Dot and Sam 29

Dorothy Philpot. Landlady of The Harbour Light pub
Sam Philpot. Drag-queen and lifelong companion of Dot’s.
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 previously known as George.
Bobby Gay boy on the school bus.
Marty Girl on the school bus. (She becomes Georgie’s best friend and lover)
Jack. Marty’s twin brother (Keen runner).
Trevor Aitkins, Georgie’s Biological father.
Lucinda Aitkins Georgie’s biological mother
Terence Georgie’s step-dad
Peter Terence’s homophobic son.
Allison. Old school friend of Trevor
Fred Allison’s husband
Elizabeth Aitkins (Beth) Georgie’s younger biological sister. Later proves to be sympathetic to her ‘sister’
Jonathon Aitkins (Johnny) Georgie’s younger biological brother.
Rosie the Rivetter Terf Gang Leader on campus.

At first, Georgie discreetly avoided working the side of the restaurant where Alison and Fred’s table stood. But, as the restaurant filled and became busier, it inevitably fell to Georgie to attend both sides of restaurant. She returned to the serving counter and chose a table order two places removed from Alison and Fred, then walked boldly down the aisle to serve the other table. To her relief, neither her mother Lucy, nor the detested boyfriend Terry recognised her as she walked past with the plated meals filling her arms, nor again when she delivered the vegetables nor a third time when she delivered the condiments and gravy. Georgie was gathering confidence with every walk-by.

By prior agreement, one of the other waitresses agreed to cover Alison’s table and soon, they were working the far end of the restaurant as the restaurant filled up.

As the diners started to finish their meals, Georgie was gathering confidence and had concluded that her feminine appearance was now completely masking George the boy of old. She took her turn at working the dirty dishes trolly and following the senior waiter around the room as she took orders for desserts. Finally she arrived at Alison’s table and tipped the wink to Billy and Dot who were standing by the cashier’s desk. Once Billy had acknowledged Georgie’s situation, Georgie started gathering the dirty dishes from the table.

At first everything went well, but as she reached to gather Lucy’s plate, Lucy let out a squawk of surprise then she grabbed hold of Georgie’s wrist even as she picked up the plate.

“Hey! Where did you get this ring?”

Georgie suddenly realised that Lucy had recognised her Paternal grandmother’s ring. With little time to think she told the truth and prepared for some sort of scene.

“It’s my grandmother’s. My father and sister gave it to me!”

“Who!? Where!? When?” She demanded as she stared perplexedly at the girl taking her plate.

Emboldened by the righteousness of her situation, Georgie replied in a similar, officious ‘one-word’ series.

“Trevor Aitkins, Elizabeth Aitkins, London, last December! Now will you let go of my arm please, or I might drop the plate!”

Even as Georgie looked full into Lucy’s gaze she saw the dawning in Lucy’s eyes.

“It’s George! Isn’t it!?”

“So?!” Georgie challenged her back and felt a wave of satisfaction stiffen her resolve as she took hold of Lucy’s grip and broke her wrist free without dropping the plate.

Lucy stood up and glared at the creature standing before her, then decided to out the freak.

“Look everybody, this was once my son! A transexual!”

Georgie was just relieved to discover that firstly she was not scared, and secondly she was not crying. She was about to curse her mother but Dot had already crossed the room to intervene.

“Is there anything wrong here?” She asked as she gently pressed her open fingers against Georgie’s arm.

“Yes! Yes! There’s plenty wrong here. This boy, this freak is wearing my mother-in-law’s wedding ring. He’s an imposter! He’s a bloody transvestite!”

“Excuse me miss, but if you look about you, you will see that just about every poster advertising the entertainment in this establishment is either for drag-shows or gay comedians. This is a gay pub and restaurant. What would you expect to find?”

By now, Terry had realised that Lucy was beginning to lose the argument so he stood up to support his wife.

“This place is a paedophile trap. There’s young people here amongst transvestites and gays. It’s wrong!”

