That fateful Saturday night was a very busy one for Sammy Hill. He was the co-owner and principal operator of Hill’s Taxi Service. The company normally served the cluster of villages that were about 10 miles to the southwest of Banbury in Oxfordshire.

This particular Saturday night one of the local rich people, Mr Donald Blake was holding a big party for his friends. Most of the guests came from places like London, Birmingham and Manchester. Sammy had been contracted to ferry them from hotels in Banbury and even Oxford to the event and then to return them when the evening was over. Sammy had drafted in two of his other casual drivers plus a cabbie friend from Oxford for the evening but even so, they were kept very busy.

Thankfully, a good number of the visitors arrived in their own cars. Sammy had stopped several and had given them directions to the venue, Blake Hall. One driver of a very stretched Limo had given Sammy a lot of verbal abuse when Sammy told the driver that he'd have to go the long way around because his vehicle would not get over the humpback bridge that was about half a mile along the road.

The driver ignored him and promptly got stuck on the bridge. Worse than that, the stricken car blocked the whole road. His passengers were not happy at all but one of the other drivers came to their rescue and ferried them to the event without complaint or demands for money. Sammy called the local recovery company and the Police. Knowing the local constabulary as he did, they would not be very amused at the driver for ignoring the advice about the bridge.

Sammy had been in two minds about accepting the contract for the evening because of the nature of the event. The party was being held to formally announce the engagement of Miss Fiona Alice Blake to Mr Gavin Michael Thompson. Sammy knew that it was going to be a disaster from the outset primarily because Fiona had no intention of going through it.

Sammy and Fiona had publicly dated for a while before she went off to study in Paris. Her father was dead against their relationship and had sent her off to France more than a month before her course started just to spite him on the pretence of getting familiar with the area. Sammy had gone over to France a few days later and had spent an enjoyable week with Fiona.

They continued their relationship when Fiona returned for the holidays. Sammy and Fiona from lost their virginity together in a hayloft of the Blake Estate during a brief return to the house one summer. That cemented their love for each other. Getting out from the grip of her father proved easier said than done.

Before he accepted the contract, Sammy had stipulated that Mr Blake put down a 30% deposit that was because he had a bad reputation locally for delaying as long as possible in paying his bills. Many local traders had simply stopped dealing with him because of that but the size of the contract had made Sammy put those concerns aside once he had the deposit safely in his bank.

Sammy had just dropped off his last client at the event when he received a text.

“Meet me at the end of the drive to Home Farm. Fiona”

Sammy smiled and he replied.

“Crunch time?”

Fiona replied almost immediately.

“Yes. It is time. Everyone is here and he has told me that I have just a few minutes to get ready.”

Sammy knew how Fiona was feeling. Her father was ruling the roost and wanted to bask in the glory of his lovely daughter's engagement. She’d tried many times to tell him that she wasn’t going to be married off to in her words, a chinless plonker just to benefit his business. That hadn’t gone down well with him and had virtually confined Fiona to the house until the day of the big event. All that had done was make Fiona all the more determined to give her father a bloody nose in front of all his cronies.

Then another text arrived.
“Daddy has me watched all the time but I can get away.

Sammy knew how she was going to do this. She would use what they called the ‘back stairs’. Those were the stairs that the servants used when the house had a staff. They’d been mostly blocked off but years before and what with children being children… they’d found a way into them from Fiona’s bedroom which had formerly been the boudoir of the lady of the house.

He’d heard from a couple of his customers that evening that there was going to be a grand reveal where she would come down the large semi-circular staircase and take the hand of her husband to be. Just the thought of the charade had given Sammy the shivers.

“At nine,” came Fiona’s next text.

Sammy glanced at the clock on the phone. It read 20:17. There was little time to waste.

“Ok. Be there in 20 minutes.”

Fiona texted a heart emoji back.

---

Sammy drove as fast as he could home and grabbed their getaway bags, his passport and a few documents before getting back into his car. Second thoughts plagued his mind. His Taxi would be a huge giveaway. "Sammy's Taxi Service" was there for all to see on each side and rear. He knew, that he had to put the inevitable searchers off his tail for as long as possible.

As he drove towards his rendezvous, he called his most trusted driver V.J. Singh. He’d known V.J. all his life and was a man of his word.

