(aka Bike) Part 1780 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad
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“I hope she’s not in police custody now,” I said to Chief Inspector Hatch.
“No we cautioned her and bailed her, it’s up to the CPS to decide if they want to charge her.”
“I’d like to speak to her.”
“After what she did yesterday?” he sounded surprised.
“Especially after that: I don’t want bad feeling between her and Trish and if I could explain a few things to her, she might feel less angry.”
“A very noble intention, Lady Cameron, but I suspect she’s got other things on her mind–James Watts died this morning.”
“I thought they were separated or divorced?”
“I believe they are, but she appears to be the only one to be taking charge of the funeral. He doesn’t appear to have anyone else rushing to do the job.”
“I’d like to send some flowers from Trish, do we know which undertaker?”
“I expect it’ll be in the local paper, they usually are.”
“If she describes him as father of Patrick, I might try to convince her to practice suttee.”
“What’s a funeral got to do with a hand puppet?”
“Not Sooty, suttee–it’s a Hindu custom of a wife jumping onto her husband’s funeral pyre, outlawed by the British in India.”
“Yeuch, what a horrible way to go.”
“Quite.”
“I take it you were joking?”
“I think heavy irony, sums it up.”
I finished my conversation with the policeman and called the hospital, leaving a message that I wanted to talk to Bernadette Watts and could she call me. I didn’t really expect her to do so, but two hours later my mobile rang and when I answered it, it was her.
“What d’you want with me?”
“First, I wanted to offer my condolences on the death of James.”
“That all?”
“No, I wanted to tell you that neither Trish nor I will press charges, though I can’t speak for the hospital or the security man you hit.”
“What d’you want, gratitude?”
“I wasn’t particularly expecting any.”
“So what d’ya want?”
“I’d actually like to talk to you about Trish.”
“Trish-eepoos–his bloody name is Patrick.”
“It isn’t, it’s been changed to Patricia.”
“How dare you?”
“It was at her behest and agreed by the Gender Identity Panel.”
“He’s eight years old.”
“She–her gender is officially female.”
“What are you–some sort of nutter?”
“She had surgery a year or so ago following an injury to her groin, the surgeon decided that he couldn’t save her genitals and used what he could to fashion a vagina and labia.”
“She’s ’ad a sex-change operation?”
“Effectively, yes.”
“I’m gonna set the police on you–mutilating a boy like that?”
“She did it herself when I told her nothing could be done until she was eighteen.”
“You expect me to believe that fairy tale?”
“Believe what you will, it’s what happened.”
“A likely tale.”
“The police were informed and conducted an investigation.”
“You bought ’em off, like you done yesterday.”
“I did not. Look, I’m trying to help you.”
“An’ ’ow can talkin’ to you ’elp me?”
“At least you might be easier able to understand her.”
“Oh I understand alright, you wanted a girl only you started with my son...”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. In which case I have to ask you to keep away from Trish and the rest of my family.”
She burst into a series of oaths and profanities and I switched off my Blackberry. No matter how hard I try to make things better for everyone, the universe stubbornly refuses to go along with it.
“Who were you talking to, Mummy?”
“Oh, hi, darling,” I felt myself blushing. “Nobody really, why?”
“It wasn’t her, was it?”
“Her?” I played stupid.
“That horrid woman who thinks she still owns me.”
“No one owns you, Trish, you belong to us as a family member, but we belong to you just as much.”
“It was her though, wasn’t it?”
I blushed again, “Yes, I wanted to speak with her to try and explain a bit about gender dysphoria, about the indications that it is biological and not just a whim–it’s still speculative, but she doesn’t know that.”
“What does spec–whatever mean, Mummy?”
“Spec? Oh speculative?”
She nodded.
“It means that it’s an idea which hasn’t been proven beyond all doubt, a sort of educated guess.”
“So, we don’t know if it’s biological, then?”
“D’you understand what I mean by biological?”
“Not really.”
“It means that they suspect that the brains of people with gender problems are different to people who don’t have that sort of problem.”
She looked bewildered.
“Okay, I suspect if they examined your brain, they’d discover that certain parts of it were more like a girl’s than a boy’s. Also, if they examined the same bits in David’s brain, they’d find his was more like a normal man’s than a woman.”
“Did David used to be a girl then?”
I blushed yet again–whoops, unwitting disclosure. “I told you that in confidence, so don’t you tell anyone–okay?”
“Okay,” she seemed taken aback by my insistence on secrecy–why did I have to blab? I’d have to tell David when he came back from shopping. “Is that why he’s so good with Catherine–he used to be a girl?”
“No, I don’t think so, some men are just good with babies and some women aren’t.”
“’Cos of their brains?”
“Ultimately yes, but not in the way you meant.”
“She’s not gonna try and get me back is she?”
“I don’t know what she’s going to do, but she won’t succeed, I promise that.”
“Why did you want to talk to her–she hates me.”
“I don’t believe that, Trish, she’s your mother.”
“So? She used to beat me and then she put me in a home because she didn’t want to know about how I wanted to be a girl.”
“Well she can’t turn you back into a boy, can she?”
