Part 9 Money, Money, Money

The band stopped playing and the police in the hall went to see what the noise was all about.

One of them came back to me, “He claims that you’re his long lost daughter and he says he wants to make up for what he did. I suggest you have a little chat with him because he won’t go away unless he sees you.”

I motioned for the band to start playing and followed the policeman, the surfer surgeon joining us. Out in the foyer two burly guys were standing next to a chap sitting on a chair with his face in his hands.

I went up to him and said “You wanted to speak to me, sir?”

He looked at me with his face going white. Luckily for him there were almost a hundred doctors in the house and he was laid on the ground until he regained his colour.

Back on the seat he sobbed, “Susan, Oh, Susan. I’m so sorry that you thought you had to leave home. I’ve been searching for you for two years and, only yesterday a friend showed me an article in Lancet which had your picture in it. I just had to come and say I was sorry for everything.”

“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t know you from Adam. If you had read the article you would have seen that the person who inhabited this body was shot in a robbery attempt. There are policemen here tonight who saw it happen.”

“There are also many doctors here that transferred my brain into the body you now say was your daughter. I’m happy to undergo tests to see if we are related by blood but your daughter, and all her memories, died that day.”

He took a few moments. “But you look like her, you sound like her and you even move in that dancers way that she had. Look, I don’t want to cause any trouble but I must gaze on you some more before I go and I’m happy to follow any rules you lay down.”

I made a decision, “All right, come and join us in the hall, have some drink, have some food and talk to the ones who can tell you the truth that I am truly your daughter in body, if not in spirit. My friend here can guide you.”

The surfer stepped forward, “Come in, sir, I’ll introduce you to the ones you need to talk to and then Samantha may even dance with you once you know the facts.”

We went back in and the biker came up to me and asked if things were good.

I said that it all depended on the chap settling down enough and, if I was indeed his daughter, I may learn all of the history I didn’t know; good or bad. I told him that I suspected that he threw his daughter out because she had outed herself as a lesbian.

He laughed, “But you aren’t now, are you?”

I smiled, “Definitely not, if you were twenty years younger I would have bedded you already.”

We danced together for a while and I noted that my surgeon was taking the guy around to all the ones who had something to add.

Around midnight I was standing at the drinks table getting a soft drink so that I could last a lot longer when a voice beside me said, “Excuse me, Samantha. I have to apologise for the outburst earlier. It wasn’t something I’ll remember with pride. I’ve been given the same story from a dozen different, well-educated and eminent men and I’ve to come to the conclusion that my daughter, as I knew her, died that day and it’s only her body I see before me. I want to say that you, whoever you were, fit her so well even her mother would have been fooled, God rest her soul.”

“I’m happy that you’ve seen the light. I ask that you give me my history in a reasonable manner. You have nothing to apologise to me for. Am I right that it may have been her sexuality that caused the problems?”

He hung his head, “Yes, you’re right. She brought home a girlfriend and I caught them having sex in the games room and there was an argument, well, it was quite a fight. She left with her friend that day and that was the last I saw of her. She even left her guitars, her pride and joy. She was a very talented girl, even at an early age, and we all had big hopes for her. Alas that has all gone with her death.”

I smiled, “Not all got lost; how about we have a dance and you can critique how her body remembers. I’ll say now that the brain that lives in this head never danced in its life.”

We danced together through the entire set and then the band leader said that there would be a break with just one more set before they finish. I took my partner by the hand and led him to where the biker was sitting.

“This fine looking gentleman was a cripple in a wheelchair until he came to the clinic. He has had the same operation I had. Perhaps if we show you our crown of thorns you will fully understand what we have gone through.”

I lifted my now long hair so he could see the scars and then said, “The small circle is where the bullet that killed her went in.”

The biker lifted his wig to just expose the similar scar ring on his own head, somewhat newer than mine and still healing.

We sat and introductions were made. I then learned that my ‘father’ was Albert Schurbert.

“So, your daughter was Susan Schurbert?”

He nodded so I carried on, “Does your family line go back to an Albert Schurbert in the nineteen fifties?”

He looked startled and nodded again.

I said “Just a moment” and I went to find the surfer surgeon and asked him to join us.

