Dot and Sam 5

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.

Georgie needed no more encouragement. She recovered her boots from the trunk of the Social worker’s car and quickly got prepared to go ‘on-site-. As Dot watched, she realised the social worker must have purchased a new set of trainers for Georgie while collecting her from hospital. The filthy worn-out pair that Georgie was wearing going into hospital were nowhere to be seem

She briefly watched Georgie confidently leading the social worker from place to place then she busied herself with pub duties. An hour later Georgie reappeared in the bar. The social worker shared a drink with Dot while Georgie settled for a very weak shandy and they chatted around one of the bar tables while Sam attended to customers.

“Tomorrow, I’ll bring the fostering papers to sign and we’ll discuss returning to school.”

“Fostering?” Georgie frowned uncertainly.

“It makes for easier administration.” The social worker explained, and you get a better personal allowance.”

Georgie gave a brief, nervous smile.

“But I get to stay with Dot and Sam?”

“Yes. Now you’ve got a home to go to, the protocols are satisfied. So, if you don’t mind, I’ve also got a home to go to, so I’ll say goodnight.”

They might not have been the best words to say to a homeless teenager but it reminded Georgie that she did at least, now have a home to go to. The case-worker left and Georgie followed Dot up to the bedrooms.

“Which one is mine?” Dot hesitated on the landing.

Dot pointed to the one furthest across the landing while explaining.

“These other rooms along the corridor look out onto the forecourt and the basin. They are noisy when the pub is open. That one overlooks the river and the road, and the sun comes in during the evening. If you’re serious about returning to school, that’s the best and quietest bedroom to study.”

Georgie opened the door and gaped at the double bed.

“Is that for me?”

“Yes and two windows facing South and West. Plenty of space to stare pensively at the moon and stars when you’re studying.”

Georgie giggled slightly as she stepped fully into the room then she stopped short.

“Is that a -?” Her voice faltered.

“Bathroom! Yes. Your own en suite.” Dot grinned”

Georgie’s eyes started to fill up so Dot reached out and hugged her tightly before tactfully letting go while explaining supper would be at seven.

“Best to let the girl sort out her emotions alone at first.” Dot concluded as she returned to the kitchen to join Sam.

“Is she happy?” Sam asked.

“She’s a bit overwhelmed, I think,” Dot observed, “and she’ll need some new clothes.”

“I’ll take her tomorrow, you’re hopeless at shopping.” Sam grinned.

“No I’m not. I’m just functional and practical.”

“Yeah! Just what a teenaged girl needs.” Sam smirked.

“You can take her shopping while I go down to the SS and sort the papers." Dot allowed. "Rachel the chef and the waitresses can keep shop for a couple of hours in the afternoon. They’ve done it before. It’ll be a few extra quid for them.

The following afternoon, the fostering arrangements were finalised and that evening, after the restaurant was closed, Dot, Sam and Georgie had a small celebratory meal to seal the deal.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Over some mid-morning coffee the next day, further details were finalised with the case-worker. Georgie was pleased to learn that the SS had enrolled her at the local sixth-form college as a girl so there would be no younger kids making unwanted remarks about her being an L.G.B.T., student.

“The good news is that it’s July now so you can start school at the beginning of September.” Her case worker advised her. It’ll give you some time to earn some money in the Harbour-light restaurant.”

“I’m excavating at the dig so I’ve no time to work the tables and I’m too young to do anything but be a bottle girl in the pub. There won’t be many pickings.”

“Perhaps not but your adoptive parents get an allowance for you. Speak to them about splitting it. Some for your keep and some to you as ‘pocket money.”

Later, Georgie considered this advice as she busied herself at the dig. She and two other girls were stood at a large metal grill sifting through the tailings that the deep excavators were casting up near the foundations of the first deep trench near the medieval lock cill.

“The excavator is right down in the deepest, undisturbed clay here,” one of the other girls explained. Don’t expect much archaeology here.”

“Yeah, but at least we’re not up to our butts in mud and water.” The third girl chuckled.

“True.” Georgie agreed. “So less cleaning before drinks at the Light.”

Their name for the Harbour Light had been universally shortened amongst the students to ‘The Light’ because Dot and Sam had affixed a powerful sodium streetlight to illuminate the area between the pub and the student’s porta cabins. The mud and deep holes necessitated the extra illumination which the students had come to regard with affection as ‘The Light;. It also served to illuminate the pub’s outdoor forecourt which was a welcome spot during the warm summer evenings.

