Easy As Falling Off a Bike pt 3119

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The Daily Dormouse.
(aka Bike, est. 2007)
Part 3119
by Angharad

Copyright© 2017 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 was still deep in my reverie, having taken Danielle to the station, as I drove home. My ability to read female parts in plays continued to develop because when Whitehead was appointing the cast, the rest of my class would virtually demand that Watts play the female lead.

I did get to play the odd male part too, as if he was comparing my ability to portray a man—it was pathetic. We did Macbeth and I was asked to read the part of the eponymous king—I was hopeless and I did try my best, but it was like a girl playing the part and my classmates told me so. Nowadays, I’d probably have the confidence to do it, as women have played Lear and Hamlet very successfully, Glenda Jackson recently did Lear to great acclaim but I haven’t seen a male actor do Joan of Arc. Is it easier for a woman to act like a man than it is for man to act convincingly enough to pull off playing a woman? Remembering that standards are much different now than they were in Shakespeare’s time.

Then if that were the case, how come I could play a female role but not a male one? It wasn’t lack of role models, I was surrounded by them. I just couldn’t do it, so I ended up reading the part of Lady Macbeth and it was remembered later on when they were looking for a boy to play the part and my father agreed to me doing it even though I didn’t want to.

Murray, the headmaster, played hell with me when I didn’t try at the initial readings of the performed play. I was too embarrassed to do it like I had in class a year or so before, I was doing it in front of strangers which the other cast members were. I knew very few, I also didn’t know Mr Cambridge, the drama teacher because I had no desire to do drama—my everyday life was an act, I didn’t need to do it in my free time as well.

I went home quite upset after he gave me a total bollocking in front of the rest of the cast for acting like a block of wood. I was still shaking and crying when I bumped into Siân on the way home. It was she who told me to fight back.

“How do I do that without looking a total prat?” I asked her.

“Look, Charley girl, they all know what you are or would if they weren’t so bloody thick. It doesn’t occur to them that you really are a girl with the wrong body and birth certificate, so show them. Play it as if you really are a girl, an actress, playing one of the great Shakespearean female parts, like you did with the play when you read it before.”

“That was different, I knew all the other psychos in my class, we’d been together for two or three years. I don’t know half these people and I feel so self conscious, it’s just awful.”

“But they know you, don’t they, the clever girl who might not be as strong physically, but you frequently outmanoeuvre them, don’t you? You have a certain reputation, even we in the girls’ school know about it.”

“What poofy or girly Watts?”

“That’s just the Neanderthals, the more astute realise you’re more girl than boy. Show them that they’re right, let Charlotte free while she’s on stage at any rate, enjoy it.”

“Murray told me I should wear the costume at all the practices, he even suggested he was going to speak to my dad to say I should wear it when I’m in school until the play is over, to help me acclimatise to the part.”

“He can’t do that, that’s tantamount to provoking murder.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Right, then, girl, if that’s how he wants to play it, I know how we deal with it.”

“How we deal with it?”

“Yeah, I’m your acting coach.”

“Are y...oh yeah,” I agreed when she gave me a glower.

“Come round tomorrow and bring some money with you.”

“Why?” I was very suspicious.

“’Cos it’s Saturday and we’re going shopping, right?”

“I dunno, Siân, I’ve got loads of homework to do.”

“Tough, girlo, we’ve got things to get, so be yer by nine, right.” For a moment I heard a trace of an accent, she was getting excited. I had no idea what we were going to do but it didn’t bode well.

When I got to her place she made me wear one of her bras and change my shoes to her trainers then we went to Marks and Spencer and bought two bras, a pack of six pairs of panties, plus tights. She got my ears pierced, though that was hidden by my hair most of the time and what drove my dad bananas until my mother calmed him down—got my nails done. She accepted the argument that as I was playing a queen of Scotland, and she was Scots, I could demonstrate that I didn’t do manual labour and thus have long finger nails.

Once I’d dealt with his hostility and survived I found the courage to cope with the abuse that happened in school. Mind you turning up in makeup and painted nails—for the play got me loads of jeers and jostling. I began to feel like Quentin Crisp must have done.

Murray went bananas and sent me home telling my mother that if I was going to be painted like a girl I should come to school in a dress. She played hell with me for overdoing it—Siân had done the makeup before I went to school. I was also wearing a padded bra under my shirt and tights under trousers.

Mum went and got me a plain skirt and two blouses to wear with a plain cardigan and sent me back to school. Murray wanted me to parade around in the long dress that the play required and I did for one day but it was so hot and I was in danger of falling over the hem, that I protested and the teacher in charge of costumes also complained. I ended up back in the shorter skirt and borrowing Siân’s old uniform blazer and skirt. Effectively, I went to school for a month dressed as a school girl in a boys’ school—today that would have been considered abuse and I’d have been suing them for thousands, then Murray got away with it by claiming I enjoyed pretending to be a girl and it was helping me with learning how to act like a woman.

Oh yeah, my gestures and so on got more natural as Siân coached me, though much of it was her pointing out my already femmy actions. I blushed so often I could have acted like a warning beacon for aircraft.

Given that it upset Murray and my dad, I enjoyed part of it, especially weekends when we’d go out as two girls and I could try things on in shops and so forth. I didn’t do that again for five or more years until Stella launched in me, quite literally, into my new life.

The beeping from behind me suddenly brought me back into the present and I think I may have been the only vehicle that got through the traffic lights, such had been my day dream.

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Comments

good chapter

jennifer breanna's picture

Although you have to watch "flashbacking" while operating a motor vehicle they can ticket you for distracted driving. :)

Jenni

Nice Remenisence

littlerocksilver's picture

I am trying to remember what happened to Siân. If she was still around, I know she would be very proud of Cathy.

Portia

They're still friends

Julia Miller's picture

Siân and Cathy are still friends. Siân and her partner went through a lot, and Cathy was there for her. I forget the episode, but it's back there somewhere, though Angharad hasn't had her in the story for some time now.

Great story

Believe it or not, I have read this from the beginning ... twice. I realized that I haven't commented recently. I want to think this is sort of the soap opera of BigCloset. And I mean that in a good way. We get warm fuzzies from reading familiar characters and watching them change and mature. And all the other authors here have to bow down to your prolificy. I mean, someone would have to write an episode a day for eight or nine years to catch up to where you are now ... and who knows how far the story will be then.

Dawn

Wonder if Cathy and Sian had

Wonder if Cathy and Sian had approached her mum together, wonder if she would have been willing to help her 'daughter' out more?