When he sat at the table I said, “This gentleman has just said that Samantha, no, Susan, his daughter, was a descendant of a gentleman called Albert Schurbert who lived in the nineteen fifties. Now, I had a grandfather of that name who I called Gramps BB and he had been one of the old time dustmen.”

The guy again went white and gasped, “You weren’t the brother that disappeared, were you, I got to speak to your sisters while I was trying to find Susan.” I nodded.

The surgeon nodded wisely, “That explains all of the good results. We were lucky to have the two of you come together. This will be added to the case notes, a pair of patients that were actually related, you wouldn’t read about it.”

He went off to speak to his fellow medicos and the three of us sat in silence for a while.

My ‘father’ then said “That would make the brain in that head about sixty or so?”

I smiled, “You’d better believe it.”

He then asked “Don’t you find it odd to be a sixty year old man in the body of a teenage girl?”

“That’s one of the things I need to know. We could only guess the age of your daughter when she was shot. It would be nice to know my actual birthday.”

He smiled, “Actually, it’s in about two weeks, would you mind if I organise a party?”

I laughed, “Party, party, lead me to it.”

I then asked him, “Did you have a song that Susan played that was your favourite?”

He smiled, “It was a very old Carole King song from ‘71, ‘You’ve got a friend’ which had been revived early in the century.”

I had this one in my repertoire, “Look, the old me could not play guitar but your daughters’ body retained a lot of muscle memory. How about I see if the band will let me open the last set and it may bring you good thoughts.”

I went to see the band and they were happy to loan me a guitar and already knew the song so the first number of the set was me out front.

I sang ‘You’ve got a Friend’ and I looked over to see Albert crying his eyes out and being comforted by the biker. I stayed on stage for a little while doing other numbers that we all knew and then left them to end the night.

Back at the table I was enveloped in his arms and he cried again, “You sounded just like here and you played it even better than she ever did. If you really are not my daughter, can we be friends?”

I told him that I would be happy to be his friend.

He then shook me, “That’s good, because you are a far better person than she ever was.”

At the end of the night I waved off the last of the guests, the biker having left already with one of his dance partners. I turned to Albert and asked him if he had a car outside because he was in no fit state to drive.

He shook his head and said that he had got a taxi from the railway station.

“Look, I live not far away, it may be cold but it’s dry. I have a spare room at my place and I can drive you home tomorrow. It would be nice to see where Susan grew up.”

We said our goodnights to the hall staff, now starting to clear the place. I got my coat and we strolled back to my cottage.

I let us in, showed him the spare room and where the toilet and bathroom were and then took myself to the master bedroom, undressed and got into bed. It had been a long and very exciting day.

Next morning I dressed in a denim skirt and woolly jumper with flats for driving and got us both breakfast. He seemed subdued after last night and I asked if he was all right.

He told me that he was just coming to grips with the person I was, being so diametrically opposite of Susan, almost a twin sister. He said that she would have never have been able to get him a breakfast without complaining.

“The police who tried to track her history said that in the two years she had been in the district where she was killed, her friends reported her as being generally an angry girl, upset at her previous life and even a little selfish.”

He smiled, “They got her down to a tee. She had been brought up in a good home with almost everything she wanted granted by her mother. I was just there to provide the cash and she was going off the rails from her early teens, no doubt because she was not sure about her sexuality. I can see now that I didn’t do much wrong except keep giving in to her wishes. I think that she had set up the lesbian scene so that I would find them and allow her to carry on. She was mistaken but I think that the fight was a bit over the top.”

After we tidied up we got my car warmed up and set off towards the Lake District. On the way I asked if he knew the history of my grandfather and he told me that the original Albert had gone south to get work and had done well for himself.

He had eight children, which I already knew, and three of his sons had gone back north to find something for themselves. He said that his grandfather was one of the sons and they had seen a very early article on solar power generation.

They set up a small factory concentrating on developing solar panels and it grew into the company it was now, mainly importing until the covid years and then going back into production of locally made products.

He and his family were now running the show with him as the Managing Director.

I asked him how my sisters were when he saw them because I had not seen them since I got out of hospital. He told me that they were both harridans of the first order.

“In fact” he smiled “I saw a little of what Susan may have become in them.”

As we got further north and more into countryside he gave me directions and eventually we entered the property through a pair of big gateposts and into a glorious park.

