On Georgi’s desk in their study was a photograph of a couple that Michaela had been told by Zoë were her parents. Her Dad was a tiny severe looking man probably Michaela thought about five foot nothing and possibly eight stone wringing wet through. Her Mum was a pretty, Mediterranean looking woman going on for two feet taller than her husband and of a massive build, possibly twice his weight. Not even her floppy hat and the flower printed summer dress she wore in the photo could draw attention away from her huge bosom and colossal shoulders.
Georgi noticed Michaela looking at the photo, laught and said, “If Mummy can cut it as a woman I surely can. She’s six foot eight and Daddy is only five foot one. She’s originally from Damascus in Syria, but fled years ago to Jordan to avoid the serious trouble being trans caused her. Jordan wasn’t much better and she spent a lot of time in psychiatric hospitals being ‘cured of her perversion’. That effectively meant being tortured in gaols. When she’d been let out she would have killed herself if she hadn’t met Daddy because she knew it was just a matter of time before they picked her up again.”
“What was you dad doing there, Georgi?”
“He always calls it fact finding. He’s a Middle Eastern analyst who speaks all the major languages and dozens of minor ones and dialects too. Technically he’s an academic at Oxford, but he does a lot of work for the government too.”
“He’s a spy‽”
“That’s a dirty word at home that we don’t use, Chaela, cos it’s not safe.”
“Sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“That’s ok, you weren’t to know. Anyhow, Mummy and Daddy fell in love and Daddy decided to get her out of Jordan which wasn’t easy. However, Daddy is devious and they crossed the border into Israel with him cross dressed as Mummy’s wife. Mummy was wearing men’s clothes. Daddy has friends in the Israeli authorities, he’s done them favours in the past, and Mummy and he were officially married in Israel, which took a couple of days to organise as neither are Jewish, and they were helped to get back to the UK. Mummy’s officially a UK citizen now. Eventually she had all the procedures and as you can see the hormones did her more than proud, and you can’t even see her bum in that photo. I’ve got some more you can look at.” Georgi opened a drawer in her desk and pulled a photo album out and looking through it said, “Here we are. Look at that. I’m just praying my boobs and bum have stopped growing, or I really will look like her. It’s amazing how many people say you can tell I’m her daughter. We just let it go at that.”
Michaela looked at the photo Georgi pointed too and said, “You mum is a lot of lady, but you’re working on it too, Georgi.”
Georgi somewhat mournfully admitted, “I know. That’s what Daddy says.” She cheered up a bit when she said, “Daddy has a work colleague with a son called Daniel, who knows I’m trans. He took me to the pictures last time I was home. We’ve held hands, but that’s all. He’s clever, and Mummy says where there’s one there are always others. She keeps telling me she found Daddy and I’ll find someone too, but like her I may have to be patient. I suppose she’s right, and at least I’m not in the situation she was before meeting Daddy. Anyway back to more important things. It’s lasagna or plaice for dinner. Cook told me earlier, but I haven’t made my mind up yet. You playing Mah Jongg for Coppice against Paddocks later?”
“Yes. Park are playing The Drive but I don’t know who’s playing whom in the other two matches.”
“House are playing Home Farm and Demesne are playing Chapel, but Valerie is ill so Demesne will probably lose. Still that’s good for us. I’ll catch up with you later, Chaela. I’m off to the library to look up a couple of things about the school for a story I’m writing.”
With that Georgi was off leaving Michaela to her thoughts. That Giorgi’s life hadn’t been good before coming to the Academy Michaela was aware, but given Giorgi spoke with a bit of an east European accent Michaela wondered how she’d become adopted by her parents.
