Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound 23

I woke with the dawn chorus after a ruddy blackbird sounded its alarm. I awoke with a jump feeling twitchy, although I thought that I was probably being slightly paranoid. I lied in bed for a while, thinking that I had to remove the dress from mum's wardrobe and hide it elsewhere, as I knew that people were watching the bungalow. I knew that if the opportunity presented itself, they would finish what they had started and search all the rooms.

With this on my mind I washed and dressed myself, before joining mum in the kitchen. She looked better than she had yesterday, as it seemed that she had been able to get some sleep with Tibbles standing guard over her.

'We need to contact the Solicitor's,' I reminded mum.

'Could you phone them up for me?' She asked pathetically to which I took pity on her, as I knew that this was hard on her to face up to the fact that dad was no longer there to do things for her.

I phoned the solicitors, only to get one of those automated reply machines, where you had to state your name and number, then wait before getting through. They had chosen some awful classical music, which made me want to scream as it repeated itself over and over. After several minutes of waiting, I got through to an actual living person.

'Good morning, how can I help you,' a cheery voice answered, it turned out to be a woman.

'I would like to make an appointment for this morning,' I sighed out.

'With Mr Hargreaves?'

'Who else is a solicitor at Mr Hargreaves and son?' I grouched out, thinking how dumb could this woman possibly be?

'Well there is his son, but he died of liver cancer, so it's without the son bit now.'

'I do not need to know about the death of Mr Hargreaves' son,' I snapped out, as I rapped my nails on the kitchen table. 'I would like a bloody appointment for some time this day!'

'Oh, very sorry, there are no appointments for this morning.' She uttered.

'Yes, what about the afternoon,' I drawled out slowly, like I was talking to a child. Hell, Robin could understand me just fine and he couldn't even talk.

'There is a three O'clock slot...' She began.

'I'll take it,' I cut her off before she could give me a spiel of all the appointments that were available.

'Right what's your name?'

'You've got to be kidding me,' I muttered out thinking how useless was she at her job, when ten minutes ago I had given my name to the automated machine.

'Pardon?'

'Cara, my name is Cara Tucker.'

With that I slammed down the phone before muttering under my breath about how inconsiderate the woman on the phone had just been.

'I've got an appointment for three, would you like to come with me?' Informed mum, who had been listening in on the one-sided conversation.

'I don't think so Cara, I don't understand what they go on about. I'm useless at money,' She uttered obviously upset that she couldn't do the simple things like sort out her money expenditures.

I nodded to her, thinking that I would deal with persuading mum to later on, as I texted Danielle if I could meet up with her to discuss boy problems. She knew exactly what I was on about, as she texted me back to say that we would meet up at the haberdashery store.

'I'm going to go out to see Danielle, you will be alright on your own?' I questioned mum, fearing that she would be at risk from the people watching me.