The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1326 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I explained why we’d come to Bristol, to put flowers on the graves of my real parents. The three of them were okay with that, and we set off with the flowers to the cemetery. I parked the car and set off to try and find their graves. Dad had got a headstone done with my mother’s name on it, and I know he’d left instructions for what he wanted done when he died.

Fortunately the church yard wasn’t that big, and we found it about ten minutes later, or Billie did. She called us and when we walked over, discovered she had found the correct grave.

Like Simon yesterday, I had bouquet made up with reservoir of water in it, so the flowers would last a few days, depending upon the ravages of the weather. I couldn’t come again to water them, so this was a very temporary gesture.

I managed to prop the flowers up against the headstone, and wanted to say loads of things to my parents even though I knew they couldn’t hear me. I felt embarrassed in front of my children. As if they sensed this, they asked if they could look inside the church. I agreed and they ran off, giggling and squealing into the distance.

I checked all round me, there was no one else in sight. “Hi Mummy and Daddy, I brought you some flowers, to say I remembered you. The three hooligans who just ran off are three of my children–so you were right, Mummy, I do have lots of children and I teach them in the same way that you taught me how to look after themselves and that I love them very much.

“They’re all damaged or have problems, but I’ve adopted them–so we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future. I try to be a good mother to them, as I tried to be a good daughter to you–Daddy would know more about that, but well you know...

“I have to go now, see what my girls are up to, I love you both, and you’re still in my thoughts. Goodbye for now.”

I chided myself as I walked back towards the church pushing the sleeping baby in her push chair–fancy talking to two boxes of bones and decaying flesh as if they could hear me? When you’re dead–that’s it–fin–all over bar the tears of those who are still alive–but you can’t hear them.

There is no afterlife or life eternal or whatever the con-men of religion like to sell us, just nothingness. So why do we worry so much about it? The manner of dying–yes, I can understand that, pain, humiliation and so on–but once you’re dead–it’s all behind you anyway.

Despite the warmth of the day I shivered a little–nah, that’s just my imagination. I strolled round to the church and the girls were playing some sort of tag game in front of it. Laughing and giggling. Just then a figure began walking up the path–the only path–back to the car. It was the priest who’d buried both my parents.

Of course it had to be Trish who ran smack into him and nearly knocked them both flying. I then had to intervene. He was laughing with her and telling her to look where she was running next time. She laughed back.

As I walked towards them, I heard her telling him that her mummy was putting flowers on her mummy and daddy’s grave.

“Oh who was that?” I heard him ask.

“Derek and Fiona Watts,” she replied, obviously having read it from the headstone.

He looked up and smiled at me coming towards him. “Hello again,” he said, “Catherine, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Reverend Peabody.” I’d always though pea-brain would be a better name, but he was being polite, so I tried to return the courtesy.

“So how are things?”

“Fine thanks, I just popped by to put some flowers on my parent’s grave.”

“Yes, I’m sure they’d appreciate that. Look, I’m just locking up here, why don’t you come back to the vicarage and have a cup of tea, and your girls could have a glass of pop.”

Before I could decline, the three of them whipped by Trish, all declared for going back with the vicar. It was a fait accompli and I found myself being led past my car and along to the vicarage. I hadn’t been in there for years.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess–my wife’s up at her mother’s for the week–so I have to cope as best I can.”

“Look, if this is too much trouble...” I tried to excuse myself out of it.

“No, I insist, I’d love to hear how you’re getting on–I did enjoy your dormouse programme–your parents would have been so proud of you.”

I was so close to tears, that I could say nothing but mumble and accept the seat he offered me. The girls sat down and before I knew what was happening, they’d switched on the telly and were watching some cartoon show.

He came back with the teas, “Oh,” he said when he saw them watching the television.

“Sorry, I didn’t spot them until it was too late.”

“No problem. Here you are, girls.” He held out the tray and they each took a glass of lemonade. “Let’s go into the study, and they can watch their cartoons in peace.”

I followed him like a schoolgirl into the headmaster’s study, feeling I shouldn’t be here–this is enemy territory, but he was being so courteous.

I sat and accepted the mug of tea, rejecting the offer of sugar, but accepting the milk. I sipped it, and as far as I could tell it wasn’t poisoned. So why was he being so nice?

“I know that we’ve had some differences in the past, I hope that we can overcome them with some Christian fellowship,” he started.