It was late in the summer term and the examinations were all over. Lessons were more enjoyable because the staff were focussed on marking [grading] papers and traditionally it was accepted that it was time for pupils to have some fun after their year’s work. As long as staff were convinced what they were doing was productive in some sense, almost any sense, they were happy to let them do what ever they wanted to. Michaela and Diana were spending a lot of time in the biology department examining the vast collection of slides in the department's collection, particularly the fungal spores. However after several days they were looking for a change of activity and had decided to visit the chemistry department that afternoon where Miss Longfurlow was going to give her annual demonstration of various spectacular reactions which included explosions. Georgi went with them saying, “I’ve seen this four times before and every year she changes a few things. It’s always brilliant and there’s always one hands on activity which is fun and does something completely unexpected. I’ll miss this when I leave in two years after A’ levels.”
The shew started at two and it was nearly six before it was all over. Miss Longfurlow and her wife Miss Weightler, they’d been together for thirty-three years they said, were a pair of superb lecturers even though Miss Weightler was an accountant who worked in the bursar’s office. “They’ve got two girls. Shirley the younger was in year thirteen when I was in year seven, and Beverly was a student teacher here when I was in year nine. I think she’s just waiting for a job here. She was brilliant. I never liked English before, but she made even Shakespeare interesting and fun.
“Miss Longfurlow is absolutely up front and told Rachael’s evening life experience group that one of her cousins was Bev’s biological father and one of Miss Weightler’s brothers was Shirley’s biological father. She told them that it didn’t matter what you were between your ears or your thighs, a loving family is possible for everyone. You may just have to look a bit harder than most. Both of them are good friends of Matron, and she doesn’t have any time at all for folk who have any prejudices at all. I like them both and I think they are decent women who I’m glad to know. Miss Weightler helped me when things about my past came back and made my life difficult. Her early life was awful, but she maintains history is just that: history, and any who allows it to destroy the rest of their life instead of moving on once it’s over is just being silly.”
Because of the Chemistry department’s entertainment dinner had been set back an hour and as Michaela, and Georgi walked back to Coppice house Michaela asked, “How did you get to be adopted by your mum and dad, Giorgi?”
Georgi was thoughtful before she answered. “I was called Jorge, spelt J, O, R, G, E. My birth parents were East Europeans, I’m not sure from exactly where. I’m told once I started to shew feminine characteristics they dumped me in an orphanage in Bonn. I’ve no idea why Bonn, but that happened when I was about four. I was a girl, but life’s not easy for a girl with a penis. I got beaten up a lot at the orphanage and even more at school. That is I did till I was ten when I started to grow. One day when I was picked on I fought back and put four of my tormentors in hospital. I was threwn out of the orphanage and I was on the streets. That was when I decided I was Georgi. I was big and strong then and mostly I was left alone. Those that thought I was a victim for them to profit from learnt different. Even then I was sharp, so I didn’t carry a knife, because if the police caught me with one they would see me as a criminal. However a docker’s hook was just as good as a weapon and I used it when I got work in the warehouses which was easy enough for the police to check, as on several occasions they did. Because of my size the police thought I was in my late teens and assumed I carried my hook so as to be instantly available for work like the older men looking for work did. I worked when I could, so to the police I was a decent productive citizen and after being questioned and checked up on a few times they left me alone. They even smiled at me and asked how was life going when we met.
“I was still desperate to be the girl I was and wanted to wear a frock, but it wasn’t safe. My life changed when I saw Mummy looking perplexed at her flat tyre. Just like me she was big, but she was dressed in a frock and I thought she was so pretty. She was the woman I wanted to grow up to be. She’d no idea how to change a tyre. Actually she’d no idea that was what was needed to be done. She’s far more girly and feminine than I am, probably as reaction to the pain trying to appear macho inflicted on her. Where she grew up she had to be macho just to survive. I’ve never seen her in trousers, not even in a trouser suit, but she looks terrific in hot pants. She wears them every now and again, usually at parties at home. I think she wears them just for Dad, cos he can’t take his eyes off her. She’d never admit it, but she lives to make him happy. Why I changed the tyre for her I’ve no idea really. Mostly I was nervous about strangers, but she was somehow different. She had money in her hand to offer me, but suddenly she put it back in her purse and said, ‘You’re like me aren’t you? You’re not a boy. You’re a girl struggling to live in a bad world that doesn’t understand.’ I couldn’t help it I started crying and somehow we were both crying and she was holding me tight to her chest.