If Georgina’s place was big, this one was humungous! I guessed at least ten acres, it reeked of new money. When I gazed out over the vista I saw red deer munching in the grasslands.

The house was neo-Georgian and we pulled up at the front door. We got out and he rummaged for his key.

I said “Please, hold on; let me see if this one works?” I had the Yale key with ‘home’ scratched on it and went up to the front door and the key opened it.

I turned to him, “I think that although Susan had been angry, I rather think that keeping this shows that she was also sorry that she had acted so stubbornly.”

Part 10 Home, Home on the Range

We went into the house and a woman came out of the back rooms to welcome us and stopped dead in her tracks, her face going white.

Albert caught her before she could fall and led her to a chair to sit with her head down on her knees. If everyone I met here had that reaction I should have bought a box of smelling salts on the way!

I said, “Look, if this is going to happen every time I meet a new person it will probably be best if you get the household together and explain that I am not Susan before I show myself.”

He nodded and the ushered me into a parlour and then going back to get the woman to get everyone together. I looked around the room I was in.

There were pictures of the family and I saw several with Susan in, generally looking surly. I could see that he had taken after his father but his father was a lot smaller than his father who was, in turn, nowhere as big as the original Albert.

I wondered if it may be some sort of evolution, the more money you made the smaller you got.

He came to get me and led me into the kitchen where six people waited to see me. The woman who had fainted was a better colour but she still looked pasty.

There were gasps from the others when they saw me.

I smiled, “Look, I know I look like Susan because this was her body. However, it is not her brain in this head so I have absolutely no knowledge of who you are and what experiences you had with her. Her memories died with her brain and I‘m a blank canvas waiting to be filled in. Please treat me as someone totally new because that is exactly what I am.”

I noticed two of the maids looking more comfortable as I spoke so I gathered that Susan had played around at home for a while. They had questions which I answered and I had to show them the scars around my head.

There was an older guy who I expected was the butler and he went a bit green when he saw my crown of thorns and had to sit down.

Albert then said, “Any more questions later and I am sure that Samantha will answer you fully. She’s that kind of girl and a world away from Susan in her soul. Now; back to work.”

After that I had the tour of the house which ended in her old rooms, and I mean rooms – plural. She had a lounge room, a bedroom with walk-through robe with sliding doors both sides, a big bathroom and a music room, complete with several very expensive guitars in racks.

It was not a girl’s room at all, heavy metal posters and soccer stars in a neutral grey room does not scream girl. The only odd thing was a large plush teddy bear sitting on top of the vanity. I wondered if it may have been a childhood favourite that was too big to take.

Albert said, “I haven’t touched it since she went, only getting the maid to clean once a week. You can use the rooms if you want to stay.”

I thought about that and had the idea that if I changed a few things it may help him move on.

“Thank you, I would love to stay here. I’ll need to if you throw that party.”

He beamed for the first time, “Ah, the party, I promise you that it will be a humdinger.”

That being decided we went back to the biggest room on the ground floor. In older days it would have been a ball-room but was now set up with exercise machines, a table-tennis table, snooker table and Juke box.

It did have big windows that would open up to the large patio in summer. I thought it was a glorious room and said so.

We decided that we would need to fold up the table-tennis and put a cover on the snooker table to use as a somewhere to lay out the food.

I said that we could play the juke-box and he had other ideas, showing me an area where there was a heap of power points that he said was where a band could set up.

I had to ask, “Which band?”

He smiled broadly, “Why, the one you used to play in, that’s all. Why don’t you stay now until after the party? It will help you get used to the place. You are family, after all and I think you have every right to be here. You are lighting up my life again and I think that it may be better to just forget that Susan lived. You taking her place here is so much better.”

I queried that I had not brought any clothes or other stuff with me and he laughed, “Her mother bought her heaps of nice things that remain untouched in her wardrobe. They cry for you to let them see the light.”

He told me to go and have a look and, maybe, put on something for lunch which will be in about an hour. I went back up to her – my - room and opened drawers and wardrobes.

What I found was amazing. There were heaps of lovely dresses that must have cost the earth, along with drawers of nice underwear and a whole rack of shoes. All in my size, of course, I did have the body they were bought for.

I stripped off and took a shower, using the products in the bathroom that were at the back of the cabinet, not the macho ones on the front. I then redressed in a lovely pink bra and pant set, stockings and garter belt; topping it with a pink chiffon number from a good label and two-inch sling-backs, also in the same shade.

