Dot and Sam 6

Dorothy Philpot. Landlady of The Harbour Light pub
Sam Philpot. Drag-queen.
Billy Parkins Doorkeeper.
Jessica Merlot The town’ and county archaeologist.
Josephine MacDonald The town and county archivist.
Richard Drummond Town planning inspector
Robert Vincent. Junior planning inspector.
Georgina. (Georgie) Homeless Transgender girl.
Bobby Gay boy on the school bus.
Marty Girl on the school bus.

At the end of Georgie’s first day at the new high school, Dot stood impatiently in the doorway of The Harbour Light with the tea-towel gripped tightly in her fretful hands.

“Stop fretting girl, she’ll be okay,” Sam said softly as she came up behind Dot and gently took her wrist to cause her to ease her grip on the tea-towel.

“I can’t help worrying about her. You hear such awful things.” Dot croaked as the tension took her throat.

“She’ll be okay girl, I’m sure she’s managed the day. Look, isn’t that her just coming round the bend by the bridge?”

Sam felt the tension relax in Dot’s shoulders as she almost slumped against the ancient doorpost.

“Yes!” Dot squawked as she waved furiously at the distant figure approaching.

The distant figure waved back and Dot let out a sigh of relief as she studied her charge.

“Yes there was definitely a bounce to Georgie’s step!” She concluded as she called back into the kitchen to tell Sam to put the kettle on.

“Already On girl!” Sam called back. “Go and meet her if you want to show joy at meeting her.”

Dot needed no further encouragement and the two met a hundred yards from the pub.

“How did it go darling?” Dot demanded as she threw her arms around Georgie.

“It was okay mum. I’ve got all my classes organised and the school seems okay.”

“No bullying? No nastiness about your LGBT stuff?”

“No Mum. Nothing. I haven’t mentioned it and I passed okay. Nobody knows but you and Sam.”

“And the headmaster.”

“I never saw him all day. They’re having the first assembly tomorrow but nothing special. It’s an ordinary school day.”

They chatted briefly until Sam met Georgie in the pub bar and they savoured some tea and scones from the batch that Rachel the shef had prepared for the restaurant suppers.

“Have you made any friends yet?” Sam asked.

“Not yet,” Geordie grinned. “I’ve met a girl who gets on the bus after me and a boy who gets on before me at the Marshlands estate. We’re on speaking terms but I’m taking things slowly.”

“No trouble though?” Sam double checked.

“No.” Georgie protested mildly. “What’s with all the protective stuff.”

“You’re a very pretty girl love,” Sam explained. “You’re going to have to work doubly hard to fend off the boys. God forbid if any of them find out your trans. Have you considered transitioning.”

“I think about it every day, but I need to chat with some more doctors. I also need to find out who the best surgeons are. My caseworker said because I’m seventeen we can start to set the wheels in motion. The best news is that the SS pay for my surgery”

“You’re lucky you look so young.”

“Just me I suppose, I’ve not gone through much of a puberty. The boys always used to make fun of me back in the old school.”

“Well, if you are trans, count yourself lucky.”

“Of course I’m trans! What makes you think I’m not?”

“I never said you weren’t. I said if you are.”

“Why! Do you doubt me?”

“Not at all, but only you can know exactly what you are. All Sam and I can do is provide material support.”

“What about emotional support. Parental support.” Georgie demanded.

“That only comes when you need it, when your distressed of frightened. For now it seems you’re okay. Your first school day went well and now your home amongst friends.”

“Well yeah, for now that is; but you will be here for me won’t you? – If I need you?

“Of course we will. Now go and do your homework.”

“We haven’t been given any yet but they’ve given me the books and some memory sticks for my lap-top.”

“Well up to your bedroom then. Start as you mean to go on. Supper is after the restaurant closes. You can eat with us after the restaurant closes or pick and choose while were working.”

“Will I have to work on the tables every day?”