“ ‘What’s your real name little one?’ she asked. I’d never been called little one before, but coming from her it was understandable. ‘Not the name you were given by those who don’t understand, but your real name. The name you have in your head.’ ‘Georgi’ I replied. ‘Where do you live, Georgi?’ she asked. ‘Here. On the street,’ I replied. ‘Not any longer,’ she said. ‘I was born as were you, but eventually I found a husband who loves me. We are looking to adopt children. You would be perfect, and I admit an opportunity to repay Allah the debt I owe for his mercy in giving me the life I now enjoy. I have love to spare and other than my man none to give it to. You would be doing me a great kindness if you permitted me to love you as my daughter. I no longer consider myself a Muslim, which apostasy is punishable by death, but, as Allah is my judge and charity is a holy obligation, I would rear you as my own and love you as though you had sprung from my own womb. Please accept my offer, for it seems to me you need a mother and a father too, and I plead that I would be a mother that could understand you in a way that few could.’
“I wasn’t saying yes, but she put me in the car and took me home. She took over my life from then, but in the kindest of ways. Mummy is a much more forceful character than Daddy, though he only has to suggest something and she’s on it. It was Daddy I first related too. He’s very clever and not altogether in the here and now, which makes him incapable of dissembling, so he’s more easily read. He loved me right from the beginning, and I could tell. It was as simple as that. It took me a while longer to realise that Mummy was sincere and did too. I eventually realised that was mostly because she thinks in Arabic and when she speaks it’s a direct translation which sounds kind of unreal.
“I went to the local school and lasted seven school days before I was expelled for breaking both legs of a boy who’d been tormenting me since my first day. I hit him so hard he blacked out and then I over reacted a bit and stamped on both his calves. Four broken bones. Despite the CCTV record I was expelled, but before that Daddy said I wasn’t going back there and if he couldn’t find me a decent school he’d have me home schooled. I don’t know what it was, but the government wanted him to do something for them. He wasn’t happy about it, so said in return he wanted his daughter properly educated in a place that wouldn’t upset her and if they couldn’t sort something out he wasn’t interested in what they wanted. He told me afterwards he only wanted them to find something for me, but they said they’d pay for me to come here, so they are now picking up my school fees. I don’t like violence because it’s not what girls do and I am a girl. It’s just I have bad attitude to being ill treated and being so big if I lose it others tend to get hurt.
“It took all the others in the dorm that night to pull me off Catherine who had your bed before you came here. She was saying vile things about trans girls and I kind of flipped. Some girls from nearby dorms heard the ruckus and they dragged Catherine out and straight to the headmistress. Mrs. Jones expelled her on the spot, rang her parents and had her driven home right then and there. We packed her stuff the day after and the carrier picked it up the day after that. I’m really pleased to be here because here I can be myself without having to worry about losing it with bigots. I’ve made loads of friends here, both trans and cis who are all happy for everyone just to be who they are.”
“Georgi invited all of us in the dorm and some other friends too to her parents’ wedding anniversary party which was in the summer holidays. They lived in a place that was almost as big as school and we all stayed a few days. That was when I met Phillipa Georgi's little sister for the first time. Giorgi was built like her mum, but Phillipa was tiny, and said others said it was amazing how much like her dad she looked. Phillipa was ten and said she couldn't wait to go to Gloria's next term in year seven. She too was trans and had had a hard time before her parents adopted her and was being home schooled. She was excited at the idea of going to school and making new friends and said she'd asked her mum to see if she could be in our dorm group. Georgi's bedroom was pretty girly, but Phillipa's was incredible and completely over the top. It gave me a lot of things to think about for my bedroom. Giorgi's dad was nice, but her mum was amazing. A photo gave you no idea how big she was till you stood next to her. Georgi was big, but next to her mum she looked quite small. Paraphrasing what Georgi said, ‘If her mum can cut it as a woman we all can.’ ”
