The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1365 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

It was over a week since Julie had been abducted and apart from one or two nightmares, she seemed to be coping very well. She was seeing Stephanie twice a week and I was pleased how well she was doing.

The one thing which had made me smile when she told me was why she didn’t really feel threatened by the kidnappers. “I knew you’d come and rescue me, I kept sending out the light and I knew you’d come–you never let us down, Mummy.”

When someone has that level of confidence is it fair to point out the flaws in their logic–yeah, I found her but only because the police did the seeking, and the blue light I homed in on came in the form of the flashing lights on top of the police cars.

Now it was I who was feeling afraid–we started rehearsals for this play next week and I wasn’t sure I could do it. I didn’t want to do it in the first place but I couldn’t see any way of backing out without letting others down–something that was drilled into me as a kid–don’t let others down.

Okay, it’s for a good cause–the hardship fund for the school–this is where they give bursaries to children whose parents couldn’t otherwise afford to send them there. To me that was a good cause. I might not agree with their religion but I couldn’t fault their charitableness–to me that’s what Christianity should be about, not all this politics about gay bishops and women priests.

I sat looking at the text for Macbeth and my brain just seemed to freeze–Is this a script I see before me–the words meaning nothing to my frozen brain? I went to make a cuppa–Jenny was out with the two little ones to give me space to practice my lines–or even learn them. Some hope.

I felt that I was doing this for everyone else–and I’d given my word–so I had to do it, but what was I doing for me? Very little. I was minded of one of the early Gaby books–Trish has them all–and Drew decides to give up being Gaby because he felt he was doing for everyone else or to avoid saying no to everyone.

In the stories everyone sees him as weak or easily led which means much the same thing–but he’s not–he’s archetypally female although he can’t see it–he wants to please and is prepared to surrender his own goals for those of others except when on a bicyle–that brings him like some portal into another world where he is a prince or his alter ego, a princess–his mother is the queen.

In the later books he discovers that he’s as much female as male–and his body is following a female phenotype–so it gets even harder to appear as male and his family and his schoolmates in Germany only see the girl–he even gets elected as the wine princess–once again he agrees to do it because he wants to please those who ask him to, and besides which he doesn’t want the agro that telling the truth would create–he’d embarrass everyone, including his family. Only British Cycling seem to see him as male–and his opponents within the team see him as effete–although the powers that be know he isn’t.

I quickly reviewed my life–I did what I wanted to with help from Stella and the other Camerons once they were in on my secret, I also had help from Tom and the university.

The children were wished on me, but once they were here, I wanted them so badly. It fulfilled something so deep inside me that I only glimpse it now and again–I needed to be a parent–and to experience that as a mother. So, I can’t have my own children–but the universe came up with the next best–children who needed a mother. We met each other’s needs. The second thing I really wanted and it happened.

I suppose somewhere I have to accept that I wanted Simon once I’d fallen for him and realised that he had coped with my strange route to womanhood–many men wouldn’t or couldn’t–but he did.

Not only that but he decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and asked me to be his wife. How could I refuse? The icing–well–starting life as a boy and ending up as Lady Cameron–not bad for a failed boy is it?

Finally, I get to play with dormice–something I love doing even though I don’t do it much at present. I do enough to keep my licence going, which reminds me, I must do a survey sometime–possibly take Danny with me–he’d enjoy that–it’s too much hard walking for the others. As I coordinate the surveys, I can write myself in to do one–next weekend I think–Simon can babysit.

I heard the front door close and Puddin’ toddled in, “Annicaffi,” she calls me or variations on this general theme. Thank goodness she hasn’t copied the others and called me mummy that would probably drive Stella over the edge.

I rang her yesterday, she’s doing okay–the baby is due in about a month. Gareth goes to see her every week and he still wants to marry her–silly bugger–but that’s love for you.

I must admit, part of me could quite easily have had an affair with him, he is so dishy–but fortunately, the part of me which controls my moral thinking stopped me. How could I have even contemplated having sex with him because I lusted after his body? Easily–but in doing so would have destroyed a marriage and possibly the person I love, not to mention what it would have done to the children. I’m grateful on that occasion my commonsense prevailed and I did what others wanted and expected of me not what my libido was screaming at me to do.

I suppose it’s all about balance–some of the time I get it right, sometimes I don’t. The balance is about understanding what’s really important–not for the next few minutes or even days or weeks–but for the rest of one’s life. All those decisions I’ve made which affect me long term, I seem to have got mostly right–although Gareth was the one thing that nearly derailed me–and he could be coming here to live.

Life is challenging–if he does come to live here as my brother in law–that’s okay. At least I hope it is–time will show one way or the other. So far he’s been supportive of keeping me at arm’s length–will his resolve fade and more importantly, will mine?

I went back to my Shakespeare–after what I was facing, Macbeth seemed a dawdle–and having cleared my mind–it allowed me to focus and I got stuck in for the next hour.