I redid my make-up from an unopened case, the items all new if now out of date. When I went down for lunch he gasped, “Samantha, you make that dress sing. You are lovely. If only….”

He stopped himself from completing the sentence as he knew that it was now impossible -- but the possible alternative was standing in front of him.

There were extra guests for lunch as he must have been on the phone. I met his sister and two brothers, with their partners, as well as their father and mother – ‘my’ grandparents.

They were all a little overawed with me; perhaps the pink outfit really was over the top. The lunch was very cheerful and I eventually realised that they were treating me as a twin sister.

Everyone called me Samantha and did talk about Susan as no longer around, a train of thought started by Albert when he described the party last night and his realisation that his daughter had really died from a gunshot in the head.

By the time they left I was at hugging and kissing status and being told that they were looking forward to my birthday party.

“That went well” Albert said as the door closed on the last one. “Tonight will be a little different, I’m afraid. My two sons will be joining us for dinner and they did not have a particularly good relationship with Susan, the eldest being ten years her senior. It will take a bit to win them over.”

“Their wives are also fiercely protective of them and used to row with Susan a lot. I will have a long talk with the four of them but it would be nice if you made an extra effort to look good with one of the evening dresses. Maisie can help you; she used to help my wife before she died.”

I spent the afternoon checking out the ‘apartment’, trying out the guitars and playing with the effects boxes and amplifiers. I was in seventh heaven.

Back in the bathroom I put all of the ‘macho’ stuff in the back of the cupboard and replaced it with the new bottles and creams that had been ignored.

In the bedroom I made a thorough search and came up with a few odd things.

On the top shelf of one of her wardrobes, behind a shoe box; I found a small selection of lesbian magazines and a bundle of letters which I put aside for a later read.

The plush teddy was the repository of several vials of testosterone boosters stuffed up its bum, as well as a couple of credit cards in the name of Susan Schurbert that were close to being out of date. These I put aside to ask Albert about.

Around six there was a knock on the door and it was Maisie to help me get ready for a formal dinner with ‘my’ siblings. Once we had broken the ice she was very chatty as she looked in the wardrobes for a suitable dress, knowing roughly what the other ladies may be wearing.

She commented that she had wished that Susan had worn some of the better things but that the girl was too stubborn to bend to her mother’s will. That’s when I learned that the mother had gone downhill very quickly once her daughter left home.

We got me kitted out in a ‘label’ evening dress with spaghetti straps worn over a strapless bra. It was in black, of course, and I had a slight problem with the high heels at first, having not worn them so high with this body.

She did some things to my hair and opened a compartment in the vanity that I had not found. It contained a selection of very good jewellery, some of which adorned me when I left the room. I thanked Maisie for her help and she said that it was a thrill to outfit me as a proper woman at last.

I went down the main stairs at exactly the right time, our guests arriving and having their coats taken from them.

They saw me as I made my descent and the looks on their faces was something to see.

One brother smiled broadly and started up the stairs to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, the other brother scowling as if someone had taken away his favourite toy. The two women just stood there, slack-jawed.

The dinner went pretty well; the spouse of the friendly brother warming to me as the time passed, while the other brother started to come out of his shell once he realised that I was not his lost sister and that anything that had transpired between them in the past was never going to come out.

By the time they left I was Samantha to them as well and the two men hugged me and kissed my cheek when they left, with both women giving me a light hug and air-kiss.

Albert was over the moon, thinking that family rifts had been healed, rather than just cemented over.

We sat chatting in the parlour and he filled me in on a little more of the family history. He did declare that he had no idea of why one of his sons had been so negative at first.

I found out the next day when I read the letters. Susan and the brother had experimented when Susan was about twelve and it was the brother who had taken her virginity.

The letters ranged from undying love to threats of what he would do if she blabbed.

Part 11 They Say It’s You’re Birthday!

The next day I wore a pair of designer jeans, brand new and neglected, no doubt, because of the exquisite embroidery on them. There were boots and a good shirt to go with them. I put aside a cashmere jumper to go outside in, because today I wanted to see the garden.

When I went down for breakfast I took the credit cards I had found and gave them to Albert. He looked at the numbers and went into his office to rummage around in a filing drawer.

