Текст книги "After Forever Ends "

Автор книги: Melodie Ramone

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

“We are!”

I looked her straight in the face. I didn’t care what Oliver said about her, she was a beautiful girl, even if I did agree her mouth was a bit fat and oddly shaped, “It’ll take some time, but we’ll be your family, too, soon enough, if you let us. And I know Alexander well enough to tell you that he’ll not hold you captive in Wales. Once you have that baby you’ll go back to the states often as you can manage the time and the tickets.”

She smiled. “I’m not miserable, really, I’m just…”

“Hormonally challenged?” I offered, “I can only imagine what you’re going through,” I looked down at her belly, “It’s OK, Melissa. That’s a Dickinson you’ve got growing inside you. One of those is enough to put anybody over the edge at times, much less two.”

“I’m glad you answered the phone,” Mel wiped her eyes, “I think I’d die if you didn’t.”

“You wouldn’t die,” I told her, “Alexander wouldn’t allow that.”

Melissa and I spent all day together that day. I showed her around the wood and answered her questions about the faerie circle and the elves that lived there. She seemed to be able to believe it easier than I had. Finally, I asked her the question that I had been dying to ask, “What does it feel like to have that baby in you?”

She rubbed her belly, “Crampy, mostly. It’s not like I can feel it move yet or anything. I don’t think so anyway. But I’m already showing.”

“I wasn’t,” I stared at the bulge under her hands, “I was further along as you when I lost mine, but I didn’t show at all. I’m built more sturdy than you.”

Her eyes were wide. “You’re not sturdy at all!” She said it as a reflex to avoid my comment, but it was unavoidable, “I’m sorry.”

“For what? I have a woman’s body. Even when I was a girl I had a woman’s body. I've always had curves. I’d rather eat every day anyway than suffer to wear a bikini.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. Alex told me what happened to your baby. I’m sorry.”

“It happens,” I looked to the spot on the ground where my daughter had died, “But it won’t to you. You’re going to have a happy, fat little baby. And I’ll be its Auntie Sil.”

“Yes, you will!”

“And I’ll look out for the muffin, too,” I said as I looked at the sky, “I know you’re wanting to go home to your husband now. I can tell by the look of you.”

“I am,” She agreed, “I’m getting tired.”

“Come on then. I’ll bring you to him,” I walked her to the car, shouting at Duncan to stay. He sat in the grass, looking extremely put out.

Melissa talked non-stop all the way back to their flat about nothing much at all. I nodded and smiled here and there and pretended to be watching the road while I did my best not to listen. As she exited the car, I stopped her, “Melissa! Wait a second!”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For loving Alexander enough to let him have his child. He’s a good man, Alexander. He’ll give you the moon for nigh a sixpence if you’re kind and loyal to him.”

“He is a good man,” She agreed.

“I want to be your friend, Melissa.”

“I want to be yours, too.”

“Good, now I want you to know something about me.”

“OK.”

“That man you married is a step away inside my heart from my own husband. He’s the only brother I’ve ever had and he’s my best friend. He’s very important to me.”

“I know that.”

“Good. And one more thing,” I looked her square in the face, “You’d better love him and treat him the way he deserves to be treated, because if you hurt him, I swear on my dead mother that I’ll murder you with my bare hands.” She flinched. “Do we have an understanding?”

Her eyes were bigger than I had ever seen human eyes become.

“Now go upstairs to your husband and be a good wife to him.”

She just stood there.

“Good night, Melissa.” I put the car in gear.

“Good night,” She finally managed to sputter.

I nodded and pulled away from the curb.

She was still standing on the garden path staring at the car when I drove away.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Nigel Jacob Dickinson was born at eleven eighteen in the morning on a fine and rainy autumn’s Tuesday in Newtown, Wales, United Kingdom. He was a right big baby, too, and he had a head full of dusty brown hair to boot. His mother came out of it no worse for the wear, making the statement, “That was nothing! I could do that again!” to which her mother in law quickly replied, “Mind your tongue!”