“No,” she smirked, “not unless she can make it grow again.” The she looked worried and asked, “She couldn’t do that, could she?”
“No, which is one of the reasons they like children to wait until they’re eighteen before they have surgery–because they like them to be certain as once bits have been taken away, they can’t be put back.”
“Phew, I was worried then, Mummy.” She hugged me and suddenly asked, “The blue light can’t make them go back, can it?”
“No, of course not, why did you think that?”
“And it can’t make me a proper girl, can it?”
“You are a proper girl, Trish, but the light can’t enable you to have babies, no.”
“Pity,” she said and sloped off again.
I settled down to do some work on my doctorate and had only just started when my phone peeped to indicate a text message. I clicked it open expecting it to be Simon or one of the girls, I was wrong.
‘I’m gonna get U 4 wot U dun 2 my boy.’
My fault I suppose for giving her my phone number–I still reported it to the police but asked them to go easy on her. They weren’t very happy.
Comments
Security
Did Cathy ever get around to reinstalling CCTV on the gate posts?
Trish will probably be safe enough at home and school, but it might be worthwhile ensuring she either (a) leaves Trish at home when she goes shopping or (b) takes some of the other children as well. It wouldn't surprise me if Cathy's elite skills at Bristolian Street Fighting are called into play again, and Trish's biological mother will end up either dead or having the book thrown at her, after doing something that eventually snaps Cathy's patience and desire for leniency.
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
you can't
Save them , cure them, whatever. Pretty to think so but it aint gonna happen. Sigh I'm upset with Cathy for trying which is perhaps somewhat uncharitable but... I guess I'm just feeling a little cranky with such people and I refuse to make excuses for them. Don't understand? Fine, but anger and violence is too often the result of that unwillingness to try. I hope Trish doesn't get bit by Cathys altruistic intent.
k
I couldn't have said
it any better mittfh!
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
She's a Nasty Number...
Inshallah, the woman is distraught over the Father's death? While I am ashamed of it now, when my stepfather died, I cheered and spouted off with, "Good, he can't hurt anyone else now".
Some People Just Can't Be Reasoned With
Cathy is finding out that some people just can't be reasoned with. Judging by the way Trish's birth mother treated her when she was trying to force her to be a boy, I am not sure I would have been so easy on her by failing to press charges. I think I would have made sure she got the book thrown at her just for what she put that poor child through by beating her for wanting to be who she was. Cathy has certainly gone to war with anyone who threatens her kids. It sounds like she might regret letting her off so easy and it will come down to that again.
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1780
Cathy needs to get Maureen and her cadre to install tougher gates, doors, and windows on the premises as well as filters on the water, gas lines and install a large water cistern and generator/fuel depot to turn the place into a fortress against those nutters who seem to want to attack Cathy.
May Your Light Forever Shine
1780
While this may sound a bit overboard, its really a pretty good idea when you consider all the problems they have had, and will have.
May be a move to Scotland
And into the families big house, then they can pour hot oil on the beasts at the door, or Catherin can do an Ivanhoe on them with a bow. But in reality so many people live their entire life arguing with reason and work very hard to ignore it, so trying to reason with them is like reasoning with a donkey. Try as you might the dumb ass just wont get it. May be it is just a language barrier; but then again not.
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Gender dysphoria.
IMHO I think GD is biological though I believe there are degrees. The only reason I believe this is personal circumstances and intereaction with other T.Gee's. Where I tend to part company with the seemingly heterosexist society is where they seem to think there are only two genders and the legal structure of that society works to reinforce that. This makes for much discomfort and despair amongst the Tee Gee community.
On the circumstances concerning Trish's biological mother I would urge Cathy to be cautious but compassionate. If there is potential for change in the mother's beliefs and nature, if cannot be achieved by punishment or enforcement. Nevertheless for Trishs's sake Cathy will have to put Trish's interests first even if that hurts the mother.
Good chapter Ang; still lovin' it.
OXOXOX
Bev.
You certainly know how to
hang a cliff.
I tort I taw a puddy tat........
S.
*sighs*
Oh, my... Cathy never lacks from crazies in her life, does she... *sighs*
Wonder how James is doing... Cathy may need "enhanced security services" for a while. Dunno if she can/should get a "restraining order" to keep this birth mom away from her family (legally) or not... Of course, such orders don't stop folks from crossing the line if they feel like it, they just make it easier to punish them "after the fact".
Interesting that the "ex wife" is the one to make funeral arrangements... Even be interested in doing so. There almost HAS to be something "in it" for her there. To be honest, Trish has a better claim (and through Trish, Cathy and Simon) than the ex-wife unless he had a will that named his ex.
Fascinating turns of events.
Annette
On the one hand
we have Trish budding child genius and on the other we have Bernadette Watts the aforementioned child genius's mother, From the little we have seen of the mother so far it does make you wonder where Trish's intelligence comes from, Certainly it seems not from her mother, Its been some time since we saw such a small minded unseeing person, Hopefully it will be some time in the future before we see her like again..
Thankfully the British weather relented and i was able to enjoy a couple of days away with a strange yellow orb smiling down on me, Must not get used to it though experience tells me it won't last... But i can dream..
Kirri