“As you know, Reverend, I’m agnostic, so I’m not sure I can accede to your suggestion.”

“Oh,” he said, “How about common decency, does that fit the bill?”

“Yes okay, I can go with that.”

“Fine, don’t worry, I’m not going to preach at you. I saw how you looked after Derek when he was in hospital.”

“He didn’t tell me you went to see him,” I challenged, already feeling mildly hostile.

“I asked him not to, in case it put you off–you were doing him a lot more good than I could–if I’d made him some soup it would have likely poisoned him, rather than nurtured him. You acted like a real daughter to him, in fact when I saw you together at your mother’s funeral, I could see the affection you both had for each other–despite your efforts to hide it from each other. I urged him to keep in touch with you, because you were his only child.”

I was gob-smacked, this wasn’t how I’d envisioned things at all. I had more a picture of him painting me as some sort of devil worshipping abhorrent.

“This is all news to me,” I gasped rather than said.

“Things are changing all the time, Catherine, society, the church, the environment–everything changes, and we must change to meet the challenges it gives us.”

“But you were so fundamentalist.”

“Only in some ways–I still don’t approve of homosexual priests or women bishops, but I have to live in the times we inhabit.”

“But I assumed you’d disapprove of me?”

“Years ago, and without meeting you, I would have done. But I watched you grow up and the tension in you as you discovered science and how that drove you from God. But God works in mysterious ways, in the way He made you question His creation, He must also have made you question your identity.”

I wasn’t going to agree with him, but I wasn’t going to argue either–just drink my tea and go.

“As all things must originate in and from God, we have to accept that some of us are different, and have to deal with that as best we can. I recognise you’re happier as Catherine than you were as Charles, and I also saw how well you’d accepted the role of a female when I saw you at the funeral, and the way you looked after Derek. He came to see it too, and regretted his being hard on you when you were younger.”

“I know we’d come to some sort of truce after he had his stroke, but I was never sure if he was doing it just to keep me onside.”

“No, not one bit–he loved you and came to realise he was wrong. We spent some time talking it over after your mother died.”

“So it was you who got him to contact me about the funeral?”

“He wanted to do it, but was frightened of it, in case he messed up and you went off and didn’t speak to him again.”

I felt tears beginning to form.

“He told me he thought he’d seen you at your mother’s bedside, but he wasn’t sure because you looked so natural–he somehow expected to see a drag-queen type figure, a caricature of a woman, and you weren’t. But you were still angry with him and he was frightened he’d lose you as well as your mother.”

“I was angry with him–deservedly so–he’d been a real bastard to me.”

“He knew that, and I implored him to seek both yours and God’s forgiveness.”

I wasn’t sure what God had to do with it but maybe I’d erroneously rated Reverend Peabody as a homophobe or transphobe.

“When I saw your film about dormice–I knew it was you, because Derek had told me you were a leading expert on them–I was very impressed with your presentation skills and your command of the subject matter. I was also impressed with the way you seemed so totally female, so you had to have made the right decision in that choice of identity.”

“I hope so–‘cos it aint gonna grow back.” I said and he frowned then smirked.

“The children called you, Mummy?”

“Yes, Simon and I have adopted a few waifs and strays.”

“Simon–Derek mentioned him–he’s your boyfriend?”

“My husband.”

“Oh yes, that’s permissible now, isn’t it–civil partnerships and so on.”

“It isn’t a civil partnership, we’re married as man and wife.”

“Oh, congratulations,” he said covering his initial surprise. “So that makes you Mrs...?”

“Cameron, Lady Catherine Cameron.”

“Lady?” his eyes widened.

“Yes, my husband is Lord Simon Cameron.”

“Goodness–talk about over achieving–double congratulations, I am impressed. I knew you were talented, your school and university career showed that–your Lady Macbeth is still talked about at the Grammar School–but I wouldn’t have thought you'd manage to land a peer.”

“I didn’t set out to, but his sister became a friend after she knocked me off my bike and introduced me to Simon. We liked each other and the rest is history.”

“I presume he knows about your–um–past?”

“He knew long before we married, but it was his choice to propose to me despite all that, and I accepted because I love him.”

“Yes–well, congratulations again, I hope you’ll be very happy together.”

“We are. I must go, Reverend Peabody, thanks for the tea.” I shook his hand and collected my children before going back to the house to take the bedding off the line and repack the car. Thankfully, Catherine had stayed asleep the whole time–I think breast feeding her might just have blown his mind.