Alexander was beside himself. He’d take his son and hold him in his hands and just stare at him for hours. “He’s unbelievable,” Alex would say over and over again, “I can’t believe I had anything to do with this. He’s a miracle.”

And he was. Nigel was absolutely beautiful, the most beautiful little baby I had ever seen. He wasn’t red or splotchy or covered in tiny hairs like some of the babies who come into the world looking like they’ve just rode in the blender. He kept his eyes open for long periods of time, too, as if he was terrified he’d miss something important. He had this look about him like he knew more than anybody else, but he was just too tired to tell us about it. When he was one week old, I picked him up to change his poppy nappy and he looked right into my eyes and bestowed upon me the first smile he gave to anyone ever. He stole my heart completely that day. Oh, yes, I loved that little Nigel.

But Nigel Dickinson wasn’t the only good news we had that season. Oliver graduated from Cardiff with a doctor’s degree in paediatric medicine three weeks after our Nigel was born. Oliver and I celebrated by making love and then running nude around the wood, throwing clumps of dirt at each other. We should have been getting dressed considering we had a big fancy party to attend at the University, but we were far more interested in just having fun. We rounded the trees, swung from branches, chucked dirt and finally ended up in a tangle rolling down the slope. We stopped at the edge of the water, my naked body on top of his, and we laughed and kissed until we couldn’t breathe.

“I’m thinking,” He said when he could talk, “That we should just skip this whole do.”

“And why would we do that? There will be people to meet who’ll be looking to give you a job!” I was picking pieces of leaves and dirt out of his dark hair. “You didn’t become a doctor to miss getting a job, did you?”

“I can work around here. I’m sure that Doctor Caldwell would take me on staff. He’s older than creation, you know, and he might like to have me take on some of this patients. And then, God willing, he’ll die one day soon and I can take over the entire practice.”

I burst back into a fit of giggles. “You’re terrible!”

“Well, he is old! He remembers when God was baptised! He was the first man to ever meet grass!” He laid his head back, then lifted it, “Really, though, Sil, do you honestly want to get all dressed up and go to some boring, stuffy supper with a bunch of boring, stuffy know it alls and talk about boring, stuffy rubbish or stay here and make love beside the sea?”

“The sea?” I laughed out loud again, “It’s a ruddy little pond!”

“It can’t be a pond! It’s got a babbling brook that leads to it from the river! So it’s got to be at least a very small lake,” He paused and scratched his cheek. “I reckon, anyway. Hey! Stop laughing at me! It’s hard to proposition love making when your wife is snorting in your ear!”

“Ah, marry me, Oliver Dickinson!”

“Again? Sure, but you’ll have to buy me a ring this time. Circumstances have changed. I have standards now.”

“Oh, shite!” I looked up suddenly.

“What?”

“Is that your father’s car?” I was looking up the drive with mounting horror.

“Oh, shite! It is!”

“Oh, shite!” I leapt to my feet as Oliver scrambled to his, “Run, Oliver, run!”

“Run, Forrest, run!” He did his best Southern US accent and slapped my bum. We were both giggling uncontrollably as we dashed up the slope and around the back of the house.

We were too late. The car beat us to the go. By the time we made it to the house, his parents were heading through the garden.

Neither of us could stop laughing. We hid at the side of the house, holding our breath so they wouldn’t hear us and come looking.

“Where do you think they are?” Ana asked innocently, knocking on the door.

“The cars are here,” Edmond cleared his throat, “They can’t have gone far. Oliver?” He shouted, “Silvia?”

Oliver tapped me on the shoulder and pointed up to the window we had put on the toilet wall. He raised his eyebrows.

“What?” I mouthed, “Me? No way! I’ll get stuck!”

“No, you can make it,” He hissed, “Get in there and tell them you’re dressing and toss me out some jeans! I’ll come round the front!”

“You’re mad!”

“It’s brilliant!”

“You’re a loony!”

“Oh, stuff a sock in it and put your foot in my hand,” He crouched down, “Come on now! OK. One…two…three…ho! Up where only dragons eat eagles!”

