Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 650 by Angharad

I was waiting for Trish at the school, and people were giving me funny looks. Then the Range Rover of Mrs Snotty-Git arrived with Petunia and they sneered at me, “Lady ha! Not even a bloody woman.” Then giggling they walked past me and I felt the tears start.

Trish came out and found me sitting in the car crying. She got in and it was obvious from her eyes that she had been crying too. “They said horrible things about you, Mummy, and they said I was probably queer too. What does that mean?”

I hugged her and we cried together–the nightmare had started. Oh yeah, I was in demand, the BBC were chasing Erin for me to do the programme on Harvest Mice, but it was destroying me socially and affecting my children.

Simon came in armed with a pile of tabloid newspapers, “They all like your programme and say you’re a natural, but they all pick up on the sex change, bloody vultures, still I suppose it’s giving MPs a rest.”

“How can you be so calm?” I said to him.

“Easy, it’s not real is it.”

“What do you mean, it’s not real?”

“Well it’s all a dream, isn’t it?”

“What?” I heard someone scream, and someone grabbed me.

“Cathy, what’s the matter?” It was Simon’s voice.

“You know what’s the matter,” I sobbed.

“How do I know, we were both asleep, it’s two in the morning.”

“What? we were talking about the tabloids outing me again after my dormouse programme.”

“Maybe?”

“Hold me please,” I sobbed and sniffed. He put his arm around me.

“You’re shaking, what’s the problem?” He pulled me into a hug and I cried on his shoulder and chest. “Hey, c’mon, nothing’s that bad, is it?”

“I shouldn’t have made that film, it’s going to lose us the kids.”

“How?”

“When the tabloids and TV start making enquiries they’re going to discover the kids are only my foster kids, and will demand they re-home them.”

“Re-home them, they’re not bloody kittens,” said Simon, “besides, they’d be crossing a judge and they’re pretty powerful people.”

“What if they go to another judge who isn’t sympathetic?”

“We appeal. Hell, Dad’s beginning to see those girls as his grandchildren, so he’ll call up his legal team if necessary.”

“He’d be taking on the might of the Social Services and the county council.”

“I don’t think they’d really want to mix it with a bank, we could embarrass them quite a lot, as well as cause them to have loans called in and other little touches.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Uh uh, immoral, but not illegal–think MPs allowances.”

“Couldn’t it all backfire on you?”

“No, we have enough friends in high places to do us favours if we need them.”

“I’m not sure I like where this is going, Simon.”

“Hopefully, it isn’t going far at all. One or two newspapers could find themselves in difficult places, if they do something to offend us.”

“You can influence the tabloids?”

“They all owe us money, they may find we want it back in a hurry, which could cause them to be destabilised financially.”

“That is immoral, Simon.”

“I’m not denying it, it’s a tough old world.”

“But they’d expose you for it, wouldn’t they and then you could get into problems.”

“I doubt it, besides we are solvent which is more than most newspaper owners. Isn’t it immoral, that having exposed you once, they do so again. It’s old news and you’ve done nothing wrong, it’s not like being a criminal or a paedo, is it?”

“No, of course not.”

“You’re not even gay, you’re a woman in a heterosexual relationship and we’re going to be married–that it’s quite a powerful family is pure coincidence.”

“Sometimes I think we should have got married as soon as I got that form through.”

“Speak to your friend Marguerite, see if she can do a quickie ceremony, we can always make it up to the others with a second one.”

“It would stop people calling me Lady Catherine by mistake.”

“Nah, if they call you Lord Catherine, that’s a mistake.”

I snorted, and had to wipe his arm, I did apologise. I also called him, “a silly bugger.” He cuddled me and I went to sleep again, this time with no horrible dreams.

I don’t for one minute believe that the BBC can show my film without there being some unfortunate feedback. Maybe if they were to put it on at three in the morning, they could avoid it, but prime viewing time–there has to be interest in this woman who counts dormice.

If necessary, we’ll go abroad for a few weeks, Simon has contacts in Menorca, I quite fancy going there, they have dormice–though not my darling Muscardinus–but the girls would enjoy it, I’m sure. I wonder what we’d need to do to get them passports?

I woke up when the girls squeezed into bed alongside us, I peeped at the clock, it was six; time for another hour’s sleep. So I did, and regretted it, I awoke with a head like a bucket and felt terribly sleepy and leaden limbed. Trish’s hair was clean enough so I just washed her and dressed her and gave her breakfast. While she was eating, I washed and dressed myself and Meems. We were both in jeans and tops, Trish grumbled about having to wear a skirt or dress to school.

“It goes with the territory, kiddo. You’re a girl, right?”

She nodded, and said, “You know I am, Mummy.”

“The school has a dress code, girls wear dresses or skirts. If you want to wear trousers, we’ll have to find a boy’s school.”

“No! I’ll wear the skirt.”

“Wiww I have to go to a boy’s schoow, Mummy?” said Mima.

“Not unless you can convince me you’re a boy and not a girl.”

“I’m not a boy, siwwy Mummy.”

“In which case, you’ll go to a girl’s school as well, and you’ll wear what they say you have to.”

“I wear a dwess, Mummy.”

“Yes I know, Meems, so will Trish, she’s just having a whinge.” Trish nodded.

It has always struck me as absurd that we fight for the right to wear skirts and be women, and as soon as we get it, we wear trousers. Oh well, it’s about choice I suppose or put another way, the freedom to choose.