“Not on school days. Your best days to work tables are Friday and Saturday nights working as the bottle boy. You’ll get paid by us by the hour and the waitresses share their tips. The prettier you look, the more tips you’ll get. You can also work behind the bar provided Sam or I are supervising so don’t forget, a nice smile will earn a pretty girl lots of tips.

The barmaids have elected to save the tips and share them out at Christmas. I don’t interfere with their arrangements and Sam organises the figures with Lucy, the red-headed senior waitress. There’s a ten percent service charge on all debit or credit cards and that goes to the waitresses as well.”

On learning this, Georgie almost scampered up the wooden stairs that led up from behind the bar to the long landing upstairs. Once in her room she flumped down onto her double bed and luxuriated on top of the duvet to unwind for a brief spell. Before going down again she transferred the study timetable to her mobile and sorted a few other items. Seven o’clock saw her down in the bar looking to help Dot for she had no homework on the first day.

The rest of that week was spent adjusting to school life and familiarising herself with the school campus. She was secretly glad that Marty had chosen to befriend her while Bobby the gay boy served to filter out any excessively puerile interest from the ‘back-seat - hormonal crowd’. As she had come to think of the sex starved boys.

On that second morning Georgie asked Marty as she boarded the bus.

“I thought you said you had brother; a twin.”

“Oh he jogs in early. It’s only two miles where we get the bus so he saves his bus fare as extra pocket money. He registered last term so you’ll meet him in your biology class this morning.”

Thus by the end of the first week, Georgie had settled in nicely.

The first Sunday evening was her first full break. Her homework was completed and the Sunday lunch session was over by three. Georgie chose to go for a walk up into the town via the excavated cutting where the ancient canal was being re-cut. To this end she chose her archaeology work clothes to walk through the mud.
As she emerged from the top of the locks she saw Bobby staring down into the excavated basin.

“What’s a nice boy like you doing in a mud-hole like this?” She grinned as she unlocked the gate in the security fence.

“How come you’re allowed a key? He asked.

“I've been working the archaeology excavations all summer and I have access to the pub stables because I live in the pub and the stables are now part of The Harbour Light. It’s tantamount to my back door to my home.”

“If you’ve got the keys to those stables we could organise a rave there.”

“No we couldn’t.”

“What, you’re telling me you disapprove?”

“Disapprove or not. That’s my home and I owe it to the landladies.”

“Ooo-oh! Who’s a goodie-two-shoes then?”

“Yeah! Wha’r-ever.” She shrugged as she pocketed the key in her backpack and set off purposefully towards the old town centre.

Bobby watched her go and made his way to the bus-station on the other side of the old town. There he met his friend Marty. They talked briefly about Georgie and he told her he had trouble reconciling such a bright and beautiful thing with being such a straight-laced old maid. They decided to go looking for her the old town but Georgie had already left.
After she, had completed her stroll around the old town she had returned home to enjoy a shower.

While drying her hair, she went online to run her nightly searches to find her biological dad. She found a couple of potential leads and threaded them into her search matrix. Then she reset her search filters and left her computer in search mode while she went to sleep. She had not given anybody her email address in school for experience had already taught her that trans people were vulnerable. Additionally, she did not have a ‘website’ because this attracted unwanted and indeed, possibly dangerous attention.

The following morning, Bobby asked Marty if she had Georgie’s email address.

“No. She hasn’t given it to me.”

“Will you ask her for me?”

“Ask her yourself.” Marty riposted.

“She didn’t want to give it to me.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I met her accidentally last night where they are excavating the old tidal basin. She wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Oh. You didn't tell me you'd met her when we chatted. Did she say why she wouldn't give you her email.?”

“She says she doesn’t want every Tom, Dick or Harry knowing her email and If she gave it to one person it would be around the college like wildfire.”

Marty smirked knowingly.

“Well, she’d be right on that wouldn't she? She’s pretty and you know what your mates are like. They’re just glands just looking to dump their shit.”

