The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1021 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“What happened to my tablecloth?” I demanded of Julie.

“How would I know, I was with you, remember?”

“But you might have witnessed things after that?”

“No, I was just asked to go and find a similar cloth if I could.”

“You didn’t see the old one, then?”

“Only when it was on the table–I think it’s so old fashioned, so I don’t look at it if I can help it.”

“You aren’t secretly related to Henry, are you?”

“I wish.”

“He is rather nice–he’s sending a car for me to try.”

“What is it?”

“Another Audi.”

“Yeah, but which one, Mummy–some are kewler than others.”

“Oh I don’t know, some T something or other, plus two.”

“A TT?”

“Could be, I know more about bikes than cars.”

“Oh wow, Mummy, that’s like a mega kewl chick-mobile.”

“Is it, I’m sure he said the previous user was a man.”

“It’s a girly car but it’ll do well over the ton–what is she, a convertible or the coupe?”

“How do I know, all I know is it’s an Audi T something plus two.”

“Everyone will be jealous of you when you take the girls to school.”

“Why? It’s only a car–it does exactly the same as the Mondeo.”

“Yeah, but with attitude, Mummy.”

“I thought cars were boys toys?” I thought she was being a bit boyish in her enthusiasm for gas guzzling motors.

“Couldn’t they say the same about bikes, Mummy?”

Um hoist by my own petard. “Only if you tinker with them,” I fired a deliberate reply of self deprecation.

“Which you do, Mummy–so it’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Only because I was taught the rudiments and couldn’t avoid it.”

“They were rude were they?” she teased me.

“My language was on occasion, when I couldn’t fix something or shift a nut.”

“Shift a nut–what are you a squirrel?”

“I’ve been called worse, as I’m sure have you. Not being very big or strong, meant occasionally I couldn’t grip a nut hard enough to turn it–my hands were too small. Sometimes when riding, I can’t always pull the brake lever because they’re too big for me to reach.”

“Do you believe that thing about long ring fingers in men and longer index fingers in women?”

“I can’t tell which is longer–what do you think?” I held out my hands palm down.

“The first finger possibly, I think, Mummy, it’s very close.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, it’s about being exposed to hormones in the womb.”

“Perhaps you were exposed to oestrogen when you were very small and it made you very girly in build and so on.”

“Am I that girly?”

“I’d say so–yes, you look like someone who had hormones when they were on puberty so they grow up looking like a girl.”

“I didn’t as far as I know, in fact I didn’t start them until I was about twenty or even twenty one–and that’s when I noticed my body really changing.”

“But you don’t have an Adam’s apple or anything male about you? Wasn’t it hell in school?”

“I’m inclined to think I’m sort of androgen insensitive, either that, or I don’t produce much testosterone. Yes, school was at times, very difficult, and I got tormented and assaulted quite a few times.”

“Yeah, been there–done that.”

“Which is why I’m trying to avoid Trish having the same experiences.”

“Why, what happened to you?”

“You don’t want to know?”

“Yes I do.”

“I went to a boy’s school and we were doing a play–usually, we invited girls from the girl’s school to take part but the year before there’d been some sort of funny business, so it was decided the boys would do their own play without the girls. They picked a play without too many girl’s parts in it.”

“An’ they chose you?”

“I was sort of a target. Compared to most, I was smaller and slighter. I also refused to cut my hair, so it was long and I must admit I went to a ladies salon to get it trimmed, which wasn’t very often. My friend Siân encouraged me to camp it up a little. Well, guess who got to play Lady Macbeth?”

“Did you volunteer, Mummy?”

“No way. The headmaster called me to his study–I can see it now:

“Watts, Mr Cambridge has asked you to try for the drama group.”

“Not at all, Watts, I’m encouraging your individualism, while enabling you to develop new skills–now you bloody fairy, get out of my study and down to the drama group before I have you sent to train with the rugger team.”

“Crikey, Mummy, he sounds an absolute pig–surely he couldn’t have made you do it, could he?”

“If my parents had backed me–no, he couldn’t, but my father felt it would embarrass me into getting my hair cut and becoming more butch.”

“Did it?”

“No–I pissed him off, by getting it dyed auburn.”

“You went redhead?”

“Well yes, lots of Scots are redheads, so I thought it would be in keeping, except it clashed with the pink scrunchies they made me wear. I bought some green ones, it went fine with those.”

“Didn’t you secretly want to do the part?”

“Part of me did, I was still sorting myself out, and what I wanted to do and be–and it’s one of the best roles in Shakespeare, unless you do Romeo and Juliet or Merchant of Venice–and even there the women are a bit wishy washy.”

“So you did it?”

“I had to, and they made me wear a long dress right through rehearsals.”

“Why?”

“Because they could. It was supposed to be so the others would see me more as a girl.”

“And you’re smaller than the rest and with shoulder length hair?”

“Well below my shoulders.”

“Wow–were you any good?”

“The local paper thought I was girl, and refused to believe I wasn’t. They thought I was very good–I used to have a copy of their review but I think my dad disposed of it in one of his tantrums. My mum was a bit upset by the review, but pleased I did it as well as I could.”

“Couldn’t they see what you really were?”

“They didn’t want to–remember; there are none so blind as those who will not see.”

“Wow, my Mummy, the famous Shakespearean actress–you are amazing.”

“Yeah, sometimes I think I am, too.”