Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 709 by Angharad

Trish and I were sitting waiting to be called to see Dr Dorian Henshelwood. We were a few minutes early and instead of reading we were playing ‘I spy’. I’m sure everyone has played it before with children, you see something, give them the first letter and they have to guess what the object is. In a hospital waiting room, that’s limited, so to make it more interesting, the guess had to be used in a sentence.

Trish gave me one beginning with the letter ‘R’. I looked around, and decided I’d have a guess. “I think the word is receptionist; um…I know, the receptionist came out of her house and only discovered she had no knickers on, when she sat on her bicycle.” Trish roared with laughter, getting an old fashioned look from our knickerless receptionist.

“No, that’s the wrong word.” She sat smiling smugly.

“Oh, okay, let me see.” I glanced around the room, “Um, right. The word is red, yeah, I’ve got it, the receptionist left her red knickers at home in case she had to cross a field which had a bull in it.”

“No, Mummy,” she was giggling like a loony and both of us were drawing all sorts of looks from patients and staff alike.

“I give up,” I said.

“Roundabout,” she pointed at a toy carousel thing a little girl was playing with in front of the toy cupboard.

“Clever clogs, now it’s my turn…” before I could get my revenge, a voice called for “Patricia Watts.” We looked at each other and jumped up together.

Standing in front of the door of his room was a kindly looking man with a bushy beard, which was pepper and salt coloured and pair of twinkling blue eyes which flashed under his equally bushy eyebrows and pair of silver framed spectacles.

He held the door open while we entered the room. He indicated a sofa opposite a single chair, with a table alongside it. He shut the door and offering his hand said, “Dorian Henshelwood.” He shook my hand and then Trish’s.

“Cathy Watts and this young lady is Trish.”

“Trish, okay, Trish it is.” He made a note on a file. We all sat down and he looked at both of us. “That’s a very nice dress, Trish, did you choose it?”

“Yes, doctor.”

“You have good taste, do you choose all your clothes?”

“Not all of them, sometimes Mummy does, and school uniform, we don’t have a choice.”

“Oh dear, what’s so dreadful about the school uniform?”

“Nothing I s’pose, ‘cept you never get to choose, ‘cept between the dress and the skirt ‘n’ blouse.”

“Well, when I went to school, I had to wear charcoal grey trousers, a black blazer, white shirt and school tie. I didn’t have the option of a summer uniform, so what do you think about that?”

“I think girls are luckier than boys. Did the girls in your school have a summer and winter uniform?”

“Yes, they did. I think you’re jolly well right, they did have more choice and were luckier. So you don’t fancy wearing trousers and a shirt and tie?”

Trish shook her head, “Ugh, no thank you. I don’t mind wearing trousers when I’m riding my bike, or playing, but I’d rather wear skirts or dresses to school.”

“I see, fair enough. But you do wear trousers, sometimes then?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“Do you like them, I mean to wear?”

“They’re okay, when it was cold in the winter, we went sledging, and we needed trousers for that. My sister Mima, she wore some too.”

“So people didn’t think you were a boy in trousers, then?”

Trish looked at him, and then blushing furiously, said, “No, why should they? I’m a girl.” She gripped my hand tightly. I was trying not to influence anything she said, and I thought they were both doing well.

“Well only because, boys traditionally wear trousers and girls wear skirts. What about a kilt? Boys can wear those.”

“Both my gramps wear kilts sometimes, one has a castle up in Scotland.”

“Indeed,” the twinkling eyes shifted a little, he clearly didn’t believe this.

“It has pointy towers like a fairy castle, and he says when Mima and me visit, we are fairy princesses.”

“You like your gramps, then?”

“Yes, we live with the other one, he’s a professor at the university. Mummy works there too, when she isn’t on television.” He looked at me in puzzlement.

“Your mummy is on television?”

“Yes, she made a film on dormice and is going to make one on harvest mice. She’s an expert on mice, she has a pet dormouse called Spike. I like to hold Spike, she is soft and furry with a long furry tail, she once ran down Mummy’s blouse and weed herself. It’s on the computer, it’s very funny.” She started to laugh and he smiled too. He looked at me, I was blushing furiously, and the eyes sparkled again. He wasn’t sure how much of this to take, but he hadn’t asked me for confirmation–yet.

“So what does the other gramps, do?” he asked Trish.

“That one was Grampa Tom, he’s the professor. Grampa Henry, he’s the one with the castle, and he owns a bank and big hotel in Southsea.”

“A bank, what sort of bank?”

“A bank where we keep our money, Gramps is very honest, so you could keep yours there if you want, I’ll ask him to do it for you, if you want.” I was blushing and smirking at the same time.

“Your grampas sound very nice men, do you think so?”

“Yes, they spoil all three of us, me, Mima and Livvie. Livvie is my latest sister, she’s only been with us for a few weeks. Her daddy killed her mummy and then killed himself and asked my mummy to look after her.”

“Goodness, your new sister?”

“Yes, Mummy can’t have babies, so she fosters us, but we all want to be adopted by her and Daddy after they get married. They’re going to get married up in the castle, aren’t you Mummy and we’re gonna be bridesmaids and wear posh frocks and have our hairs done with flowers in it, aren’t we Mummy?”

I smiled, trying not to say anything, but I felt I had to answer her this time. “The arrangements haven’t been finalised yet, but you will be a bridesmaid, with Meems and Livvie.”

“See, I told you, I gonna wear my hair up like a big girl,” she scooped her hair and lifted it above her head. “I think it’ll be nice.”

“I’m sure it will, Trish, I’m sure it will.” He paused and I wondered when he was going to start asking her some awkward questions or historical ones. They started. “Can I ask you, when you knew you were really a girl?”

“When I was about two, I wanted to wear dresses and play with dollies and my first mummy used to beat me and shout at me.”

“Why did she do that?”

“I don’t know, I think it was because she hated me, but my new mummy says that all mummies really love their children, and she might have beaten me because she loved me and didn’t want me to be different. That’s right isn’t it, Mummy?” I smiled my reply back to her.

“Do you think your first mummy loved you?”

“She wanted me to be a boy, but I didn’t want to. I knew I was a girl, so she put me in a home and I haven’t seen her since.”

“Do you miss her?”

“No, I love my new mummy, she’s nice and she said she’d help me to be a lady like her, she’s going to be Lady Catherine when she marries Daddy, he’s a lord, only they say laird, up in Scotland.”

“Do they? Goodness, for a young lady you know an awful lot, don’t you?”

“Yes, because I like to read a lot, me and Livvie read loads, and we’re trying to teach Meems to read too, but she’s only three an’ a half.”

“So, what happened in the home?”

“I used to get bullied, but I kept telling them I was a girl ‘cept one boy used to bash me up. He pushed me down the stairs and I hurt my head. I had to come to hospital because I was unconscious and I couldn’t walk.

“Meems had been hit by a car and couldn’t walk, but Mummy makes miracles happen, and she cured Meems, then when Dr Rose asked her to cure me, she did too. Then I asked the judge if I could live with her, and he said yes.”

“So, this mummy cured you and let you be a girl?”

“Yes, that’s what I said, didn’t I? Weren’t you listening?”

“Oh yes, it’s riveting stuff, I was just sorting it out in my own head. I’m a bit slower than you.”

“Well try and keep up,” the cheeky maggot sniped at him.

“I’ll endeavour to do so.” He’d made copious notes, and then he asked if he could speak with me. Trish happily acceded to his request, and I filled him in some of the finer points. “An interesting young lady,” he said as he shook her hand again as we left, his eyes twinkling once more.

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