Perhaps he was never that mad after all?’ Diana suggested gently.
Eva said nothing.
Suddenly Yuri caught sight of Daphne astride her mount. She was wearing an expression of numb astonishment.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Trotter. Thank you for sending little friend for children to play with. He tell us you put him here.’
Diana and Eva didn’t even bother to turn to see Daphne’s enraged expression. Just knowing it was there was enough to satisfy them. They could tell by the swift intake of breath and sudden creak of leather that she was departing. While the attention of the others was on the playful bull, Diana couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder. She was the only one to see something happen to upset the horse’s equilibrium.
The tarmac road suddenly pleated and rose up into the air before Daphne’s mount. Not used to encountering anything worse than rabbits dashing from under its hooves, this startled the creature. It dug in all four feet simultaneously. As they had been going at a good pace, Daphne was sent sailing over its head towards the ground that reared up to bat her several yards into the opposite hedge.
Not wanting to draw attention to Daphne’s predicament, Diana turned back to study the antics of the children, young and old, playing in the meadow. She consoled herself with the thought that at least Yuri was happy with Reniola’s solution, even if nobody else was ever likely to be.
THE END
***
Other science fiction books by this author
Babel’s Basement
The Watcher
Moving Moosevan
Nightingale
The Aton Bird
Hunder
Fiction
Bald Wendy
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