Easy As Falling Off A Bike
by Angharad
part:307

After showering and dressing, I felt a bit less dopey. Things had gone better than I'd imagined regarding the funeral. Stella seemed to be much better, although I was hardly aware that she had slept with me all night.

We had chatted while I drank my tea and she said she still got nightmares about the kidnapping but was dealing with them. She was having therapy and felt better about everything, however, she knew she wasn't out of the woods yet.

I wondered if the Soames would want to rent the house while their's was being rebuilt. The damage was pretty extensive and even with tarpaulins draped across the wrecked roof, it was damaged by the fire and the water from the fire brigade. I felt very sorry for them and I hoped they'd be okay. I needed to speak with the solicitor and ask him about letting the house out on a short term basis. For want of a better description, it was still my family home and I didn't want just anyone to live there.

I went down for a late breakfast and Tom and Simon were discussing the rugby again. I tried to bring up the cycling but they were too involved to listen.

I went into the lounge and sat on the settee and looked around the place. I couldn't say I'd always been happy here, but then until the conflict which caused me to leave it, I'd not been unhappy either, just confused.

I remembered the day when I'd seen some documentary about transsexualism and it changed my life for ever. I knew then what was wrong with me and what I needed to do. I was thirteen and too scared to do anything at all.

"A penny for them," said a woman's voice.

"Dunno if they're worth it."

Stella plonked herself down alongside me, "I really liked that suit."

"Simon said he thought you would."

"Where did you get it?"

"Bath, spent all day wandering around, then just happened on this little boutique place. There were no prices on anything."

"Oh, one of those. I rarely enter them because I know I'm going to be ripped off."

"Yeah me too, I could have bought a carbon fibre bike for the cost of that suit and with the rest of the outfit, rather a nice one at that."

"What bike or outfit?"

"Bike, what else?"

"Are you a frustrated bike racer or something?"

"You guessed."

"Well how long before everything heals and you can go back on the blessed bike?"

"It's nearly there now, in fact if I can keep Simon away from me or a few more days, I'd say it was probably healed now."

"So he damages it does he?"

"No he stretches me, it's the best form of dilation, which I don't do often enough. But however enjoyable some of it is, I am sore afterwards."

"I haven't seen Simon since we were kids, is he big?"

"Big enough for me. I don't honestly know how that compares with other men, I haven't seen any."

"What about when you were in school, in the showers, didn't you see any then?"

"I spent most of my time trying to avoid looking at anything that could be construed as, 'asking for it'. They had me down as a fairy anyway, so I actually avoided games and PE whenever possible."

"But you're not a fairy, you're a female."

"I know that but try telling it to a class of thirteen or fourteen year olds. To them I was a freak who wasn't like them."

"I was so lucky at school, I fitted in with the other poor little rich kid criminals so well. I spent the first three years being an anarchist then developed into a subversive."

"Simon told me you were a handful at school." I said wondering if I'd broken a trust.

"Handful, I was two handfuls and a foot. They didn't know what to do with me or how to do it. I had such fun avoiding the rules, bending them and at times, completely ignoring them."

"Don't they expel unruly pupils?" I enquired.

"Not the children of the school's banker."

"Ah, so it wasn't Coutts then?"

"No, it was Stanebury."

"I hadn't heard of that in terms of banking."

"How often do you need a merchant bank?"

"Exactly, I don't. The high street variety will do for me."

"Oh I don't know, if you sell this place and you will make money as an academic maybe write a couple of books. Plus Simon is a mean investor, he regularly makes money for me."

"I don't know if I'm actually that interested in money."

"Don't tell Simon, it's about the only thing he's good at, turning lead into gold."

"Maybe you shoud have called your bank,'Alchemy'?"

"There's a venture capital group who could have got there first."

"Oh, not that that means much to me, and please don't explain it. I see it as very much ignorance being bliss."

"Okay, little sister, what are we doing today?"

"What would you like to do?"

"I don't know, what is there to see in Bristol?"

I rattled off a long list, including the city museum. She ummed and aahed. "I can't make my mind up, what do you reckon is best?"

"Let's have a trip around the gorge and up over the downs, then over Brunel's bridge, Simon enjoyed that, and take it from there."

So that's what we did. Simon stayed at home and worked from his computer via the internet while I showed Tom and Stella the delights of Bristol. We ended up at the SS Great Britain and the transport museum with it's Concord mock up. But they had a good time and we collected Simon for dinner. Tom treated us at a local pub.

The next day, Simon left for Portsmouth with Tom, they took Stella's car and left we girls to our own devices. I offered to make up a bed for Stella but she decided it was just extra washing, so we agreed to share. It wasn't the first time and if it helped her nightmares, it would be a good thing.

I'd washed the bedding Stella and Tom had used on their beds, and was going to do mine before I left, leaving it to air until I came back next time. I wanted to see Margaret Soames to see how she was and if she wanted to rent my house.

She fascinated Stella and the two of them got on very well, which given their different natures and backgrounds, surprised me. But should it have done, Stella's and mine are very different and we get on okay.

Margaret agreed to rent the house once she got out of hospital, subject to Gregg agreeing. He was out of ICU and in high dependency and seemed to making good progress. Margaret had been to see him once or twice. We offered to push her there while we were there, but she declined. She'd get back to me about the house, but it was what she wanted to do. She was dreading seeing the fire damage.

"This scrap of a girl saved my life you know?" she said to Stella.

"It doesn't suprise me, she's saved mine twice and Simon's once, Tom her boss, once but he's saved her once, so they're quits."

"How can anyone be so prolific with their life saving skills?" asked Margaret, inviting me to reply, but I shrugged, I didn't know. I recalled seeing a book on astrology called, 'Born on a bad day,'. I suspected that it applied to me, even though I didn't believe in any of it. "It's all mumbo jumbo designed to catch the unwary," said my Professor at Sussex. Mind you, he was a fundamentalist rationalist a bit like Dawkins.

We differed in that I would have been quite happy to have various para-normal things work in reality, including time travel. They rubbished the lot, which is sad because some things I suspect are just beyond our methods of measuring them. Or am I just in thrall of my visitation the other night, trying to explain the inexplicable. I was too tired to care.

We were going back to Portsmouth tomorrow, so we had a few hours to do a trip around the shops, so that was what we did. Neither of us bought anything, I was spent out from the few days before and I suspect Stella was on reduced pay or would soon be so, besides, I didn't see anything I really had to have.