Easy As Falling Off A Bike
by Angharad
part: 291.

We left the solicitor's office and watched the rain from the porch. I was rather glad I'd worn my mac, but I didn't have my umbrella nor a hat, with me.

"Well the bank is shut now anyway, but the pub is open, let's go over there and see if the rain stops," suggested Simon.

As I couldn't think of a better idea, I nodded and we both ran across the road and into the pub. It was an old building which had been fairly recently revamped, so it resembled every other such pub. However, at five o'clock, it wasn't too busy.

Simon went to get some drinks, I settled for a soft drink, I'd have preferred a cuppa, but I'd survive. While Simon was chatting up the barmaid, why do men always seem to have to talk to women displaying large amounts of cleavage? It's not a problem I had, which was perhaps why I was jealous. Still, I won't need scaffolding when I get to my forties and everything goes south.

I dipped into my bag to find a tissue and saw the envelope with my father's handwriting on it. I pulled it out and quietly tore open the envelope.

'Dear C,

Your dear mother is dead and didn't have a chance to mention something to you. It's something she has kept for you for a very long time. It's in a safe place, however, to access it you need to look beneath her dressing table and take what you find to my bank.

I'm leaving this with my solicitor so if you are reading this, I am dead, too, and hopefully with your dear mother. I hope we had a chance to make up before I died. There are many things I've done which were wrong, some of them were done to you. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me. I was doing what I thought best at the time. I now realise I was wrong. I am still your father and I do love you.

I don't know how your future is going to be, I still feel you're wrong to try and change your body, but if it makes you feel better, I suppose I'll have to learn to live with it or lose you. You are all I have now, and I know we have some difficult history, but I hope we can have some sort of relationship.

Now you have this it's too late for aspirations, so did we make up, or are you still cursing me, and was I still puzzling about you? I hope we reconciled things.

I'm sorry but with your mother's death so recent, I can't cope with the thought of losing a son as well, so I'm afraid I can't bear to use your new name, I hope maybe with time that will change. I hope you enjoyed having your doll back, for that thank your mother, God rest her soul.

Good bye my child,

Your loving father,

Derek.'

I read the letter through watery eyes, he'd obviously written this between my mother dying and his stroke. It showed how far he'd actually come before he died. Did he really love me or did he need me? I guess I'll never know for sure.

I gave it to Simon to read when he finally arrived with the drinks. I was too preoccupied to say something about his new friend's assets. He read it and looked at me.

"What do you think?" he asked me.

"It looked as if he was beginning to change or pretending to."

"I don't see pretence there, he admits he's having difficulty in losing his only other close relative."

"Yeah, but words are cheap."

"Unless you're JK Rowling, that's probably true, but let's face it, he did seem to change after the stroke and towards the end he seemed reconciled to the new you."

"Was that with a willing heart or by dint of necessity?" I didn't know what I felt.

"Gosh, for a really nice person, you can be quite hard at times." Simon cut me to the core with that one.

"You didn't feel the blows."

"Cathy, you can't carry the bruises forever. let them go, he's dead! Just let him go and let them go."

"Yeah, maybe you're right."

"I don't know if there are any rights or wrongs, and as you said, it wasn't me who got beaten up. If it had been, I'd probably feel different."

"You'd have hit him back."

"Not necessarily. I've had a few hidings in my time, but only twice have I got my own back, at least physically. But I'm a male, you're not, girls don't do the same as boys, do they?"

"I don't know anymore. This just confuses me. What is so secret or precious that he set up a deposit box for me? It's hardly my milk teeth is it?"

"Depends upon what the going rate from the tooth fairy was at the time. Let's see, fifteen years ago, interest rates would have been higher than now, so you never know. Of course they have to be inflation proof teeth."

I shook my head, sometimes I worried if there was truth in the rumours amongst interbreeding and the aristocracy. Simon was obviously as nutty as a fruit cake: or maybe he was sane and I was the fruit cake! At least he was sat with his back to the barmaid and her outstanding assets. If she got a chest infection she'd need a truck load of pills!

"We can't go to the bank until tomorrow, so let's get some food."

"Okay, where do you want to eat?"

"What are the options?" he asked.

"We can go home and I'll knock something up, we could go and find somewhere to eat, or we could grab a take away."

"How about the latter? I really fancy some fish and chips and mushy peas."

"Do you know they put some E-numbers* in mushy peas."

"I don't care, if they were going to kill me, they'd have done so long since. We lived on E-numbers at school, sausages, burgers, tinned peas that were so green they looked like the balls off a leprechaun."

"Simon, you have a really colourful turn of phrase."

"Yep, green as a leprechaun's nuts!" he smiled, no he positively beamed, he was so pleased with himself.

"Simon, you are disgusting."

His smile widened, he was really just a rather large schoolboy, I just hoped I didn't get stuck in the 'mummy' role, too often, and I didn't mean ancient Egyptian bandages and sarcophagi.

"Come on, I know a good fish and chip shop not too far from home." I stood up and he finished his Guinness, then followed me.

He smiled at the barmaid and once outside, I poked him, "What's she got that I haven't?"

"Nothing, except quantity," he said and walked on towards the car.

I stood for a moment, thought about what he had just said and decided one of these days I would have to kill him. But not tonight, because I didn't really want to be alone. So he did have some uses.

As we drove, or as he drove, I asked him what we were going to do about my auntie.

"Do we have to do anything? I mean, we could probably have them cremated together, but they usually expect you to wait until they are dead."

"No silly, you told her we're married, we're not. If she finds out you lied, she'll give me hell."

"I could make one call to Moscow and she *poof*," he clicked his fingers, "ceases to be a problem."

" *Poof*, just like that?" I repeated.

"No, not like that, like that." He did his Tommy Cooper impersonation.

"Two blondes walked into a building, boom boom, you'd have thought one of them would have seen it!"

"Do you mind!" I said, "That girl's chest has gone to your head."

"You're jealous," he countered.

"I am not," I said indignantly, course I was, but I wasn't going to admit it in a million years.

"Yes you are. You thought I fancied her."

"You did."

"You're joking, I hope, she wasn't my type at all."

"Eh?" Now I was confused, "So why did you spend so long talking to her, trying to chat her up."

"Chat her up, I was trying to find out where this 'ere bank of your dad's was, and how to get there."

"I know where it is. plus I have an AtoZ of Bristol somewhere in the car," I looked in the glove compartment, drew it out and dropped it on his lap.

"Ouch you bitch, are you trying to cripple me?"

"No," I said innocently, although it reminded me I needed to dilate.

"Prove it."

"Play your cards right and I might just do that, after we've eaten, of course."

"We could skip the main course," he said winking at me.

"Not on your life, besides you might need all the mushy peas you can get!" I said and ran my hand along his thigh.

* E - numbers, all food colours and flavourings, preservatives etc have a number under the EU legislation on food safety.