The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3176 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“Oh I meant to tell you that Sammi and her friend are looking to buy a place.”

“I see.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“It has very little to do with me, she’s a big girl now and will make up her own mind.”

“You’re being very dismissive.”

“I haven’t seen or heard anything from her for weeks, possibly months.”

“She is very busy.”

“And I’m not?”

“I didn’t mean that and you know it.”

“Si, I’m working full time in a very demanding job, I have the house and the family to keep going—so don’t tell me what very us busy is—I wrote the book.”

“The bank keeps her very busy.”

“Simon, for god’s sake stop defending her, she knows where I live and that my work schedule and family commitments make her seem like a zero hours worker. Okay, so she’s discovered the fun of sex and has a boyfriend in Cambridge—it’s still up to her to talk to me.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her you miss her.”

“Tell her what you jolly well like—I don’t give a toss. I have work to do.” I rose from the table and walked briskly to my study. I did care but, dammit, the girl could work twenty six hours a day and still have more free time than I do. I don’t expect my children to be grateful for anything—I’d turn blue if I held my breath waiting for a thank you—but I do expect them to remember that I am their parent and as such like to be told things. I don’t even know what this nerd she’s screwing is called.

I shut my study door and that means to the rest to stay out except in emergencies, like if they’re making tea. It gave me a chance to deal with my irritation at my daughter’s apparent ignoring of me. I slammed a few books about, then had to pick up several that fell off the bookshelf and as I was putting them back, came across Mr Whitehead’s journal, in which I featured large. It’s a while since I’d read it, his neat writing made me seem very messy by comparison. In it, I’m usually referred to as ‘C’, for obvious reasons I suppose, though he could have called me ‘W’ for Watts instead of C for Cathy. I blushed for a moment, my name wasn’t Cathy in those days, was it? Only to myself and I’d learnt not to trust or tell anyone.

I read a couple of pages and then the photos of me as a schoolgirl playing Lady Macbeth. Goodness, was my hair really that long? It was half way down my back, no wonder I got funny looks, my hair was as long or longer than half the girls I saw going to school. At one point I remembered plaiting it and wearing it inside my blazer, which was pretty uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to get it cut, it annoyed my dad too much for that and was the only real act of defiance I could get away with.

I’m sure my mother must have known more than she ever let on and I know my hair fascinated her, especially when the salon phoned to alter my appointment and referred to me as Miss Watts. She thought that was quite funny at first until she realised I was attending as a girl—I mean the clothes I wore were grunge anyway, but girl grunge. So a bit of padding in a bra and I was suddenly my own sister. Mum made me treat my hair as any girl did, so it always had to be shampooed and conditioned separately and occasionally she’d help me do a hot oil treatment, usually when Dad was out at the cricket club or playing indoor bowls. She even told me my hair was too lovely to be on a boy, then she looked at me and said, ‘But you’re not one are you?’ I couldn’t answer her and fled to my room. I don’t think we ever discussed it again. How I regret missing out on that opportunity to tell her how I really felt, perhaps she knew or at least suspected; but I missed a chance to tell her myself.

Then again, if she’d told my dad, he’d have reacted negatively. He did that last night when he beat me up when I told him outright I was transsexual. Surely he’d have told my mum after that, if only to justify his own excesses. I suppose I’ll never know. I miss them both—lost opportunities to know how we’d have coped with each others as adults. I got some idea of my father’s change or adaptation after he had the stroke and he did seem to try. Again, I’ll never know what would have happened if either or both had lived, they might have coped, they might not.

The door knocked and Simon poked his head round it, he held a white hankie in his one hand and a cup of tea in the other. “Still mad at me?”

“I wasn’t mad at you, just disappointed in Sammi’s behaviour.”

“She has been under a lot of strain recently.”

“We all have, my recent episode in the woods to name just one.”

“Bitten by a wood mouse, were you?” he said and I realised I hadn’t told him about the attack. I suppose I should.

“I got attacked in Cathy’s Wood, you know...”

“The one with Billie’s visitor centre.”

“Yes.”

“Attacked by what or should that be who?”

I told him the story and how Amy has saved the day and killed one of the attackers, who seemed to be the ringleader. He sat very quietly and I sipped the tea he’d brought.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I tried but you were busy with the cyber attack. Remember, the bank always comes first.”

“First after my wife and children,” he said firmly but quietly.

“Goodness—why the change of policy?”

“You are all more important to me than a bloody bank.”

“Really?”

“Really—but at times like this when you tell me stories about how I could have easily lost you, it really comes home.”

I cuddled up to him. “Thank you for saying that, it’s really important for me to have heard it.” I felt myself tear up and even if I only believed it until the next banking crisis, it was still important and could be a precursor of what could happen eventually. Drowning women have to clutch at straws, even ones floating on the water with them.

“It’s how I feel. Nothing is more important to me than you and the girls, Cathy.”

I pecked him on the cheek and smiled as tears ran down my face.

“What have I said now—to make you cry?”

“Just hold me, darling,” I said as he muttered on about never understanding women if he lived to be a thousand—must be inflation or Brexit, he usually only says a hundred.