The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1154 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

When I saw Stella at breakfast, it appeared the date had gone well. I took the girls to school and rushed back for all the gory details.

“So, spill the beans, Cameron,” I urged sitting with Jenny and Stella at the kitchen table with fresh cups of tea before us and more in the pot.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she feigned.

“You and Dr Gorgeous Sage, and get a move on! I have things to do.”

“Jealous are we, Cathy?”

“No, I’m content with my lot, and I’d like to see you similarly endowed.”

“Oh, trying to get rid of me, now are you?” she protested.

“Absolutely–now cut to the chase.”

“Chase? There was no chase, he behaved impeccably, we had dinner in an Italian restaurant and then went for a walk down by Gun Wharf Quay.”

“Awww, how romantic,” Jenny considered.

“What did you have to eat?”

“Tagliatelli, why?”

“With what, it’s boring by itself.”

“Oh I had bolognaise sauce, I think.”

“You think?”

“Well I was nicely distracted by my escort.”

“You go to an Italian restaurant and eat the equivalent of spag bol and blame it on the company?” I was astonished. Okay, so he’s beautiful, but for goodness sake, he’s not worth passing up a decent Italian meal, not when he’s going to be there afterwards, anyway.

“Not all of us are so dedicated to our bellies, Cathy.”

“Stella, life is about experiencing new things, even you should have been able to cope with two at once.”

“I did, I had some ice cream afterwards.”

I felt like banging my head on the table. “Well you were a cheap date.”

“Cheap date? We went Dutch.”

“A very cheap date.”

“Is he as nice as he looks?” asked Jenny.

“A perfect gentleman, but then Cathy knows this already,” Stella replied pointedly.

“I won’t disagree, he’s a very nice chap and I like to work with him on conservation issues because he’s so nice–he’s also quite bright, which makes a change.”

“What from Simon? Wait till I tell him,” gloated my sister in law.

“Actually I was meaning some of the people I’ve worked with over the years.” I said this probably more defensively than I needed to and felt myself blushing.

“Is he a good kisser?” asked Jenny relieving my embarrassment.

“How would I know?” Stella blushed.

“You’re not usually so slow off the mark,” I observed, twisting the knife a little.

“Oh and you’re such a fast mover are you? Simon waited weeks to get a kiss from you, other than a peck on the cheek.”

I didn’t want her to get into too much detail about my love life. In the early days as things were a bit different then. “I kept you abreast of the details without the use of thumbscrews.”

“True, only because you wanted advice–I was her courting coach,” Stella informed Jenny, who found it all rather funny.

“Coach? The only thing you taught me was how to use someone else’s credit card.”

“I was her retail adviser, too,” Stella beamed.

“I’m quite happy to admit that I was a relatively poor post grad student eking out a life in a student bedsit and that Simon was very generous to me–however, I found it more of an obstacle than a help.”

“Only because you’re so bloody independent. Jenny, can you believe she had this man who was crazy about her who was super-rich and she continued living in the bedsit instead of moving in with him? She only accepted the car he loaned her because her father had a stroke and she needed to go back and fore to Bristol to see him.”

“Wow,” said Jenny, “Did you know he was that wealthy?”

“Not at first, he told me he worked in a bank–how was I to know he practically owned it?”

“Cor, so you didn’t know the Camerons by reputation?”

“I didn’t know anything about them at all, and would possibly still be in ignorance if this one hadn’t literally bumped into me.”

“She bumped into you?”

“Um yes,” blushed Stella.

“She hit me off my bike.”

“Like, how did she do that?”

“She didn’t have any lights on her bike.”

“It was three o’clock in the afternoon, in July.”

“There was a terrific thunderstorm, I could barely make out the road, let alone that silly cow on a bloody bicycle with no lights–it was as dark as night.”

“One of the first things Simon told me was Stella gave women drivers a bad name.”

“He’s just a male chauvinist!” Stella said defensively.

“There’s lots I don’t agree that Simon says, but he was spot on then.”

“I’ve travelled with Stella and she seemed quite a good driver.” As Jenny voiced this opinion, Stella beamed at me.

“Make sure your life insurance is paid up if you do.”

“That’s a gross overstatement of risk,” Stella huffed.

“Fine, but I’ll stand by it.” I drew my line in the sand.

“Okay, you’re entitled to your opinion, even if it’s wrong,” Stella pronounced imperiously and Jenny snorted tea everywhere. “Just remember, if I hadn’t bumped you off your bike, you’d still be living in a bedsit and Simon would possibly be with someone else, not to mention all these waifs and strays you’ve acquired.”

“I’m not disputing all that, Stella. In fact, I wouldn’t have known you either, and that’s been one of the most important experiences in my life. You’ve taught me so much, like a big sister.”

“Do you mean that, or are you softening me up for the coup de grâce?”

“Stella, I mean it, you’ve been like a big sister to me ever since we met.”

“Awww, that is so sweet, Cathy, it would bring a tear to a glass eye.”

Jenny snorted another cup of tea everywhere and Stella winked at me. After she’d cleaned up, Jenny asked, “Have you no brothers or sisters, Cathy?”

“No, apart from a very strange Aunt and Uncle, I have no close family at all, hence my delight at having Stella as a sister, albeit with homicidal tendencies in cars.”

“That’s a downright lie–I demand a recount: especially on who has got through the more cars in those three or four years, c’mon, let’s count them.”

The bitch–I needed to qualify this statement. “How many have I caused to be damaged? None.”

“Ha, you had a Mercedes totalled on the motorway because of where you left it.”

“Stella, that wasn’t my fault, the road was blocked by a multiple accident.”

“Is that where you saved the baby?” asked Jenny.

“How d’you know about that?”

“I did a search for you on the internet and saw you’d had quite a chequered career, most of it saving lives or places. You were a regular boy scout.”

“I’ve been a lot of things, but not a boy scout.”

“I saw the BBC interview about changing over.”

“Oh, I hope you don’t think I tried to mislead you?” I was hot and bothered to the degree that I was astonished I couldn’t actually smell burning.

“No, you’re under no obligation to divulge such secrets–I’d never have guessed, and I suspect you made the right choice. I don’t see how you could ever have been a boy, let alone a scout.”

I blushed and felt the sweat running down my back.

“She was on the verge of transitioning sometime in the next hundred years,” joked Stella, “I pushed her into it, and apart from Puddin’, is my most important achievement, making two unhappy souls contented through each other.”

“When did Simon learn about your little secret?”

“Quite some time later, I wanted to tell him, she wouldn’t let me,” I pointed at Stella.

“He seemed oblivious of it, so why complicate the issue?”

“Complicate? Stella it was already complicated. Technically, he’d fallen in love with someone whose birth registration said, male.

“Oh yes, seeing as you were born in Scotland, you could have changed your birth certificate ages ago.” Stella smiled.

“What d’you mean?”

“Scottish law was different to English, you could have changed it earlier.”

“Now you tell me,” I gasped.

“Well, better late than never–what’s for lunch, I’m starving.”