He practically flung me into the air. I caught the open window frame with my elbows and hit the side of the house with a loud bang. The window swung shut and bounced off my head.

“Hang on! You can do it!” Oliver was laughing so hard and trying so desperately to keep quiet that his face was purplish red. “That’s it! Put some bottle behind it and hoist yourself in!”

“Screw you!” I growled as quietly as I could. I struggled to gain a foothold on the rough wood, “You’ll pay for this one, Oliver Dickinson! I swear it!” I was hanging halfway out kicking my legs to free myself from the window, which was now clamped against the small of my back, “Stop laughing so loudly! They’re going to come round and see my fanny sticking out!” I screamed as I plummeted to the floor and landed with a hollow thud.

“Way to go, Love!” I heard from the other side of the wall.

Realising I was not hurt in any way, I grabbed a pair of Oliver’s dirty jeans and tossed them out the window, “I’ll have you for this one!” I told him, catching the jeans as they didn’t quite make it and fell back down to me. I flung them again and they went straight out, then I wrapped myself in a bathrobe and hurried to the door. I yanked it open harder than I meant, slammed my hands on to my hips and nearly shouted, “Hullo!”

Edmond and Ana shrank back in what I think was fear. Ana gathered herself first, “Hello, Darling! We thought we’d missed you.”

“No, no, just taking a bath,” I pulled a cobweb off my forehead and slapped my hair thinking a curl was a spider, “Come on in!”

“We saw the dog up the way chasing the chicken…” Ana paused, “Sweetie, your legs are all scratched.”

“You’re filthy as the road.” Edmond added. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes, chickens, you know? Chasing dogs. Happens every day around here. Dirty legs, too. That’s why we have the bath, you know? Not for the chicken, of course. Who’d bathe a chicken? I killed one once, felt very sorry about it.” I forced a laugh that made me sound as mad as I seemed. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Tea anyone?” I could feel my face burning. Where the hell was Oliver?

“We’d love some tea.” Edmond pretended not to notice a bra I had hung on the back of a chair to dry and a box of Tampax sitting beside the breadbox. He mercifully ignored a bottle of self-heating sex oil set in the middle of the kitchen table as if it were a vase of daffodils as well. If he knew what we’d done on that table he wouldn’t have been so keen on sitting down for tea.

I picked up the bra, tossed it into the sink and shoved the Tampax into a cabinet, grabbed the oil and threw it into an open bag of dog food, then spun, faced them and smiled too widely, “And what brings you two out to the wood?”

“We came to congratulate Oliver on his success. Where is he?”

“Oh, he’s…” I peered out the window, “Outside…somewhere.”

“Did we come at a bad time?”

“Never a bad time, Dad!” It was Oliver who said it. He burst through the door as if he were a grand sultan. I stared at him in horror. The jeans he was wearing were obviously unbuttoned, only coming halfway up the pelvis, the front and back were covered by tea towels like a loincloth pulled through the belt loops. The legs of them clung tightly to the middle of his calf. He was almost waddling.

He looked at me with a smile that positively beamed. He was enjoying every second of this nightmare. He tried to act proper as a clump of dried dirt fell from the side of his head and hit his shoulder.

“What on Earth are you wearing?” Edmond demanded. Ana just stared at him with a combination of shock and amusement.

“Oh, these? These are Sil’s, of course! Sometimes she gains a pound or two and her clothes get a little snug, so I put them on and go walking around. Gives me another opportunity to get into her jeans, if you know what I mean,” He winked at his dad, and then scratched his bare chest, casually tossing some debris on to the floor. “Right! I’ll have to go find a pair of my own now. Silvia, do tell me, did you happen to see any of mine lying about?”

I set the teapot on the stove and excused us.

“I think they’ve been alone here too long, Dear,” We heard Ana mumble just as we shut the bedroom door.

“I think we’ve interrupted something we don’t quite understand.” Edmond added. “And I’m sure we don’t want to, either!”

We burst into the loudest fit of laughter we had managed yet that day. And, worse yet, we could not stop.

