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(aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2885 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad
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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
I sat there staring at the phone number while sipping my tea, wondering what I should do. Or rather, how I should do it? Should I act indignant as in the restaurant; or would a cold and disdainful approach be better? As I sat there my phone peeped and I nearly dropped the mug of tea in my lap.
“Yes?”
“It’s Mr Archibald, I’ll put him through,” and before I could react he was speaking.
“Lady Cameron?”
“Yes.”
“Look, I feel I owe you an apology.”
“Is that all you rang for?”
“Please, hear me out?”
“I’m still not going to support any sort of blood sport.”
“I realise that now, but I honestly didn’t know it at the time. You might say I was set up.”
“Or you didn’t do your homework.”
“Okay, that as well.”
“So is that it?”
“Uh not quite.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to apologise for something else.”
“Uh yes, I’ve done my homework now and I made some unfortunate remarks about you as a student, didn’t I?”
“My time as a student is not a particularly pleasant memory.”
“Sorry, I really didn’t know.”
“It’s no great secret.”
“May be not, but I wasn’t in the know and I’d never have guessed.”
“What that I was that weedy creep who made good microscope slides?”
“Yes—er no, I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed who you were because you looked so female...”
“Mr Archibald, I am female.”
“But your clip on the BBC about your marriage to Lord Cameron...”
“What about it?”
“Well it said you were a boy.”
“So?”
“I’m sorry, I seem to have done it again, don’t I?”
“Let me ask you something, Mr Archibald...”
“Please call me Colin, but fire away.”
“Do you ever get asked about your gender or your sexuality?”
“No of course not.”
“So why is mine a discussion point?”
“I was apologising for something I said at lunch.”
“But you then had to qualify it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t especially enjoy being told I look female because it’s irrelevant irrespective of the intention of the person who says it. I am female, my past is irrelevant, my present and my future will all be met by me as a female because that is what my status is. I’m a wife, mother and professor of a university—I do all of them as female.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that, Mr Archibald.”
“Colin, please.”
“I am going, Mr Archibald, goodbye.”
I put the phone down and felt like throwing my cup against the wall. Diane put her head round the door. “More tea?”
“You called him up, didn’t you?”
“Yes, because if I hadn’t you’d have been late for the children.”
I looked at the clock, “I’ve got an hour before that.”
“I know you didn’t want to speak with him and would have put it off and put it off until it was a huge mountain. Now you’ve spoken to him, hopefully you can shut the door on it and forget about it and we can get some work done.”
I looked at her in astonishment, “I beg your pardon?”
“I have twenty letters for you to sign.”
“Okay—but don’t you ever do that again.”
“Fine—now, d’you want more tea or not?”
My answer was to hold up my mug which she took smirking. Okay, she was absolutely right, I didn’t wish to speak with him but I needed to or it would have haunted me. He now knew, big deal. It’s out there in the public domain, I won’t deny it—or should I say, I can’t deny it as it happens to be fact and much as it annoys me to have to admit it from time to time, it is no longer relevant to my life any more than the fact I acted as Lady Macbeth in school is. It’s an item in my history. I’m not employed for my history but what I can do now and in the future, Simon didn’t marry me for my past any more than I did him for his past—my children, some of who have similar pasts, don’t think about them, we interact as mother and children. It’s what we are now that matters and what we’re going to do in the future. The rest is just history.
I’d just finished logging on when I saw I had an email from guess who? I was tempted to just delete it without reading it, but he does work for Defra, so I clicked on it.
‘Dear Professor Watts,
I seem to stick my foot in my mouth whenever I speak to you. I understood your point perfectly and again I was out of line. I apologise unreservedly.
I’m sure that you’d prefer not to meet with me again but it appears my superiors think differently and I’m due to meet with you to discuss some research we’d like you to undertake for us. I’m aware that you could probably insist on seeing someone else but I’d be grateful if you would discuss the matter with me and I will try not to say anything stupid or irrelevant.
I discovered you got a first from Sussex, they don’t give many of those away, so you are special. I also know you’ve done some very clever things with the mammal survey. This department needs people like you to ensure the policies we develop are the correct ones for the environment and the people who inhabit it.
Please contact me to make this appointment, I would really appreciate it.
Yours
Colin Archibald. ’
I was still musing on what I’d do when Diane appeared with my letter’s file and my tea. “You look very pensive—here,” she handed me the tea and then the file.
I pointed at the screen and she came round behind me to read it. “He’s certainly a trier.”
“Trying, may be a better descriptor.”
She chuckled, “So what you going to do?”
“What’s going on here?” I pointed at the screen, “I mean the subtext.”
“They know he messed up with you, so d’you mean are they rubbing his nose in it or giving him a second chance?”
“Something like that, the way he’s pleading it looks like it might be his last chance.”
“Yeah, could be—so what ya gonna do?”
“Call ghostbusters?”
She roared with laughter, “Don’t tell me your kids love it too?”
“I don’t know about them but I quite like it myself.”
“Yes, something of a classic—now what about this here begging letter, are you going to see him or what?”
“You mean, am I going to kick him when he’s down?”
“That’s up to you, perhaps he needs someone to administer the coup de grace.”
“I don’t support blood sports—make the appointment but in the morning, he can come here.”
“No freebie lunch?”
“Definitely not, I don’t wish to watch his appalling table manners as well as talk to him.”