“I would remind you sir,” Dot replied softly but with iron in her tone, “that everybody dining here is doing so in the full knowledge that this a well-known L.G.B.T., venue. Look around you at the publicity posters! I would further remind you that any minors dining here are accompanied by adults. Finally I would remind you that you are causing the disturbance; not my staff!”

“Are you threatening me?” Terry demanded as his fists tightened and he stepped back causing his chair to scrape noisily along the floor.

On hearing the familiar noise that so often presaged trouble, Billy moved swiftly but inconspicuously from the cashier’s desk to stand behind Dot. Georgie spotted his pantherine approach through the side of her eye and breathed a sigh of relief when Billy appeared as if by magic to loom imposingly behind Dot. Georgie had seen Billy and his crew work their door-keeping magic before outside the harbour light on previous, late-night occasions but Dot had never ever needed his ‘back-up’ before during the day-light restauranting hours.

Georgie wanted to curse her mother Lucy for bringing trouble to what Georgie had now come to regard as her sanctuary as well as her home and place of work. She wanted to spit in Terry’s eye but Dot had already read Georgie’s mood and was taking a firm hold on the situation.

“Carry on gathering dishes love, leave this to us.” She advised Georgie.

Reluctantly, Georgie turned the trolley around and started gathering plates from the next table. Her anger however betrayed her mood and the plates rattled in her trembling hands as she stacked them on the trolley. The lady customer at the next table spotted the angry tear leaking from Georgie’s eye and she gently patted Georgie’s wrist.

“Be strong love. Your boss is handling it beautifully.”

As Georgie recovered herself, the rattling cutlery fell silent and Georgie paused to hear Dot warn Terry in no uncertain terms.

“You will know the law sir as well as anybody else. It’s posted prominently as required by law. This is a licenced premises and I Dorothy Philpot am the licensee. If you don’t immediately sit down and stop your disturbance, I will require you to leave as per the law. If you persist, I can expel you forcefully and if necessary, call the police.”

Terry glared in Georgie’s direction but said nothing as Lucy, Alison and Fred hissed at him to sit down and be quiet. Georgie swallowed with relief, smiled her thanks to the sympathetic customer and resumed wheeling to the next finished table where she stacked dishes and cutlery with hardly a clink. It was her way of demonstrating to the kindly customers that she had recovered control.

When her trolley was full, she wheeled it to the kitchen then emerged to resume serving after dabbing the smudged makeup around her eye.

“Are you okay to carry on?” Dot asked.

Georgie nodded with a brief smile and continued for the rest of the afternoon to work around Alison’s table. Logistically, this had little to no effect on the service the Harbour Light provided, and by six P.M., the last of the restaurant clientele were leaving. After a brief ‘pep’ talk from Dot, Georgie flung herself on her bed and debated if she should offer to work the New-year’s-day evening shift.

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

Georgie dozed fitfully until nine P.M. then woke to find a smiling friendly face gazing down while gentle fingers prodded her exposed shoulder.

“Ungh, uuuh, oh it’s you!” Georgie grunted as she came to and sat up with a slow smile crossing her face.

Then she reached out with eager hands and invited Marty into her embrace.

“Dot’s told me what happened. Have you broken up with your mum for good?”

“Eeeah!” She sighed as she tried to collect her thoughts.

"Well. Have you?" Marty Pressed.

“Dunno’.” Georgie confessed. “I don’ think we’ll be talking much for a long time. She tried outing me this afternoon.”

“What! Here in ‘The Light? - A gay pub!” Marty giggled at the lunacy.

“Yeah. Stupid or what?”

“So what happened?”

“Not much actually. Dot warned my step-dad that he’d be thrown out and banned if he tried to make trouble.”

“And?”

“He backed down when he saw Billy towering behind Dot. Alison and Fred wrecked him because this is now their local pub and they didn’t want to be banned.”

“And your mother?”

“I think she forgot that it’s a gay pub because by day, the restaurant is more of a posh dining establishment than a gay nightclub. It was only when Dot pointed out the posters advertising Sam and the others that she realised her faux pas. I think she was trying to pull her horns in and extricate herself but that dumb bully Terry pushed his way in and made it worse.”

