The Meltdown of a Banker's Wife Read Online Free Page B

shower!’
    Mel regarded her friend for a while, wondering which planet she had hailed from.
    â€˜You have noticed that we’re on a B road? We left the motorway nearly an hour ago.’
    â€˜No!’ gasped Kelly. ‘It’s not that far from the motorway to Aphid World!?’
    â€˜That’s what I thought. But I was horribly mistaken. We’ve been in the Twilight Zone for an eternity.’
    â€˜How about a river? Isn’t that a stream down there?’
    It was quite a warm day, so it was within the realms of possibility to go and wash down in the stream. Mel felt so revolting that embarrassment and practicality had gone straight out of the window.
    â€˜Brilliant idea! Then we could wash and and have a picnic in the field! You’re so clever!’
    Mel’s relief was infectious. The children jumped up and down wanting buckets and spades and swimming costumes. In the end they closed the doors to the smelly, dripping car and set off towards the babbling brook. There were cow pats in the field but no actual cows, luckily. Being city people, it was doubtful they could have survived an onslaught of cows. The bank of the stream was a bit muddy, but both women had flat pumps on, as did the children. But as they mulched closer to the water the mud became more tenacious, yielding very grudgingly to their efforts to pull their feet out of it and, one by one, they decided it best to remove their shoes and go barefoot. They weren’t going to give up now. The kids were enjoying the adventure immensely; even Michael, who normally hated getting dirty. Finally, red in the face, they found some dry bits of grassy bank not churned up bylarge farm animals and sat down. Quite how Mel was going to get the sick out of her hair, she didn’t know, but it would feel great, she was sure, just to put her head under the clean, bubbling water. In fact, she was beginning to feel quite the ‘I am at one with nature’ earth mother type. ‘This is the life!’ she thought. ‘Who needs all the trappings of civilisation?’
    They all took their outer layers of clothing off and tiptoed carefully across the stony river bed. It was very cold as they started splashing each other but it felt brilliant.
    â€˜Kelly, could you pour some water over my head and try to get the sick out, do you think?’
    And so this went on until they smelt rather sweeter and felt cooler. Finally they climbed out and discovered that they would just have to put their clothes on without getting dry, because one never has a towel when one needs one. And strangely, Michael and Amy had forgotten completely about vampire water, so that was another problem solved.
    Soggily, Mel turned and scrambled up the bank, Kelly and the children behind her. She was suddenly aware of warm breath on the back of her neck and a slappy-tongue noise. Slowly she raised her head to come eye-to-nose with a cow. The cow eyed her placidly, licking its nose. Mel felt sweat ooze from every one of her pores; her throat tightened and the hairs on the back of her neck tingled as they stood themselves on end. She felt just like a startled spikey cat. The children behind her began to make noises and Kelly quietly caught her breath. There were things she had heard about how to deal with a cow or a horse. Something about not running away, not letting them smell your fear … that sort of thing. Was the best thing to lie on the ground in front of it? She couldn’t remember because she didn’t meet many large herbivores in her part of Kingston-upon-Thames. The seconds seemed like hours as she and the cow looked at each other. Was that an angry look in its eye now? Sweat poured from her armpits and dripped down the back of herneck. The stench of fear must have been all-pervading she was sure, but the more she tried to stop herself sweating, the worse it got. Amy broke the silent impasse. ‘Mummy, it’s all right. She’s a nice cow.