The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3443 by Angharad Copyright© 2024 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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So we had dealt with Miss Hulk, although in all fairness, I don't think she looked green until I hit her. I'd been told that if you want to effect an outcome to punch with all my bodyweight behind it. Where you hit somebody is also important but the reality was in a real fight, you hit someone anywhere you can. I was lucky she had left her jaw open and a good bop on it tends to slow most people down, even hardened fighters. I had put quite an effort into the uppercut, which is why we were at the QA getting my hand X-rayed. In the end it was just badly bruised and the surgeon had asked me how I did it. I had originally said thumping my husband, but he gave me a questioning look and I told him the truth, about defending myself and several staff against the woman mountain, and that she had come on to me again despite the police being present and I defended myself. He asked me what I did for a living. I told him I taught at the university and he shook his head, "I thought only men brawl."

"Well, tell it to Miss Shrek, she started it."

"And you just happened to finish it?"

"You sound as if you were there," I joked.

"No, I just put 'em back together. No alcohol involved was there."

"At nine o'clock in the morning?"

"Well, that doesn't necessarily make a difference, some people drink at all times of the day."

"I don't and neither does my family, it's too fattening for one thing, and increasing evidence is showing even a small amount damages you."

"Yes, anything nice seems to make you fat, grey haired or pregnant."

Danni drove me from the hospital. I'd got some cream at home to help with bruising so as my hand was not broken, I'd put up with the discomfort as best I could. I hadn't actually wanted to do anything about it but Danni had insisted, so in order to stop her nagging me, we'd gone to A&E. Now it was lunch time and we all accompanied Daddy to his favourite venue and ate a jacket potato. He asked about the scramble in the biology department, with the police involved, it had gone round the grapevine in minutes.

Danni told it from her perspective with Diane and I filled in the bit she missed. He shook his head and asked me to promise to avoid violence in future, didn't want his staff brawling in the corridors. I told him I was brawling and the woman had started it and she had attacked several of my staff, so I stopped it. He smirked as I told him this. I suppose I had a certain reputation for defending myself over the years. I knew as soon as I got home I was going to do a workout in the garage and remind myself of my kickboxing moves. Which is what I did. Danni came with me and her practice was considerably more athletic than mine. At least I felt somewhat prepared if they became violent again.

The aggressive woman had refused to give her name, so the police locked her up and said she would be charged with assault, once that was done she would be set free. Eventually two days later she informed them of her name and address. She was charged with causing an affray, but released. She had come from Brighton and was outraged that we were letting men share 'women-only' spaces. She was reminded of the university policy towards trans-women, which she called rubbish.

Andy Bond came to see me the next day and asked me what was going on. I told him about these radical feminists not accepting that transwomen were accepted as women if they behaved as such. So far we'd not had a problem and the female students had supported the policy. They had just said at the meeting, "If it walks like a duck...". The meeting had been over very quickly. It was agreed that transwomen were just, if not more vulnerable than biological women and the usual perpetrators of attacks were heterosexual men. Seeing as they didn't use women's loos or changing facilities, the problem was imaginary.

It so happened that we had a complaint of sexual harassment of a woman student by another woman. Red lights began to flash in case it was a set up, to cast aspersions on the lesbian group. I immediately sent for the only one I knew who was researching a PhD and was therefore still on campus. I explained what had happened and why I was trying not to fan the flames but to keep all parties happy. Thankfully, she understood and mentioned the radical feminists as getting them all a bad reputation. She also had no problem with trans students, although she said that she didn't see herself becoming involved with one. Going out of my office she spotted Danni and her expression changed. I think she fancied my daughter. They were unlikely to meet as Louise was a mathematics major, a very clever girl, who said she knew Trish, who she regarded as close on a genius. I agreed.

The girl who claimed she was assaulted was asked what she wanted to do about it; did she want the police involved and could she give us more details about the girl she was accusing. It was Laura, who we knew was abroad. I told her that anyone found to be making spurious allegations about a member of staff or a fellow student could find themselves asked to leave the university if the claims were found to be false. She suddenly withdrew the complaint. It seemed the enemy were trying to be more subtle.

They suspected we had other trans students but they lacked details of who they were so couldn't stage anything. I half wondered if they try to persuade a man to wear drag and pretend to assault one of their group, but so far they hadn't tried it.

The university had also tried to quietly increase security, especially in those areas seen as women's spaces, but with conferences and other external courses being run we had lots of strange faces around the place. It was just normal summer stuff for us and the uni earned quite a bit of money for doing it. I was worried because it was another factor we had to try and watch and stop it becoming an issue.