“V.J. meet me outside the Black Horse in ten minutes. I need you to drive me into Banbury.”

“Why?” asked V.J.

“No questions my friend. I’m handing over the business to you to run for a while. You will soon understand why.”

“Sammy?”

“Don’t ask V.J.”

“Ok my friend, see you soon.”

Sammy hung up the phone and headed up the drive that led towards 'Home Farm'. The lights of the nearby Blake Hall made Sammy very aware of how close he was to potential disaster.

Suddenly, his headlights lit up a figure dressed all in white. It was Fiona. His heart almost stopped for a second. She looked absolutely beautiful, almost Cinderella-like.

He brought the car to a halt, and Fiona jumped in. Before he could say anything, she kissed him.

“Thank, you Sammy,” she said slightly breathlessly when she broke off after a few seconds.

Sammy started to turn the car around. As he did so, he said,
“I have arranged for V.J. to take us into Banbury. Driving this taxi is a dead give-away.”

Fiona didn't say anything but, the lights of the hall lit her face up enough to make it clear to him that she was crying.
He hoped that they were tears of joy.

---

"Miss Fiona?" said a surprised V.J. when Sammy pulled up outside the local pub.

"Don't ask and, you will be told no lies,” said Sammy.

V.J. just nodded his head.

Sammy and Fiona got out of his car and got into V.J.’s.

“Banbury railway station, if you please, driver."

"Yes, Sir!" said a happy V.J. from the driver's seat. He’d twigged what was going on. No one needed to say anything else.

While V.J. drove them into Banbury, Fiona changed out of her dress into something a little less conspicuous. Sammy briefed V.J. on running the company for the next few weeks or however long it would be.

“I’m going to get a lot of heat from ‘his Lordship’ for this,” commented V.J.

"Simply tell them what you did. You took us to Banbury Station and then returned to the village and your normal duties. That will be the truth. Tell them that we did not tell you where we were going. We can’t because we don’t know ourselves at the moment.”

"Roger boss. What I don't know, I can't tell but, what about the law?"

“Why the law?”

V.J. chuckled as he braked for a roundabout on the edge of Banbury.

“Several top cops are on the guest list tonight. I saw their drivers hanging around on my last drop-off.”

"We are both adults, so we have clearly broken no laws now, have we?" said Fiona from the rear seat.

"That is true, Miss Fiona but, we all know money talks."

“That’s the problem,” said Fiona.
Sammy turned around to face Fiona shaking his head.

Fiona stopped talking. The less that V.J. knew about the background to their obvious elopement the better.

V.J. dropped the couple at the railway station. With a nod of his head to Sammy, he drove off. His family had lived next to Sammy's ever since they had arrived in England after being thrown out of Uganda by Idi Amin. They knew each other as if they were real brothers. He knew not to ask questions once he’d seen Fiona with his friend and employer.

---

They walked into the station just after nine holding hands and smiling at each other. That was also the time when Fiona should have been presented to her husband to be. Instead, she was with the person that she had loved for twenty years ever since she’d caught Sammy ‘scrumping’ Apples from their orchard. They were both seven years old.

"Where to now, boss?" asked Sammy as they looked at the departure boards.

“Birmingham Airport,” suggested Fiona.

Sammy smiled.

“Good idea. Laying a false trail.”

"That is the plan. It might not work but, we shall have to see, won't we eh?”

They walked over to the ticket machine and selected two single tickets to the airport. Fiona held her breath as she waited for her credit card to be processed. She only released it when the word ‘Approved’ appeared on the display.

“I don’t know how long this and my other cards will keep working,” she muttered as Sammy collected the tickets from the machine.

“Would he cancel them? Aren’t they in your name?”

“They are in my name but he has all sorts of connections. That man is evil.”

“Then we need to have some cash in reserve,” suggested Sammy as he headed to the cashpoint.

Fiona nodded her head.
“That will do for the short term,” he said as they both withdrew £250.

"I have my trust fund. My dear father can't touch that. My gran made sure of that. That's part of the problem."

Sammy looked at her with a worried expression on his face.

“Later. We can talk later but, in the meantime, where is your phone?”

Fiona managed a smile.
“Back in my bedroom switched off and in my undies drawer.”

“That’s good. One less thing for him to track you with.”

Fiona nodded.
“What about your phone?”

