The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1305 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Simon was actually still sober and he and Matt, together with the bar man were engaged in a serious discussion about the changing rules of rugby favouring the Southern Hemisphere teams.

I virtually had to drag him away from his discussion, but I suggested rather pointedly that Matthew perhaps ought to go and look after his wife. He eventually got the message and went, and I was able to get Si back to our suite.

“How’s the lovely Mrs Hines?”

“She’s actually very sweet.”

“She’s a real cracker,” he beamed.

“Thanks, Si, that makes me feel very good about myself.”

He blushed, “Oh don’t be like that, Babes, you’re the one I love, and you’re a real cracker, too.”

“Yeah, one with party hats and corny jokes in.”

“Why must you twist everything nice that I say to you?”

“C’mon, Si, you started off by saying how beautiful Judy Hines was and only included me because I complained.”

“Oh–okay, I messed up there, but you are beautiful and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Besides, it was you we chose to go on our dormouse posters.”

As those were an item of contention still, I wasn’t entirely appeased by his argument. It wasn’t him who got pointed at every time he went into the bank–they were still using the posters and leaflets with the photo of me holding Spike.

After talking about more serious things, like Trish’s birthday we finally got to bed and I slept quite well until about five o’clock when I had a weird dream. In it I saw I had been voted one of the most beautiful women in the world, beating the likes of Cheryl Cole and Eva Longoria. Then I saw people pointing at me everywhere I went and men looking at me with lust in their eyes. I began to need to have a bodyguard and I kept wishing to be able to live normally.

I woke myself up crying when someone asked me to do some glamour photos. Simon asked me what the problem was and I told him it was a bad dream. He turned over and went back to sleep but I didn’t. I got up and made myself a cuppa.

I went into the shower and after looking at myself and my naked body for a minute or two in the mirror in the bathroom, I thought I looked in reasonable shape for someone who didn’t have time to exercise enough and who wasn’t too bad looking for a tranny. Then I said to my reflection, “Well this is as good as it’s going to get, so I suppose I’d better be satisfied with it.” My reflection seemed to agree with me, curiously enough.

Washing myself in the shower I reflected on my dream–some of the detail had gone–I was however, aware for the first time, that anyone who is very beautiful and publicly so, becomes a target for every moron going.

Just because people have high profile jobs or work in the public arena, like actresses and models, singers and so on, doesn’t mean they are public property. I read of one woman who had been stalked by two or three creeps for several years. These people seem to think because they’ve seen you on telly and you’ve been ‘in their homes’, that they possess you or have some right to a relationship with you. Goodness, maybe I shouldn’t bother making any more films.

Rapt in my own thoughts and also a towel, I jumped out of my skin when Simon came blundering into the bathroom needing a wee. It was half past six and I got us some breakfast sent up. He jumped in the shower and was out again by the time his full English and my poached eggs on toast arrived.

“What did you think of Matt?” I asked Si as we ate.

“He’s okay, I thought he was a bit of a prat to start with, but that’s his way of keeping people at arm’s length. He’s thrilled to be doing Macbeth with a Scottish noblewoman as his queen.”

I was going to challenge him, until I ran through his logic–I was born in Dumfries, which is in Scotland–so technically, I could be seen as Scots. I married into an old Scottish aristocratic family–so, I suppose technically he’s correct. Oh what the hell–do I care? Absolutely not.

“In fact,” continued Si, “he confessed that he was worried about doing Shakespeare and doing it on stage–he’s essentially a film actor.”

“Judy said as much last night–she suggested that he was looking to me to help him through the process–talk about the blind leading the blind.”

“At least you’ve done it before,” Simon added, slurping down a fried tomato.

“At a very amateur level, in fact if Matthew wasn’t involved and his pal, Gordon Rashley, this would be very amateur too and no one would worry about it.”

“It wouldn’t command the money it’s going to make for the school's good causes, though, would it?”

“It would have made something–why is everyone obsessed with money all the time? It’s not as if you could eat the stuff?”

“You seem to get through enough of it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked defensively.

“You seem to be spending more heavily than you did.”

“Everything has gone up, Si. Food, fuel, everything. I’ve also had to buy the kids clothing and then there’s birthdays and so on. Besides, you’re always telling me I don’t spend enough. I actually paid for my own dress, the one I wore last night.”

“Okay, I wasn’t complaining, I was stating a fact. I keep a check on our accounts and you’ve been spending about twenty per cent more for the last couple of months.”

“You have access to my account?” I snapped.

“No, our account–the joint account we have–the bank does obviously have records of your account too, but I’m barred from seeing them. Families are, without written consent from the account holder.”

“Oh, I just wondered.” I didn’t know whether I believed him or not, I was sure that given his position, he could get to see my details without too many problems. It wasn’t as if I had secrets from him, more the fact that bank accounts were supposed to be covered by confidentiality laws, like health information.

“Well I hope you’re satisfied? Look, you know if ever you need more money, all you need to do is say.”

“Yes, I know, darling, but I’m okay at the moment.”

“You know our joint account is fed by an automatic top up from one of my accounts.”

“No–no I didn’t know.”

“It is, it keeps a minimum of seven thousand in there.”

“I don’t think I’d spend that in a supermarket, even one like Sainsbury’s.”

“The most you can spend on a single transaction is about five hundred anyway, which covers most things.”

“Yeah, I can just about fill up my tank for that,” I smirked, joking about the cost of diesel.

“Tell me about it. Our visiting people, have doubled their travel costs in the last six months and that’s mostly fuel.”

“You have bank staff who do visits?”

“Yes, most banks do–seeing people who can’t get to us. Nat West do it too, as do most of the major banks–you know, going to see sick people who may be housebound, the elderly and so on.”

“Is this all part of the supposed caring image?”

“We do care,” he said indignantly.

“About their money.”

“We’re a bank, not a charity.”

“Damn, I’m always confusing the two,” I said clicking my fingers. His response was very adult. He threw some toast at me and we ended up having a full on pillow fight until I was so tired that I collapsed onto the bed and he ‘fell’ on top of me and began kissing me.

“We need to have time to play more often,” he told me as he kissed me again.