Easy As Falling Off A Bike.
by Angharad
part 56

Despite my attempts to deny it, friday morning had to come. It arrived and I stayed in bed later than usual. I couldn't sleep worrying about what would happen when we got to the church. Then Pinky and Perky came in at about half past two and banged on my door as they passed, they were also singing at the tops of their voices.

I did think about revenge but I suspect my head was pounding as much as theirs would be, so drum practice would be out, not that I had any drums, but banging doors and pots and pans could generate a few decibels. However, defection being the better part of valour, my courage left me and I turned over and went back to sleep.

I woke up at gone ten o'clock, and then had to rush to be ready for Stella. She was coming for eleven to do my makeup and hair and then we were off. Yuck!

I showered and wrapped my head in a towel to stop it drying too quickly. I was in my undies when she arrived so I threw on a robe.

"Have you only just got up?" she asked suspiciously.

"Who me, no I've been up for hours, done twenty miles on the bike."

"Why aren't the wheels wet then?"

"Wet?"

"Yes, it's been raining."

"Oh, I hadn't noticed. Okay, I overslept," and held out my wrist to be slapped.

Stella was busy pulling out different little pots and tubes from her bag. She whipped off the towel and shoved mousse on my hair, then out came her powerful hairdryer. Before she went too far, I thought I'd better mention my hat.

"Stella, I bought a hat."

"What a cycling one?"

"No a navy one, I thought I might wear it to the funeral."

"Oh," she sounded more surprised than anything, "Can I see it?"

I went to my wardrobe and pulled out the plastic bag it was in, and handed it to her. She looked at it and then at me, then back at it and back at me for several moments. "It could work," she mumbled to herself. "Yes, it's okay, I think I can do your hair to work with it."

"When I tried it on yesterday, I felt I looked like my mother."

"Is that wise?"

"I thought it might stop him wanting to hit me, and it might prove my point that I take after my mother."

"What if he sees you as defiling his memory of your mum?"

"I hadn't thought of that." I felt rather deflated, my enthusiasm getting less by the second.

"It's up to you, what do you want to do?"

"Stay here."

"You can't do that, you've already promised to go."

"I know, but I'm dreading it."

"That is quite understandable, it is your mother's funeral so it's hardly going to be a fun time."

"I'd like to wear it, if he hits me he hits me."

"If he hits you I shall call the police, after I've hit him."

"If he hits me, just get out of there, he can cut up rough."

"So can I, and I do kick-boxing."

"I didn't know that." I shook my head in amazement, but then I'd only known her and Simon a week, so why should I know all about her.

"Come on missy, lets get this barnett finished," so saying she picked up the hairdryer and began blowdrying my hair. It relaxed the tension which had been building for the past few days, and I could have happily gone to sleep.

Next she began my makeup, shaping my eyebrows again, penciling them a little darker, and then making my eyes look darker yet not heavily painted. The mascara was applied a couple of times as was the eyebrow pencil again, along the edges of my eyelids. My lipstick was the frosted pink of earlier days and she brushed a little blusher to my cheeks, highlighting my cheekbones. When I lookd in the mirror, the similarity to my mother was even greater.

I dressed carefully to avoid getting makeup on my clothes and smudging it. At almost dead on eleven thirty, I gingerly placed the hat on my head and my mother was back. This time my stomach churned, what was Dad going to say or do?

"Yeah, it quite suits you," came from my critic.

"Do you like it then?"

"Yes, it's fine. Come on we have to get going."

Once in the car, I tried to think about other things. Stella's driving was quite a distraction and I did wonder if we would get there at all. I was very quiet and so she put on the radio and we half listened to a magazine programme on Radio Four, followed by a comedy which neither of us found the slightest bit funny.

I sent my father a text, 'Remember i'm Cathy UR daughter. Where do U want us to meet U? C.'

Eventually the phone peeped indicating a response. I checked it, half expecting it to be from my telecom company telling me the price of calls had been reduced on the Moon. I would have been wrong, it was Dad.