The problem with conferences is that you can't police it like a course. There is no obligation for delegates to attend different things and some like to visit the historic dockyard instead of attending a day on whatever their specialty was. I didn't necessarily blame them although if it was a profession they were in it could compromise their PD obligations were it to come to light. But that was their problem, we just provided facilities for their conference. One of those was providing speakers on occasion and that may be on all sorts of things, plus of course, we arranged guest speakers for them for umpteen things, usually trying to improve motivational skills which may involve a successful sports coach or athlete, trying to gee them up a bit. Personally, unless it was a chance to meet someone famous, I thought it was a waste of time.

I was down dealing with security when Diane buzzed me. I went back to the office to see what she wanted, hoping nothing untoward had happened. Daddy was there with a grim expression on his face. "What's happened?" I asked.

"We have a conference of ecologists this week."

"Yeah, so what? They've sorted all their speakers and the admin staff do the facilities. So why the grim expression."

"They have a guest speaker from Sussex coming tomorrow."

"So, what's the problem?"

"He's cancelled through illness, he has Covid."

"Well they have plenty more."

"I rang Esmond asking what they could do and he suggested you covering it."

"Me? What was he speaking on?"

"Loss of biodiversity."

"Sorry, it's not my special interest, can't help."

"I already agreed with Esmond and said you'd do it. We'll tell the delegates you have stepped into the breach."

"You must be joking. In five minutes they'll realise I haven't a clue and they'll complain."

"You've got the rest of the day to pull off some stats, and as you are such natural speaker, I'm sure you'll carry the day."

"What have you landed me in this time? You do this regularly as if I'm your 'go to woman'. I already said no. If it was filling in for an absence, teaching students, that's one thing, this is something completely different and most of them will probably know more about this than I do."

"You're special, Cathy, I keep telling you that."

"Yeah, so you say, but you're always telling me that I'm not a proper scientist, I suggest you find one instead."

"Cathy, you'll cope because you are one of the best teachers I have ever seen. Believe me you can do this."

"It's not teaching is it, that's completely different to conference presentations."

"I've seen you enthrall an audience of ordinary punters, you can do this."

"Too bad, they're not ordinary, their specialists expecting to hear something special from someone who has studied the subject, not me, however clever you think I am."

"Please, Cathy, and it's worth three hundred as well, payable to you, not the university."

"Why can't they go and look at the Victory for an hour or two, or the Mary Rose?"

"They'll have done that already, come on, Cathy, I know you can do it."

I don't know why I agreed. I got Danni to help me researching. We looked at the latest theories on loss of biodiversity for different groups of organisms but the more we looked the answers were much the same. Climate change, loss of habitat and use of pesticides. We also had the discharge of sewage into water courses and particular factors like that affecting the River Wye, which is caused by poultry farming and agricultural runoff, it causes eutrophication. For those who don't know, this is the over-enrichment of a water body with things like nitrates and potassium, both present in poultry waste products. They cause plants, especially algae to proliferate and those can use up all the oxygen and kill fish and invertebrates and if they are certain types of algae they can produce toxins which can kill larger vertebrates like dogs that drink the water or swim in it.

By the time Danni and I left at six, I had hunted down enough slides to illustrate the talk I was going to do and I knew what I was going to say. By the time I went to bed, I had put it together and would talk to my slides. All I had to decide was what I was going to wear. Oh boy, the delights of being a woman, I don't think. In a way the problem was one of my own making. I'd accumulated so many nice dresses and suits and separates that I was spoilt for choice, but again like my talk, I had an idea of what I'd wear, so I slept quite well in view of the pressure on me. So not only was I dealing with the house, well, nominally, I was also dealing with TERFs and what they may do next, plus this talk. One of these days, I'll say no, but in a way I enjoy the challenge.

I'd been brought up in an English class where we had to do a presentation to the rest of the class on a subject we had to research ourselves. We were also expected to talk on a subject chosen by a teacher. That was different and could encompass anything. For instance, I was given one entitled, 'Why I enjoy wearing makeup.' I was set up for that, it wasn't Mr Whitehead. I had my morning break time to think about what I was going to say and would have to say it after.

I hadn't done Lady Macbeth then, but I was known as a girly-boy before then. So when i began my five minute talk they were all whistling and hooting at me. I played it straight and just described using cosmetics to enhance my femininity. I went back to my seat afterwards blushing like a tomato, the teacher not helping. "Thank you Miss Watts, I didn't realise you knew so much about applying makeup, seems we got the right person this time." It was pointless protesting that I watched my mother and other girls using cosmetics, so I just sat and blushed.