When he came back he said that they were duplicate cards linked to two of his wifes’ bank accounts and that Susan had obviously been given them by her mother.

I suggested that she probably didn’t take them because she could have been tracked if she used them. He went and got some scissors and cut them up, saying that the accounts had been closed.

I told him that I wanted to wander the grounds and he happily went off to his office to catch up with his work commitments.

I went and put the jumper on and added a scarf I had found to go down through the kitchen and out into the rear yard. I noted the garages, now opened, with ride-on mowers and small tractors standing alongside a couple of vintage Range Rovers up on blocks and then went out into the vegetable garden.

There was a big greenhouse to one side and a sizeable shed to the other. Outside the shed was what I was looking for, a brazier with a pile of offcuts beside it. I went over and, making sure no-one was in sight, quietly burned the incriminating letters, one by one – from ‘Sweetest Suzi’ to ‘conniving blackmailing bitch’.

I then had a look inside the shed which had potting up tables on one side and a pretty well-equipped workspace on the other. Going out of the vegetable garden I stood and gazed over the grassland and woodland beyond.

It was really beautiful and I could see a couple of guys lopping branches with a herd of deer watching them intently. I moved around the house to the front which had the formal gardens and flower beds where I came across a couple of chaps I had not met before. One saw me and looked startled before going and nudging his companion.

I walked over to them and wished them good morning; to have them both say “Good morning Miss Susan, welcome back.”

I held my hand up, “Right, stop now. I’m not Miss Susan, my name is Samantha and it’s a long story which, no doubt, the other staff will tell you. I don’t know who you are so you had better tell me your names and also tell me what you have planned for these beds in the spring.”

They introduced themselves and then, haltingly as if I was ignorant, started to tell me what they had in mind. When I starting speaking from my own gardening experience they opened up more and we had a good discussion about what did well in this climate for late winter and into spring. I made suggestions that made then think seriously and, by the time I moved on, we were all gardening buddies.

I moved around the other side of the house where there was a nice orchard, bare at the moment, of course. Behind it was the garage for cars where mine now sat at its own charger.

Back at the rear of the house I could see the guys still working in the trees so I looked up at the sky to make sure it would be dry for a while longer and strolled over towards them.

As I got close the deer looked at me and I went slowly and carefully until I was near them and then stopped, speaking to the deer softly; telling them that I was a friend.

It took some time but eventually one came closer and then came up to me to give me a sniff. A half an hour later I was in the middle of the herd, able to touch, stroke and talk to them like an old pal. The guys lopping wood were looking at me like I was some kind of goddess with my babies around me.

I left the deer happily grazing and continued to the tree-line.

One of the guys, who had been in the group when I was first introduced, said, “That proves that you’re not Susan come back, miss, she would never have had the patience to do that. She hated the deer with a passion, the only things she hated more were the pheasants and they used to see her off whenever they could. Welcome, Samantha, you really are a breath of fresh air around here.”

I chatted with the woodworkers for a half an hour as they worked, learning more about trees as we talked. Trees were not something I had a great deal of experience with, especially not woodland.

Back in the warm house I stripped off and put on a simple shift and slippers to go for lunch. Albert told me that he had called the other members of the old band and had found out that they still played sometimes but had moved on to further their careers.

I was then told that they would be over this afternoon and would be bringing their instruments. The set-up, he said, could remain in the games room until after the party.

I now needed to go back and change again so that I could meet another bunch of folks who knew Susan. I knew that it had to be a feminine look to enshrine the fact that it could never be Susan in front of them.

While I looked in the wardrobe for something suitable I had to have a giggle. Here I was, looking for my third outfit of the day and it wasn’t even one. There was a time that a suit would last all week if I didn’t spill anything on it!

I was in a sparkly top, pleated black skirt, stockings and three inch heels when they arrived. Her mother had impeccable taste and Susan had missed out on being beautiful with her stubbornness.

The band was a mixed crowd; two guys and two girls. They had been warned what to expect but I think that they too would have fainted to have seen Susan dressed the way I was.

They took it in their stride and I helped them carry their things into the games room. One of the guys, Barry, was the drummer and he had one of those new electronic kits.

The other guy, Jerry (a hunk if ever I saw one,) played guitar.