'OK, hadn't 4gotten, @ the church. Come 2 vestry. Dad'

"He wants me to meet him in the vestry."

"Us, he wants us to meet him. Remember we come as a set."

"Yeah, thanks Stella, dunno what I'd do without you?"

"You'd survive, things would be different, that's all."

"I'd have a very meagre wardrobe."

"Compared to me, most women do, I certainly wouldn't worry about it not as long as we are the same size."

I smiled, more from politeness than anything, I was already playing scenarios with my dad. Once we got to Bristol, I had to navigate her to the church. We parked as near as possible in case we needed to get away quickly. It was quarter to two.

Linking arms with me Stella almost dragged me into the church and down towards the vestry. My legs were shaky and I felt very sick. There were people about but no one challenged us. Stella banged on the door and it opened, the vicar poked his head out.

"Is Mr. Watts there with you Reverend?" she asked.

"Yes, yes he is, this is Cathy, I take it?"

I nodded.

"You resemble your mother quite a bit, come in."

Stella led me into the room and the priest continued with his robing in a small dressing room off the main vestry. My father stood up as we entered. He looked at me in very nervous manner, this was so unlike my father. He seemed to have aged since we'd last seen him.

"You look like your mother," he said almost prowling around us, for Stella was still standing with me.

"I know," I said wanting to collapse or be sick.

"I can't understand why you want to do this to yourself, seems daft to me."

"It's something I have to do, I can't explain it and I don't feel I have to justify it."

"I'm not asking you to." He turned around and picking up a large carrier bag, he passed it to me. "This is yours I think."

I looked inside and gasped, tears were so close now I had to work really hard to stop them. I pulled out the doll, "Josephine!" I squeaked. He had taken it from me when I was about seven or eight. I swapped a football for her with a girl in school who was far more butch than I was. Dad caught me playing with her and that was the last I saw of her.

"You told me you'd smashed her and thrown her out."

"I wanted to but your mother stopped me. It's been up in the attic ever since."

I felt my eyes growing moist, "Why did you bring her today?"

"I hoped maybe we could start again."

"I don't know Dad, you did some awful things to me."

"I know so..girl, I was trying to stop you doing what you've done. I wanted you to be a man and be happy as one. Looks like I got it wrong, your mother was worried but she did what I wanted. I'm sorry, we got it wrong." He began to cry and I felt this awful pain inside my chest, it was his hurt I could feel and I wanted to scream. Instead I held out my arms and he picked me up and crushed me with his embrace. We both cried.

Stella and the priest eventually prised us apart, "Come on girl, lets touch up your eyes, they're not too bad."

"I don't care," I said almost starting the waterworks again. In a few moments we had touched years of anger and hurt and changed it into something else. I didn't know what, but it was better than I had hoped. Sadly it took my mother's death to reunite us and for my father to accept me, if he actually had. I was trying not to read too much into this meeting, it was a time of strange feelings and new situations for both of us, he could still revert to type and I was still frightened of his power, but not as much as I had been.

I looked at him, the priest was calming him down, talking so quietly that I couldn't hear what he was saying. He looked at his watch, "It is time to go," he said and held the door open for us.

Stella and I stood with my father in the first row of the congregation, they brought in the coffin, bedecked in flowers and I began to cry. I don't remember anything else except my father holding his arm around me as we both wept openly.

At the graveside, I pulled out the rose that I had brought with me, a single red one, and dropped it on the coffin. Stella led me away and we went back inside the church. No one came to speak with me, or if they did I didn't notice, maybe Stella kept them away or maybe they thought they'd catch something. I couldn't face the tea and sandwiches afterwards, so we left after another hug from my dad and a promise to speak again.

We stopped at a pub outside Bristol and Stella had a whisky and I knocked back a brandy and soda. I hadn't eaten anything all day, so it went straight to my head and I fell asleep once we were back in the car. I woke up back at Stella and Simon's house, my head aching and my eyes sore.