“I’ll get the tea ready while you two get cleaned up and dressed,” Ana called back to us,

“Take your time!”

We lay on the bed and laughed,. “I wish they’d leave,” Oliver winced, holding a stitch in his side as he struggled to peel off my jeans.

“We’ve got to go out there.”

“No, leave them. Maybe they’ll have their tea and go.”

“Oliver, you are positively evil!”

He gave me that grin. Oh, I loved that grin. It was pure, unadulterated mischief, “I’ll show you how evil I am when they’re gone!”

“Promise?”

He stood up and pulled on a pair of his own trousers, “Promise.”

We got dressed then and did our best to compose ourselves as we went to entertain our unexpected guests, but it wasn’t easy. Every little thing that day was hysterically funny, from Oliver re-explaining his master plan for snagging an old man’s medical practice to his father telling us about a mummy coming into the museum from Cairo that was dropped down the steps. We laughed especially hard when Edmond said that Alexander was finally all grown up.

After they’d left, Oliver and I sat out in the garden by the big tree. It had cooled off and gotten windy, but it was a perfect late afternoon to just sit and be close. So we did, just sat and enjoyed the familiarity of each other.

“I think we were very rude to your parents,” I told him.

“If we were it’s because of the way they raised me,” He said flatly, shooing Duncan, who was having a jealous moment.

“Do you think that Alexander is seriously grown up just because he had a baby?”

“I suppose he is, yes. I suppose he thinks he has to grow up like everybody else. He’s full of nothing but piss anymore.” He gave the dog another nudge.

“Well, we never have grown up. Look at how we behaved today.”

“You don’t have to be dead to be grown up, Love. Look at my parents. They’re all grown up, yeah? Dad works, comes home, and says, “Hello, Dear!” Sits on his fat arse and eats his pudding, then he says, “Good night, Dear!” and gets into his bed by nine and goes straight to sleep. And my mum, she’s cleaned that house so often it doesn’t even get dirty anymore. She doesn’t have much else to do so she watches ladies programmes all day. She’s bored shitless. That’s no life, is it?”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.”

“I’m a doctor now, Silvia, and from what I’ve been told a pretty good one,” He was looking straight ahead, watching the wind, “Yet I’m still running around like an imbecile tossing dirt clods and laughing like a twelve year old. I don’t ever want to come home and say, “Hello, Dear”, eat pudding and go to bed. I want to come home, say, “Hello, Dear,” eat my pudding off your beautiful body and go to bed with you all sticky in my arms. If growing up means we have to be like my parents, sod it all. I’ll stay a jackass forever.”

“Do you think we keep each other from growing up?” I stroked Duncan’s fur. He had realized Oliver as not going to allow him space between us and surrendered, lying by my side instead.

“I think we keep each other entertained and amused and that’s what keeps us from being like them. I think we’re content, not immature. There’s a difference between being immature and acting silly.”

I turned and studied his face for a moment before I spoke. I loved looking at his face, especially looking into his eyes. If you look closely enough at anybody's eyes you can see the light of God and that light was bright in Oliver. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yes, Love. Anything,” He had so much kindness stored in those eyes. You could actually feel it on your skin, like he could envelope you and draw you into a safe place. My God, how I loved that man.

“Do you remember the worst thing that ever happened to us?”

“Of course I do. How could I forget?”

“Well, I’ve been wanting to show you something,” I reached into my pocket, “I bought two of these a week ago. One for me and one for you and two to be sure and they both have these cute little plus signs on them.”

Oliver took the plastic stick from my hand. “Oh, Silvia!”

I laughed, watching the smile spread across his face.

“We’re almost through our first trimester! I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was so scared something would happen and go wrong again and I wanted to see the doctor first to make sure the baby was all right. She says everything is fine!”