“That’s not fair.” Bobby protested.

“Come off it Bobby. How many partners have you had?”

“That’s different; I’m gay and gays have lots of partners.”

“Yeah. Well girls don’t. Apart from getting pregnant, girls don’t like the idea of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS and syphilis. Apart from ruining their health it can affect their babies as well.”

“So you won’t help?”

Marty snorted.

“How does getting her email help you, your gay so you’re not likely to sleep with her.”

“Yeah, but it’s a bargaining chip innit.”

“That’s even worse. Selling her info to your sex-crazed mates. Well if she refused to give it to you, it’d be wrong of me to give it to you.” Anyway, she hasn’t given it to me either, so case closed.”

“She doesn’t seem to give much away does she?”

“Yeah, well maybe she’s had internet shit before; you know. Boys pestering her then getting ratty and abusive because she’s turned them down.”

“D’ you think that’s why she’s changed schools.”

“No, more likely because she’s changed homes. I mean, why has she moved in with the two old lesbians at a gay pub?”

“I think she’s related to one of them.” Bobby opined.

“Well, whatever the reason, she’s not telling and I’m not asking.” Marty concluded

At lunch time they met in the school dining hall and several hopeful boys joined Marty and Bobby’s small clique of LGBT friends when they noticed Georgie arriving late at Marty’s table.

“Extra lessons?” Marty grinned as Georgie grabbed a chair.

“Nah, we’ve had chemistry all morning and my experiment ran late. Your brother’s a twat.”

“Why?” Marty sighed.

“He’s more interested in looking down my blouse than looking at the results and figures.”

“Yeah, that’s my brother. What are you going to do?”

“Try and change lab partners. He tried to feel me up as well.”

“Oh shit. Are you going to report him.”

“Nah! I frightened him off.”

“How?”

“I threatened to report him to the Social Security, the S.S.”

“How does that work?” Marty wondered.

“I’m a fostered child. The lesbians who run the Harbour light, agreed to foster me and social services almost tore their arms off because I was sixteen and difficult to place. They’ve got me down as a homeless child who was at risk in the family home and they’re red hot on my protection. If some twat tries to harm me, the S.S. will come down on them like a ton of bricks. And the S.S. have almost as much power as the police. Your brother was a very lucky bastard that I didn’t report him.”

“I wondered why he was moody just now.”

“Don’t worry. He’s got the message now. Don’t mess with this girl; - in fact, don’t mess with any girl in the school.”

Marty had mixed feelings about this. Her brother had acquired something of a reputation as ‘one of the boys to watch out for’, but he was after all, her brother. Nevertheless, her new-found friend had an arm-lock on her brother’s unacceptable behaviour, that suited Marty and she changed the subject.

“Are those two lesbians okay towards you?”

“They don’t abuse me, if that’s what you mean. I’ve got a good billet in their pub and I intend to keep it, at least until I go to Uni. I have my own bedroom and ensuite, not many foster kids get that.”

“Are they strict though? You know. Working in a pub, are you allowed to work in a pub?”

“Yes, now that I’m seventeen; and as for rules, well there are laws about seventeen-year-olds working in pubs so it’s not a matter of strict parenting, it’s a matter of the law.”

“D’ you like it?”

“Yes, I get to meet the most amazing people, drag queens, gays, trans people, lesbians and all sorts; even the police. Yet I’m protected by the licensing laws and even the child protection laws. There’s always a responsible adult looking out for me, Usually Dot Philpott, the land-lady. Best of all is that the police drop by most Friday and Saturday nights and they know about me. If I behave like an adult, they treat me like an adult.”

At this juncture, Marty had to return to lessons while Georgie had a free period and made her way to the library. As she took some books out of her locker Marty’s brother approached her in the corridor.

“Can I talk to you please?”

Georgie tensed slightly and stepped to the middle of the corridor where she was publicly visible to lots of passers-by.

“What about? – and why?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~