“Is your mother banned?”

“No but she’s on probation.”

“And the boyfriend?”

“He’s on probation too. I want Dot to ban him and it might yet come to that.”

“Right. Are you okay to work this evening? It’s getting busy down there.”

“Yeah. I’ll join you at ten, okay?”

“Okay, see you later.”

Georgie listened to Marty’s heels clumping down the stairs then she rolled over and rested her elbows on the wide low window-sill that enabled her to comfortably study the river while not leaving her bed. She soon got bored however and by ten thirty she was downstairs pitching into waitressing.

On seeing her arrive down-stairs, Marty gave Georgie a brief nod to indicate where her mother and friends were seated, and they quickly organised the work arrangements so that Georgie avoided the foursome seated prominently close to Sam’s steps leading down from the stage. This would ordinarily require Georgie to pass close to the table as she initially stepped into the floor area but Sam saw the situation and deftly lifted the counter-top with her toe thus allowing Georgie to duck behind the bar and pop up behind the till.

This move by Sam, made it abundantly obvious that the bar staff were enabling Georgie to avoid any confrontation and she chatted briefly with Dot about where she was wanted. Dot explained that she should serve behind the bar to avoid any potential contact between the tables and any feet deliberately extended into the aisles to trip her up.

“You’ll be in full view but with the bar between you and them, so your parents can’t pull any stupid stunts. Allison also tells me they will be going home tomorrow so you’ll be rid of them.”

Georgie gave a relieved smile and immediately set to reducing the queue building up at the bar.

For several hours, Georgie worked non-stop, efficiently serving individual customers at the bar while also filling the waitresses multiple table orders then calling them out for collection. This was a part of the job that Georgie enjoyed because Sam would sometimes make some outrageous comment about the order on the tray and the whole floor would erupt into laughter while Georgie had to hand the tray across the bar to the waitress. Sometimes Sam would openly steal a drink off the tray and instruct Georgie to replace it with a double but not before identifying the customer to check that he or she wasn’t driving.

“Don’t want you falling’ in the dock love; do we!” She’d say while checking what drink she’d just ‘stolen’.

Sam had a punchline for most ‘lady drinks and ‘shorts’ that usually raised a laugh.

During this session Georgie had little time to stop and chat for the work was constant, taking orders from the waitresses, making up orders, serving individual customers and generally keeping the bar operational by stocking shelves and washing glasses . Admittedly there were three of them behind the bar but nevertheless there was little time to look up or exchange niceties between orders. It was just go – go – go – all night.

It worked well if the trio of bar staff each did their individual parts while simultaneously serving drinks which was the communal work. Georgie’s individual task that night was filling the glass washer and restocking the glassware on the various racks. During a lull in the hustle when Sam had just finished a comedic turn, Georgie stood up from behind the bar where she had been stocking the glass washer. She just stood up without looking at the customer and asked;

“Yes love what’ll it be?” as she held out her hand for the ten-pound notes.

As she reached for the money and stood to look at the customer her mood darkened instantly as she recognised her detested step-father holding out the money.

The momentary shock sent ice into her veins and Georgie tensed as she composed herself. Terry just stood there but Georgie quickly realised he was hesitating. Two years behind a bar had taught Georgie an awful lot about body language. She quickly realised that Terry was actually nervous so, to normalise the situation and emphasise that she was too busy for any silly business, Georgie simply repeated her question.

“What’ ll it be?”

Terry’s stumbling with his words served further to tell Georgie he was at a loss. Georgie tutted and asked a third time.

“Tsk! I can’t stand here all night. What’s your order?”

“Oh! Uuhm; two bitters and two large white wines please.”

Georgie didn’t reply, she just span around to address the lights and quickly poured the wines. Then she filled the beer glasses and took the money as Terry took the wines to their table. When he returned for the beers, she handed him his change and he hesitated even as Georgie was turning to face the next customer. She glanced at him and paused suspiciously then asked.

“Is there a problem?”

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