“You really are an aristocrat aren’t you?”
“Nah, just a snob.” I stuck my tongue out at her and she went back to her office chuckling.
“I just love working here,” came through the door as she shut it.
Yeah, so do I some days—but despite her manipulations, I was glad she was my secretary, she’s a good one.
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Comments
Maybe Cathy can get used to the fact she is a woman,
I'm not sure I'm used the fact, but it feels more real every day.
Archie sounds like a someone who is trying, but is out of his depth. There comes a point where good looks aren't enough, you have to use your brains. Perhaps he is failing the test? I would not be surprised if he turned out to be a decent person who still has a lot of growing up to do.
Lookiing forward how it turns out with Hanna and Ingrid. I knew this was lurking, it was just a matter of time. James really does OK with Cathy as a client, not mentioning the occasional role reversal of a damsel and gentleman in distress.
A thought just occurred, wonder if Archie has something to do with our former VC?
multiple posts
I find the best thing to do after hitting send on a comment is to get a coffee or tea. I have seen it take around 30 seconds sometimes. I also like to use the back arrow and refresh the comments page to check if it made it or not before I use the forward arrow and resend the comment.
Is the site still acting up ?
He sounds like a chauvinistic jerk, trying not to sound like one. And talking about the change from Charlie to Cathy is a
friendly topic of discussion, but Cathy is still an oddity. This is someone who uses his position to bully lesser mortals, making them bite their tongue when sensitive personal topics are brought up.
Karen
A Very Engaging Chapter
There are many good points, food for thought, presented. It makes me realize that although we have come a long way, we have so much further to go. When will we reach the point that the whispered asides, "He/she's gay" or, "Did you know that she used to be a man." etc. stop being the first, second or last thing said about a person who comes into a room. When will it not matter what a person's gender, sex, or sexual preference is?
Portia
Just looking at the comments
on our local paper's website by some trolls about an 85 year old cyclist who came off after hitting a pothole and how they'd like to do this that and the other to cyclists, shows civilisation is as far away now as it was in Roman times. They were barbarians with some technology, we're just space age barbarians - or some of us appear to be.
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/14307010.UPDATE__Dorchester...
Angharad
No more comments on that story
I guess the comments for this story were such an embarrassment to the site, that they closed the comments and deleted the worst ones that you mentioned. Some people felt this man should have stayed on the cycle path instead of riding along on the shoulder of the main highway. Not knowing if there is a cycle path he could have used to get to where he wanted to go makes it a moot point.
It Will Never Happen
Dear Portia,
sorry to say it, but it took Evolution a million years (very roughly) to make out of our chimp-like ancestors, a semi-sentient creature that was happier walking upright through fields than hanging from the trees by its long hairy arms, and that did not mind going into the sea to pick up shellfish, and likes to play with fire. I doubt that humans will ever manage to reach the heights you want them to. Just look around this world now, and take stock of the nasty things groups of humans are doing right now to other humans. We are just a nasty, cruel, stupid lot of apes, who will never reach the level of intelligence, sapience, sentience, and ethical behaviour you wish for. Nature would have had to start with something a great deal better to produce in another million more years a species that nice. It started with the wrong material. The paradisical situation of which you, and most of the few better individuals of the species dominating this planet in this 21st century dream and long for, will never be, because our species will very soon have completed a new oecological collapse and a massive extinction of its own and most other life-forms currently living on this planet. Eventually, perhaps, new life-forms will evolve and the planet may recover, as it has a few times already when mass extinctions wiped the Earth clean of nearly all species after something went seriously wrong and one group outgrew all the others, rendering the planet uninhabitable for most others as well as themselves.
Humans have become a Pest, and Nature eliminates pests, so that something better can be developed instead. H. "sapiens" has less than 500 years to change its ways, but it never will do that. It will end up in the museums of whatever replaces us, alongside the Dinosaurs and giant ferns, the feet long dragonflies, giant salamanders and the palm trees that made coal.
Briar
good friend, great assistant
Dianne is showing she is starting to become more than just an administrative assistant, she is becoming a friend to Cathy. I don't think she even realizes that Dianne is doing this as an act of friendship, but she is slowly seeing her value in a new light.
And the guy just can't shut his trap at times. I hope Cathy stands her ground and doesn't give in and join them on the research, she has to see that they have ulterior motives for wanting her plus she has a legitimate excuse that they have to accept- she has too damn much to do already!
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
We've got some research we'd like you to do...
and here's what we need you to conclude. (Why do I think that is coming.)
It's "Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!" But I enjoyed the film and loved seeing a reference here. Thanks Angharad!
Thank you,Angharad,
Wonderful,as always. I tell all my younger friends ,some trans,some indigenous ,that it is not a matter of WHAT we are ,it is a matter of
WHO we are ,who we are as persons -----what we are is irrelevant .
ALISON
Love the relationship
between Diane and Cathy , You cannot help but feel its something Cathy needed when her perspective is probably not always where it should be , If you look around Cathy knows a lot of women and gets on well with most , But with her world revolving around the university and home she has yet to form a close relationship with another woman ,Diane might be an employee of the university but she has shown a number of times that she has Cathys best interests at heart , Maybe Cathy and Diane ought to share a girlie night out or two, Because sometimes you cannot help but think Cathy really needs to loosen up a little.....
Kirri