The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2149 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“What about Richard?” I asked.

“He’ll live.”

“Danielle, that’s rather a glib answer. The boy is fond of you and you seemed to be fond of him until this morning.”

“Yeah, well a girl can change her mind, can’t she?”

“That simple is it?”

“Yeah, why?”

“So that’s it, is it? When we get back to Portsmouth, no more Danielle?”

“Um–possibly, I dunno, but right now I wanna get back to playin’ football.”

“I see. Well we’re booked to fly home tomorrow, so I think you’d better phone Richard and say goodbye.”

“What for?”

“Because I asked you to.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll send you to the convent school as a girl.”

“You wouldn’t–would you?”

“No, because you’re going to say goodbye to Richard.”

“Oh all right.”

I wasn’t altogether sorry that we were going because I suspect keeping him out of her panties was going to prove a tad difficult for Danielle. So we can call it a holiday romance and everyone moves on. I’m still saddened by Alice’s death, it shouldn’t have happened but perhaps I’m partly responsible for it. If I hadn’t interfered she might have survived, after all she’d lived with it for several years and the frustration of not being able to give full vent to it. So when her fairy godmother arrived and waved her magic wand, the poor kid, who’d never spent more than a few hours en femme, was given everything her heart desired and the shock of it, turned her mind. One hears similar stories about people winning huge amounts on the lottery. Suddenly being able to realise all your dreams means you have nothing left to wish for and life is over.

I wondered if this was why I was so insistent that I work rather than being a ‘kept woman’ because if I just had to ask Simon for everything I wanted, I’d have no ambition to do anything myself–and that isn’t me. I like to do things for myself, een though it sometimes gives me lots of grief–like the PhD–was it worth it in the end? Yes, because it was my own effort with some guidance from Tom–well, okay, a lot of guidance–more than the average cruise missile has.

Goodness, life is so complicated and such a struggle, but once it becomes too easy we get complacent and lazy. On the other hand once it becomes too difficult we either give up hope or work ourselves to death.

I saw in the Guardian an article about the boy who was born in an internment camp in North Korea and he gave away his mother and brother as she was planning to help his brother escape. She was hanged and his brother was shot by firing squad. What a way to live, like something mediaeval, where all that matters is your own survival and because you have no time to yourself you don’t have time to question it or to worry about betraying friends or family. Now he’s free, he has time to worry and to realise what has happened to him and part of him wishes he hadn’t left there. What a disgusting regime the sooner it falls the better, though it protects itself by these tyrannical means very well. Then one hears that old men wish for Stalin to come back and one or two who fought for Germany during World War II, would like to see the Fuhrer back in power. We seem to like what is familiar even if we know it’s wrong–or rotten to the core.

Richard came round to see his ‘girlfriend’ off and gave her a present to open when she got home. They spent ages kissing each other’s faces off before we could go and Danni had to repair her makeup as we drove to the airport. I still couldn’t make her out and I suspect I won’t be able to understand him, any easier. Such is life, so it would appear.

Paul drove us to the airport where, Callum and his mother saw us off. Paul had a note from his mother thanking me for my help with her illness. I heard that Alice’s father had had some sort of breakdown and was in the local psychiatric hospital, part of me wanted to say, ‘couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke,’ but I resisted the temptation. He was a prisoner of his own restricted thoughts and would be unless he looked beyond them. I had a strong feeling that would never happen so his illness was unlikely to resolve itself any time soon, if ever.

I suspect he blames me for encouraging Alistair to become Alice, and thus for the subsequent suicide. If it helps him that’s okay with me. If he discusses it with too many people, then my lawyers will be pointed at him and told to destroy and my conscience will be as clear as his seems to be–rather like shooting a rabid dog.

As these thoughts whizzed around my brain, I began to realise I wasn’t all sweetness and light, so angel might be a misnomer by some degree of magnitude. I had a dark side and when provoked used it. I wasn’t proud of it, at the same time I hoped I wasn’t as bad as the North Korean regime.

The flight back was uneventful except for some turbulence, which in a small plane, is even more dramatic than in a big jumbo. One passenger did get covered in red wine which stayed in mid air for half a second before dropping all over them. Fortunately, I wasn’t sitting near them.

At Southampton, I knew Stella would be there to collect us so I relaxed. Not a good idea–going into the airport as we were coming out was one of Danny’s classmates and they didn’t recognise him until after they saw and recognised me. Then they put two and two together and got four and began to tease him about it.

By the time we got to the car, Danni was hysterical. “I’m dead,” was all she kept saying not listening to either Stella or what I was saying. I had several options, including leaving that school and going to another one as a boy, or a girl if preferred or even being home tutored, but Danni was too upset to even listen to them.

“What happens now?” asked Stella as she drove us home in my Jaguar.

I think I hide my car keys, was what went through my mind but I just shrugged.