The two girls were sisters and Mary played keyboard while Miranda was the bass and backing singer.

I found out that the amplifiers in my room were the ones everyone used when they played at the house so Jerry and Barry went up to the room with me to help bring them down.

On the way they said that they had never been in Susan’s rooms because she had always got the staff to carry the amps down before any session.

I had not taken too much notice but when we got to the music room Jerry pointed out the different amps we would need.

One was for the ‘drummer’, one for the keyboard and two were proper guitar amps with all the effects built in. Together we carried the first three down and then went up for the last one and a guitar that I could use.

I asked Jerry what Susan would normally play and he pointed to an Epiphone in the corner but then went and picked up a Gibson, handing it to me.

“Susan always boasted that she played this only in private because it’s rare and very expensive. An instrument like this truly needs to be heard, a bit like a rare violin, or else it loses heart and sounds flat. Are you game to try it?”

I smiled and took it from him. I was warming to this man with every passing minute, his easy-going manner was lovely.

Back in the games room the others had set up and were tuning. Jerry and I joined them and we all got in tune before there was a bit of an embarrassed silence.

Jerry turned to me, “Samantha, we’ve been doing all this on the assumption that you can play. Whenever we played here, she would lead off and was always out front. We defer to you to start us. It will be interesting as the last time we played with her she was so angry when she fumbled that she broke the guitar she was playing over the juke box.”

I smiled and started with the opening notes of a folk song I was sure they had played and they all grinned and joined in.

We played, almost non-stop, until dinner time with everyone getting to sing. If she had stopped them singing she was missing out as everyone had a good voice and Jerry and I swapped lead and rhythm as we went along.

When we stopped there were most of the staff in the room with us, bopping along, and Albert stood by the juke box with a silly grin on his face.

We had gone through most of what she had on her player and the only times I had to bail out of a song was when it was something they had learned post-Susan but I was able to pick them up before the last verses.

At the end we all were grinning and I said, “Just one more, she had this on her player but I don’t know if you’d played it,” and hit the opening notes of ‘Sultans of Swing’ after adjusting the amp I was using to give a bit of a steel twang sound.

We played it through with Jerry singing and were having so much fun we kept going from the second verse again, so giving me two solos which worked better the second time around.

When we finally stopped and the three of us leaned our guitars against the amps, Jerry took me in his arms and hugged me before planting a kiss on my lips.

He whispered, “I think I’m in love” and smiled as he let me go.

We all had dinner and the mood was buoyant. When they left Jerry held back and I went out to the front steps with him and he pulled me to one side where it was darker and we kissed again, this time I was ready for him and had my arms around his neck as we played with the others’ tongues until we broke apart.

“See you in a couple of days, Samantha. It’s going to be one hell of a birthday bash.”

When I went back inside I was in a world of my own and went to bed to pleasure myself, now with someone I could imagine making love to me.

We had a few more sessions of practice, both on the instruments and on our lips, before the day of my birthday came around.

The games room was almost looking like a ball-room and the staff had been augmented with some hired help. There were sofas along the back wall if anyone got tired but it was generally a stand up do.

I had finally found out that my body was now nineteen and I had been down to the biggest town nearby to get myself something to wear from a party dress shop.

In an earlier life I had wondered how a girl could have the nerve to wear a very wide belt and nothing else but now I was one I revelled in a similar dress. It was red, strapless and only came to just below my crotch. No bra and just black patterned tights with red heels; my hair up and fresh nails with evening make-up.

Even Maisie went, “Wow.” A gold chain, hoop earrings and a couple of plain gold rings and I just needed to walk through a scent mist to be ready to be the birthday girl.

There was a big crowd, family and friends (most of them I didn’t know), the band and their spouses. No partner with Jerry of course. Barry had whispered to me that Jerry had always had a crush on Susan since they had been to school together and had been rebuffed by her on more than one occasion.

I was told that he was now walking on air after meeting me, the image of his love with the presence that she never had. The party was a blast, we ate, drank, talked, laughed and danced to the juke box until Jerry got us on stage and announced that the rest of the night we would be playing for the guests until everyone dropped.

We played until about two in the morning and they were, by then, dropping like flies so we packed up and said goodnight to those guests who had completed the distance.

I took Jerry up to my room to show him that I definitely wasn’t a lesbian.

Marianne Gregory © 2022