The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1027 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The room was presumably a sitting cum dining room, with a small table at which I sat, plus two easy chairs either side of an ornate fireplace which still had the original Victorian tiles in place. In the place where a fire would once have burned was displayed a small vase with some artificial poppies giving a focus for the eye.

The carpet was oatmeal and the chairs were a floral pattern with an oatmeal coloured background. Presumably much of this was from Maureen’s previous life before she lost her job when she began her transition. The windows were flanked by beige curtains with poppies, and some flowery net curtains covered the window panes.

Tamsin produced the tea and placed the pot upon the mat on the table. “You’d better be mother,” she said and the handle was pointed towards me. I stirred the pot and poured two cups of tea.

“How long have you known Maureen?” I asked, trying to get some sort of grasp of what exactly Tamsin was without being so rude as to ask.

“Oh a few years now. We met at a local TV/TS group.”

“This was presumably before Maureen transitioned.”

“Oh crikey yes, she was still Matt then.” It’s funny how we hang on to our initials when we change our names, or how so many of us do–me included. “How did you meet her?”

“At our doctor’s, can’t remember what I was there for, but he asked if I knew of anyone who could offer someone a job who’d fallen on hard times. After meeting Maureen, I realised I could offer her some work restoring some of the outbuildings at my adopted father’s house. She came over and we discussed it and she took it on. We were going great guns until she was attacked.”

“She told me that you were a wonderful employer.”

“Not really, she was a dream to work with, and very conscientious. If she comes home, how is she going to get up those stairs?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Very slowly,” Tamsin shook her head, “I dunno.”

“I can’t see the hospital being allowed to discharge her in that case.”

“But she’ll go crazy if she stays there much longer.”

“There should be some half-way house for continuing rehab before she can come here again. Otherwise she’ll be really stuck.”

“Yeah,” agreed Tamsin, “either at the top or bottom of the stairs.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“Not a lot at the moment, I used to be an electronics technician with the navy, but they found some female clothing in my locker during an inspection and kicked me out when they found I didn’t have a girlfriend.”

“What, for having some clothing in your locker? That’s pretty pathetic.”

“They were clamping down on gays.”

“But a pair of knickers in your locker doesn’t make you gay, does it?”

“No, I was gay before the knickers–it was a fair cop, as far as that was concerned.”

“I find this so disgraceful about the armed services–they claim to be non-discriminatory yet they are anything but.”
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“In those days, it was frowned upon, and if you kept your mouth shut they tended to turn a blind eye. When they had evidence of any sort, then it got a bit sticky.”

“If ten per cent of men are likely to be gay, then a significant number of servicemen are–so how can they pretend it doesn’t exist?”

“They’re like so many women who marry gay men, what they don’t want to see, they ignore.”

“So are you a gay man or transgendered? Sorry to be so blunt.”

“Me, I’m a gay tranny, and proud of it. Unlike Maureen, I don’t want me bits cut off, where’s the fun in that?”

I could have told him, but I didn’t. I sipped my tea and wondered what there was to do in the flat. In the end it was nothing. We rearranged a minute amount of dust, and I left Tamsin to lock up. I drove home and got some fresh fruit and veg on the way.

Turning into the drive, there was a strange car parked in my usual spot. I parked next to it and looked at the silver intruder–it had the joined rings of Audi on its bonnet and I suddenly remembered they were bringing the car for me. I locked up the Mondeo and carried my shopping and my cleaning bucket with me into the house.

“See your new chariot?” beamed Simon.

“It’s a bit small, isn’t it–I thought you were going to get me another little Mercedes?”

“Oh c’mon, Cathy, this is the ultimate girly car–one hundred per cent pudenda power. Let’s give it a test drive.”

“Can I just put this fruit away?”

“Well ‘urry up then, I’ll buy you lunch somewhere.”

“I’m not that hungry.”

“Been on the choccie biccies have we?”

“No–just not very hungry.”

“C’mon, let’s give this pussy-mobile a bashing.”

“Simon, you are being very vulgar, and extremely sexist.”

“Yeah, what’s new?”

“I’m not terribly happy listening to it, besides, I thought the ultimate pussy car was a Lotus Elan.”

“Gawd, which part of history are you coming from?”

“Emma Peel had one.”

“This thing will eat it.”

I don’t know why, but I had this horrible vision of this silver German thing eating poor Mrs Peel’s Lotus. I hesitated, and Simon pulled me along and jumped in the driver’s seat.

“I thought this was supposed to be my car, Si?”

“Yeah, but I have the keys.”

“So I see.”

“Get in and stop whingeing.”

I did as I was told, because I decided not to make an issue of it. It was very plush, lots of knobs to twiddle and so on, CD player, missile launcher, machine guns, vertical take-off and submersible mode–yeah, I suppose it was okay. Just in case you think I picked up James Bond’s latest car by mistake, I’m exaggerating a little–it didn’t have machine guns, just a single Gatling gun.

Simon left half the tyres behind as we screamed up the road. “If we get done for speeding, it’ll be points on my licence not yours,” I complained.

“Yeah, so?”

“I don’t want points on my licence.”

“Tough,” he retorted and put his foot down. We ended up flying up the A3 to Petersfield where we had lunch in a pub by the river and spent half the time chasing flies away–despite the warmer weather, and it felt quite sultry. There was still a cool breeze, although it didn’t stop Simon wanting to eat outdoors, hence the flies sharing my tuna jacket spud.

He had a couple of pints of Guinness and informed me I could drive back–probably while he snoozed. With a degree of trepidation I got in the car and adjusted the seat. Then I cautiously eased out of the car park to head south back to Portsmouth. I watched the speed like a hawk, the slightest pressure on the throttle and she simply shot off like a rocket.

After a few miles of moaning at my girly driving, Simon nodded off and snored, so I put on the radio and listened to the afternoon play while he snored in accompaniment. I began to get the feel of the car and it became easier to drive, although the ferocious acceleration frightened me a little. At one point, I did give her some welly and we were doing a hundred. That frightened me a bit, so I went back to watching the speedo very carefully, which was just as well, because ten minutes later we had a jam sandwich come past us and I hadn’t noticed him approaching. I wondered if his BMW would catch us–probably and he’s been trained to drive like a loony, I’m just a natural.

I dropped Simon off at the house. He was quite miffed to be woken up, but I needed his seat for the girls. I was tempted to take the Mondeo, but I knew they’d be pleased to see the new car. The two older girls did a game of rock, paper, scissors, and Livvie got to sit in the front. After we got home, the boys wanted a ride in it, so I took them with me to collect Julie from the salon.

When she came out and saw the new car, she was very enthusiastic about getting her licence next year, and could she borrow it when she’d passed her test? I suppose there’s nothing wrong with unbridled optimism–but I suspect the insurance premium would be something close to the value of the car for a new teenage driver. Thankfully, I had nearly a year to practice saying, no.”