The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1836 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

After composing myself and wiping my face, I went to see Tom to thank him for encouragement. He was back in his study reading Nature.

“Thank you for your observations and encouragement, Daddy.”

He stood up and held out his arms and we hugged, and once again I blubbed. He patted my back and spoke softly to me like I was a child again. In some ways I wished I were, but then if that were the case who’d look after all of those who’d put their trust in me?

I apologised for my apparent emotional instability. He grinned and told me I had nothing to apologise for.

“How did you manage to read it so quickly? It’s three hundred pages.”

“Aye, but ye showed me more than hef o’ it afore.”

“But you still had to correct or comment on it?”

He pulled out a sheaf of papers and showed them to me. He’d read more than half of it and done his corrections and critique over several months. Because he’d encouraged me with the parts I’d shown him, I left them alone and concentrated on the newer parts. However, he’d still done nearly a hundred pages in a day.

He explained that he’d seen so much of my work he could scan it in the knowledge where the weak points or those of controversy would occur. He would read the final edition to proof out any mistakes or typos providing I gave him a week to do so. I could then print off the number of copies required by the university and send them in for my invigilators to read and formulate the questions they would ask at my viva.

I confessed I was apprehensive of that and he reassured me that my submission was good enough to make them feel positive with me as knowing and loving my subject.

“Well, I do love my babies,” I said in a voice made more squeaky by recent weeping fits.

“We ken ye dae,” he observed, “but yer love o’ ecology is also there.”

“I do enjoy what I do, Daddy, and I’ve got you to thank for that.”

“Me? I dinna dae onythin’?”

“You gave me the support I needed to do my survey work and then to apply it to a larger canvas.”

“Ye took thae established way o’ daein’ these things an’ improved on them sae much, whit else cud I dae but support ye? If I hadnae, some other university wud hae snatched ye up.”

“You’re joking.”

“Am I? It wisnae me wha sugested ye f’ the UN job.”

“It wisnae, I meant it wasn’t–so who did?”

“Yer auld friend, Esmond.”

“Prof Herbert?”

“Aye, he asked me if I thocht ye were guid enough, an’ I telt him ye were. I sent him some o’ yer research as well.”

“Without telling me, how could you, Daddy?”

“I didnae want ye tae get yer hopes up if they didnae invite ye to apply.”

I hugged him again.

“I can’t believe that old lothario would recommend me, he hardly knows me.”

“Och, he kens ye better than ye think he daes. He’s quite astute, even if his sexual mores leave a wee bit tae be desired.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“He’d been in touch wi’ us since ye’d applied tae come here, sae he kens more that ye think. He’s followed yer career wi’ interest.”

“Why? He knew me as a mixed up kid, I like to think I’ve changed since then.”

“He recognised thae beauty wi’in ye, he also thocht ye might be gay or transgender, occasionally wond’rin’ if ye were a lassie pretendin’ tae be a boy.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Aye, when ye first cam’ here, one or twa o’ the faculty wondered if ye were a boy or a lassie. Ye dressed like a boy, sort o’ but ye conducted yersel’ like a lassie.”

“Oh my god,” no wonder people gave me funny looks. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I suppose I did a bit of each–it was messy. Tom handed me a box of tissues–well, tears he could cope with, snot–just ask yourself, would you?

I had to go before this trip down memory lane completely blew me away. I wiped my face, blew my nose and after pecking him on the cheek, I left him to go back to his journal.

I managed to slip upstairs and wash my face in the bathroom and cool my eyes down a bit. While I was doing this, I tried to recall some of the things that seemed to happen about the UN invite. It was Gareth that pushed it supported by Herbert and Tom, plus someone in the Dept of the Environment. I declined because I was neither a politician nor experienced enough to take it up. Besides, It would have meant being at the beck and call of all sorts of people and too much travelling. Not my style at all, I’m a homebird, really, and I want to be with my kids. They’re depending upon me to help them achieve independence in a reasonable manner–no, the job would suit a man far better, pity Gareth didn’t get it, he might still have been alive.

I put a bit of concealer round my puffy eyes and went back down. David, in my absence was serving tea, fresh salmon and cucumber sandwiches–how English can you get, even if the salmon was Scottish, or farmed there. My contribution was to get the ice cream out of the freezer and we all had a cone of the stuff with a flake added, a 99 for those who recognise such terms.

“Where did you disappear to?” asked Simon when we were in bed.

“When?”

“Between lunch and tea.”

“I was around, I had a chat with Daddy about my dissertation.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Why?”

“We were looking for you, that’s all, can’t remember why? Did Sammi find you?”

“Earlier yeah, she was making tea.”

“That was it, we’d made a pot of tea–I’m glad I remembered, makes me wonder if I’m losing it at times.”

“You losing it? Losing what?” I asked cheekily, laughing as I did so.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know I had any marbles to lose?”

“I’m sure you have a big tin of them somewhere from your childhood.”

“How did you know that? I mean how could you?”

“Just a guess, I can imagine you shaking the tin and making an awful din.”

I could feel the bed shaking as he chuckled, “That was me to a tee, how could you know?”

“I know what boys are like.”

“Don’t tell me, because you used to be one?”

“No, actually, because I don’t think I ever was. It’s funny, according to Daddy, Esmond Herbert wasn’t sure if I was an effeminate boy or a girl who dressed as a boy. Apparently, several people here wondered if I was a girl who dressed like a boy.”

“Yeah, I can believe that. I reckon if you’d been a normal sort of boy before, you’d never have fooled me in the beginning. You were gauche, but in an endearing sort of way, in a girlish way. You never were a boy really, were you?”

“I don’t think so, but then, I would say that wouldn’t I?”