"This is my personal phone, not my business one. I left that in my car outside the pub. I also left the keys in the ignition and didn't lock it. Hopefully, some scallywag will have nicked the car or at least the phone after closing time. I’m going to have to hope that he won’t know the number of this one and be able to get it tracked.”

“Scallywag? I like that word.”

Fiona smiled back as Sammy led her towards the ticket barrier and the platforms.

They didn’t have long to wait for their train. The words ‘Manchester Piccadilly’ were clearly on the display on the carriage sides

They looked at each other and nodded. Nothing more needed to be said.

When the ticket inspector came around a few minutes after they had left Banbury, Sammy said as he handed over their tickets,
“We’d like to carry on from Birmingham to Manchester. Can we buy a ticket from you?”

“You can indeed. Let me work out the cost.”

“Thanks,” said a relieved Fiona.

---

It was well after 23:00 when they walked out of the station in central Manchester. There had not been much opportunity to talk on the train which had been busy all the way to its final destination. All they’d agreed upon was that they’d find a hotel for the night and then talk.

The first place they tried was full. The second let them have a room but only after a few sly glances. The receptionist clearly thought that they were going to have sex and leave in the early hours. The last bit was right, but sex was the last thing on the couple's mind.

Once in their room, the couple could breathe for the first time in over three hours.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” said Fiona.

Sammy smiled.
“That what little brothers are for aren’t they?”

They both laughed. Fiona was actually two days older than Sammy and she’d called him her little brother very early on in their relationship.

“Hardly little anymore,” said Sammy.

"You are more than that to me, Sammy,"

She looked at him with moist eyes.
"I've always loved you but, you know that. My father has always had other ideas about my future. He needs the money as his last business venture collapsed, causing him to lose a good few million a couple of months ago.”

Fiona shuddered at the mention of her father.

“Shhh, Fiona. He's not here. I am. I told you that I loved you that day in the hay barn and, there hasn't been anyone else."

Fiona came and gave Sammy a big hug. The tears were streaming down her face.
“Same here. My father…”

“Stop it with your father this and your father that. He’s not here now. You can tell me about how bad he has been recently tomorrow. The most important question is… where do we go from here?”

“Somewhere where he can’t hurt us at least for the time being,” said Fiona.

"Where? Your dad has business interests all over the place or that's what he keeps boasting to everyone."

Fiona nodded.
“Why don’t we go to Dublin? We don’t need our passports for Ireland.”

“That sounds like a plan," replied Sammy, who was not altogether convinced by the idea.

“What’s wrong?” asked Fiona as she started to get undressed.

“Are we doing the right thing?”

“What by me running away from a guaranteed disaster?”

“What about me? Don’t I count?”

Fiona blushed.
“Sorry. I’m just used to thinking about my impending doom. Then tonight I saw you dropping off those morons who had come to pay homage to my almighty father who can do no wrong. That’s when I felt the walls closing in all around me and a bottomless pit opening up beneath me. Everything that I’d feared was happening in real-time right before my eyes. I only survived these past few weeks because of you.”

Sammy hugged Fiona. He knew that she had a lot of baggage to get rid of before she would be able to make sensible decisions.

He released her and said,
“We’ll go to Dublin and then north.”

“Why north?”

“Because your father will be after us. Think of it as a zig-zag move to throw him off our tracks.”

Fiona nodded. She’d visibly sagged in the last few minutes. The adrenaline high that came from her flight had long worn off. Now, she was running on empty.

“Why don’t you turn in. I’ll book us some tickets to Dublin for the morning.”

She leaned over and kissed Sammy. He didn't want it to end, but he had things to do before he could turn in for the night.

After ten minutes of fiddling on his phone with a couple of websites, he'd found that it was best to travel to Crewe and change there for Holyhead and also that there was a ferry to Dublin just after midday. He switched off his phone and went into the bathroom. It had been one heck of an evening.

---

"Time to get up, my dear," said Sammy just before 07:30 the following morning.

“Why? I am so comfortable.”

Sammy groaned internally. Fiona had taken up most of the bed all night. He'd hardly slept out of fear of falling out of the bed.

“We just about have time for some breakfast before our train.”

“What time is that? What time is it now?”

“Our train goes at ten to nine and it is currently seven twenty-seven.”

“That’s ages.”