Thus it was, during the months of July and August, that Georgie spent an Idyllic summer until the Archaeology was finished and builders arrived in force.

One late summed evening, Georgie and Sam were sitting on the new boundary wall that marked the space between the basin sea-wall and the pub’s newly agreed boundary.

“Here must be masses of unexamined archaeology where they’re digging,” Georgie remarked as she and Sam watched the excavator filling the barge that floated in the river behind the cofferdam that kept the basin dry while the engineers refurbished the old quay walls.

“Oh, I’ll bet there is," Sam agreed, "but time’s getting on and they need to excavate all the basin before winter arrives.”

“Are they going ahead with a river lock or will the basin remain tidal.” Georgie asked Sam.

“Dot was talking to the council and planners about that, yesterday." Same explained. "If they can squeeze some more Lottery funds from the Euro lottery it’s feasible they’ll build the lock.”

“We ’ll have to raise this forecourt, boundary wall then, or there’ll be drunks falling in every weekend.” Georgie sniggered as she tapped the flat-topped wall they were sitting on.

“Crikey! Am I hearing a responsible teenager.” Sam laughed.

“Well there’s been two stupid drunks already slipping into the basin. Thank god it wasn’t very far down.” One of the laborours and I had to help one of them out of the mud as we were coming back to the pub.”

“Yes, that’s why Dot put the light there. At first the planners felt it wasn’t in keeping with the proposed ambience of the basin but they conceded when Dot switched it off and she suggested they walk from the pub to the Porta-cabins.”

“Lots of pubs have bright lights to advertise their location. I like it, and the pub is a real feature when you approach from the road.”

“Well if they put a river lock in, they’ll have to put some sort of pedestrian swing bridge across the pier-heads for boats to pass.” Sam finished as she tapped Geordie’s arm to indicate the first tranche of students approaching for their dinner.

Pretty soon the pub forecourt tables were alive with hungry girls who were lamenting the last few days of archaeological excavations before the contractors started in earnest to rebuild the basin walls; mostly with the valuable, recovered dressed stone that had been discovered buried in the basin mud when it had been filled in to make Old Harbour street.

Once the girls were fed and the washing up completed. Dot, Sam, and Georgie settled down to their own evening meal in their own kitchen.

“So Georgie, back to school tomorrow.” Dot remarked. “Are you looking forward to it?”

“The school looks nice and modern. I Hope they’ve got modern views.”

“Well the social services will protect you there. Teachers are loath to fall foul of the SS, your caseworker will give you huge support there.”

"Yeah; she's good. I like her." Georgie agreed.

“Yes, and the social services have got a lot of legal clout.” Sam added. “The school will be walking on eggshells.”

“Well, tomorrow’s the acid test.” Dot confirmed. “Any problems and you’ve got us behind you.”

“Yeah.” Not like my step-dad.”

“Well, that’s behind you now. The fostering agreement will protect you. Have you had any luck looking for your bio-dad?”

“No, nothing much. Thanks for the old lap-top by the way.”

“No problem,” there’s new one on the way, the fostering services advised me yesterday.”

“So I’ll have two?”

“Yes, just make sure they are secure from hacking.”

The three of them continued chatting until Georgie made her way to bed and she lay ‘star-fished’ on the crisp, linen sheets contemplating her luck.

For the first time since coming to terms with her transgenderism, Georgie was actually keen to be going to school. It entailed a mile walk down the road from the Harbour light to the Main road where the regular bus route passed. There she would have to signal the bus to stop. The following morning when she boarded, she noticed the immediate interest from some boys so she took a seat at the front next to the driver and adopted the defensive mode of peering intently into her phone. To her relief, other students attending another school walked past her and climbed to the upper deck. Because Georgie was not wearing a school uniform they had no cause to think she was a student.

It was not until she disembarked that other students realised she was also going to the sixth form college. It wasn’t long before some other girls approached her after realising she had not attended the middle school with them in the previous years.

“You’re new aren't you?”

“Yes,” Georgie confirmed whilst exchanging a brief but non-committal smile.”

“What subjects are you taking?”

“Sciences, probably, and maths.”

The girls' expression soured slightly.

“Oh, you’ll probably end up meeting my twin brother, he’s over there. I’m doing history, economics and geography.”

“Which way to registrations?” Georgie asked.

“Follow me,” the girl grinned as she extended a hand to indicate a set of double doors.

Georgie soon found herself in a queue outside a door labelled ‘options’. The queue proved to be moving quickly and she was soon seated opposite an older man who seemed a little world weary.

“And the day has just begun,” Georgie reflected silently.

“Name young lady?”

“Georgie, Georgie Philpott.”

“You’re choosing maths I see.”

“Yes, and sciences.”

“Which ones?”

“Physics, Chemistry, and Biology,”

His eyes widened and a glint of interest sparked in his eyes.

“A tough choice. What were your GCSE grades?”

“Straight A’s”, she replied unfolding her newly reproduced results that Dot had recovered from her previous education authority.

“The man studied them and nodded some approval.”

“I’ll sign you up immediately. Philpott eh? Not a local name.”

“I’m from the north.”

“Nobody’s perfect, young lady." He grinned for the first time. "How are you finding it down here?”

“It’s easier. People seem to be less cliquey.”

“It says here you’re living at the Harbour Light Inn.”

Georgie nodded, anticipating some unwarranted remark but it didn’t come. Instead, he nodded towards the physics queue and signed the acceptance form for Georgie to present and be amended by the teacher handling the queue. For Georgie, the whole process was over by ten and she found herself at a bit of a loose end.

However, pretty girls and ‘loose ends'; rarely endure in any school and by the time Georgie had bought a strong black coffee in the dining hall, a hopeful had tried to attach himself to her.

“So what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”

“Maths, Physics. Chemistry and Biology. What are you doing.”

The hopeful smile slipped considerably at Georgie’s smart but prosaic response though the boy persevered.

“Art, English literature and media studies.”

“Oh, so our paths won’t be crossing much.” Georgie finished hoping to let him down gently.

“Do you have any outside interests or stuff?” He pressed.

“Not much, just waitressing and serving tables. I don’t get out much.”

“D’ you like music an’ stuff?”

Georgie gave him a fatuous look and wagged ger head while rolling her eyes.

“What teenager didn’t like some kind of music?” She asked herself as she speeded up her slowly wagging head to a give a negative answer.

“Not much. I tend to play with numbers not instruments.”

Not to be dissuaded the boy struggled on and Georgie had to admire his tenacity.

“I saw you on the bus this morning. Do you live on the Marshland estate?”

“Not likely!” Georgie affirmed strongly. “The idiots who built that estate are asking to get flooded.”

“Nah, it’s tidal, there’s nowhere that the waters get obstructed because the river flows freely out to sea.”

Georgie’s eyes widened. “Perhaps the boy wasn’t all ‘arty-farty’,” She mused.

“So, you did geography for GCSE’s?”

He nodded then nursed his coffee as he grinned.

“Yeah, I must have tramped through every sodding mudhole in that estuary for my dissertation.”

“So why the change to ‘arty-farty’ subjects?”

“I don’t intend to go tramping through mud for the rest of my natural. So if you don’t live in the Marshland estate where else is there. The only other place that’s safe from flooding is that old tidal basin where they’ve been digging out this summer. The old pub and the ware-houses.”

Georgie gave him a knowing look and cocked her head inquisitively.

His jaw sagged slightly.

“What! You live in the pub; the Harbour Light?”

She arched her eyebrows and stared at him.

“And?”

“But that’s a gay pub. Two old lesbians run it.”

“Two old lesbians and a teenager, - me." She smirked. "And less of the old.”

“Are you gay then?”

Georgie smiled wryly than shrugged.

“Not as far as I know, I could be I suppose.”

“It’d be a waste if you were.”

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Well you’re pretty. Several of the boys on the bus were fancying you.”

“So they sent you as their ambassador did they?”

“Well; sort of.”

“Safe pair of hands are you?”

“Sort of. I’m gay.”

“Can I say that seems like a waste as well?”

“Alright, touché.”

Georgie was becoming slightly peeved with the direction the conversation was taking and she was relieved to see the girl she’d met earlier. She waved to her and the girl came over. She spoke to the boy first.

“Hi Bobby. Started dating girls now have you?”

“Leave it there Marty, we were just talking.”

“Did you learn her name?”

“Uuhm, no. What is your name by the way.” He replied turning to face Georgie.

“Georgie.” She replied, “short for Georgina.”

“With that the shutters of the serving hatches rolled up and a queue began to form.

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