“It is not ages, when you have to make yourself beautiful and for us to get breakfast.”

Fiona sniggered from under the duvet. Slowly a leg appeared. Then another one. Suddenly, she dashed into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Sammy smiled and started packing their things. They did need a few necessities, but they could wait until they were in Dublin for that.

---

The pair managed to eat a quick breakfast in the Hotel Restaurant. It was self-service which suited them perfectly. Then after paying the bill with cash, they left the Hotel in good spirits.

That didn't last very long. The pair walked into Manchester Piccadilly station and found Fiona's father was waiting for them in the middle of the concourse. Sammy saw him first. He turned around and started the voice recorder on his phone. If there was a confrontation, then he wanted it recorded.

“Dad? What are you doing here?” shrieked Fiona when she saw him standing there outside the main entrance to the station.

“You young lady have an awful lot of grovelling to do. Do you know how much last night’s fiasco cost me? No, of course, you don't. That's you all over. Thinking of just yourself and no one but you. Isn’t that, right?”

"I'm not coming with you Dad. I am an adult, and I can make up my mind about my future."

"That is where you are very much mistaken, my girl. I own you, and don't you forget it.”

Sammy had recovered at least a bit from the surprise of seeing Fiona’s father waiting for them. Neither of them had expected him to find them so soon.

"Fiona has made it very clear that she does not want to come with you. Her leaving last night must have told you that she will not be forced into a marriage that she does not want? Even if by some freak of nature, and she did get married, how would you keep her in it? Lock her up 24/7? Get real, Mr Blake. This is now the 21st century, not the 18th. Fiona has rights. She is an adult and can make her own decisions.”

"You are nothing. I'll crush your puny taxi company. You are finished."

Sammy looked at Fiona and then back to her father.

"If you want to make a scene, then you are doing a good job. Just remember that the centre of Manchester has a huge number of CCTV cameras especially, since the bombing at the Manchester Arena. Go right ahead and try to take your daughter with you. If she does not want to go then, that is her decision, not yours. She is an adult, as you are only too aware."

He didn’t react.

"Good. Now, if you don't mind, Fiona and I have a train Crewe to catch."

“But darling, I could have given you so much!” pleaded her father.

“I don’t want anything that you could ever give me!” retorted Fiona.
"Did you ever wonder why I never accepted any dates from all those cronies and sons of cronies that you lined up for me? Gavin was the worst of the lot. He won't do anything unless his dear papa says so. None of them was at the least bit interesting to me. Did you ever wonder why that was?"

Her father just blinked in surprise.

“Daddy, I’m gay. Yes, I’m a lesbian. I’m only interested in women. There I have said it.”

He looked at Sammy and then back to Fiona.

“Then this idiot knows that he is about to get dumped then?”

He turned to Sammy.
“Can’t you see that she’s just using you to get at me? You will be just like the rest of them… wondering what had happened as she gives you the heave-ho.”

Sammy smiled.
"Fiona and I are a couple. I've known that she fancied women since we were eight. I was wearing a dress when we first met. If you can't understand what that means, then let me spell it out for you… I’m transgendered. She has known that since she told me that she was only interested in women.”

“Bollocks!”

"It is not bollocks, Daddy. When I lost my virginity to Sammy or as she likes to be called Estelle, we'd spent the day playing dress-up with the clothes that your second wife Maria left behind when she did a runner," said a slightly angry Fiona.

She didn’t wait for her father to respond. Instead, she grabbed hold of Sammy’s left hand and showed it to her father. She also showed him her left hand. On their ring fingers were identical rings, engagement rings.

“Estelle has been my one true love since she asked me to marry her when we were just ten years old. There never was or could be anyone else in my life. I dropped hint after hint but, you didn't care. To you, I was just a money-making pawn in your game. I'm done, with you and everything that you stand for.”

Then the couple walked off across the concourse and their carriage with their heads held high. Their carriage or in this case, one that was part of a train, waited to take them off to start a new life together.

Both of them were fully aware of the trials and tribulations that lay ahead of them but, together they would face them with the certainty that their love for each other would last.

[The End]

[Authors Note]
This story came about after watching a film on TV where the bride to be was presented to a whole load of her father’s cronies as the engagement was announced. I could not imagine being part of something so gross/crass/stupid. That got my muse working and this is the result.