“Oh, Silvia!” He threw his arms around me and squeezed me tight, “And me tossing you through a window! Shame on me! Silvia! Silvia!” He rocked me and kissed my neck, “A wee little muffin! A baby for us, Silvia! Now we’ll have somebody else to throw dirt at! We’ll have to invite mum and dad back out to watch!”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Every moment of your life is a gift. In the end when you are old and all your friends and family have died or have gone away and your bones ache every second, if you are lucky, you still have your memories. And what are memories if not moments locked away in your head and in your heart? They’re like little sparkling treasures in a box waiting for the lid to be lifted so the light can shine upon them once more. I like to open that box. I adore my memories. When I am dead and gone everything I owned will survive me. But I will take my memories with me. At least the ones I didn’t pass down. The ones I did hopefully will become the treasures of those I chose to tell.

I had a wonderful pregnancy, the very best a woman could hope for with a first child. I checked my belly every morning to see if I had a bulge yet, but I didn’t manage to produce one until the end of my fourth month. It appeared around the time that I stopped my endless indulgence on grapefruit and began to endlessly indulge on sour green apples. Oliver brought a sack of them home for me every night, that sweet man, along with anything else I had wanted the day before or he thought I might like. He took excellent care of me and our baby.

Poor Oliver. He really must have thought that I'd gone mad, but he took all my whims and moods in stride. “Sweetie,” He whispered one night from beside me on the sofa at his mother's house, “Are you crying?”

I had been trying to hold my breath for several minutes, but upon hearing his voice, I burst out with a loud sob and bawled, “Yes!”

He immediately drew me into his arms, “What’s wrong?”

“That show!” I didn't want to admit what had actually set me off, so I kept it general.

“Huh?” He was sincerely confused, “Doctor Who is making you cry?” He paused, figuring out the true source, “Oh! It was the tissue commercial?”

“Yes!” I wailed and buried my face into his arm. I could feel him shaking gently as he held in a fit of laughter. “Shut up,” I mumbled and he shook harder.

I had the oddest cravings for food combinations as well during those nine months. I remember fixing breakfast for us one day. I was so proud of myself, it looked so delicious spread over the table, but when Oliver walked out he made such a face I baulked, “What?”

“What is this?”

“It's breakfast!”

He scratched his head and said nothing more, but still looked a bit put off as he sat down.

“Are you going to eat anything?” I asked, slightly offended.

Oliver paused, looking at me adoringly across the table, “I'd like to make some eggs. Would that be all right?”

“But I made breakfast!” I looked at the table and stopped immediately. It was only about eight o'clock in the morning and I'd prepared bean burritos with sour cream, sliced green apples, and large slices of birthday cake.

“Yeah,” Oliver agreed, seeing the expression on my face and realising I understood, “I think this is more-like for you than me.”

We both began to giggle.

It went beyond that, though. Those things are fairly normal. My pregnancy issues went further. Where most expectant mothers are exhausted and want to sleep more, there was me, who was suddenly ten times as energetic as I'd ever been. And that was saying loads considering my previous stamina.

“You need to sleep more,” Oliver wandered into the kitchen in the middle of the night and stood in the doorway in his pyjama pants, “Pregnancy has made you completely hyperactive. It‘s not good for you or the baby for you to be running around like a lunatic all the time.”

“I’m nesting.”

“It’s three in the bloody morning!” He objected, sounding as grumpy as his father, “We only have five rooms! The stove can wait until it’s light! Will you please come to bed?”

I did, but I had terrible insomnia. I was out of my mind cleaning most days and nights to ease it, reading during the day when the light was good. None of it helped me sleep any, but the cabin smelled absolutely wonderful.

Pregnancy had not only made me a connoisseur of bizarre food combinations and utterly hyperactive, but it had rendered me mildly retarded. I found myself losing track of time, redoing things I had already finished, bumping into things and hitting my head constantly. I couldn’t remember from one moment to the next what I was about to do just before I forgot. This made for a bad time at my job. I couldn’t concentrate. Halfway through my second trimester, I made mistakes that could have been avoided and I was reprimanded. The odd thing was that I didn’t care. My career wasn’t important to me anymore. Still, the attitude with which my supervisor approached me was annoying and I did not hold my tongue once I was home.

Oliver sat in his chair silently and listened to me as I vented. He was slow to speak, but when he did, what he said surprised me, “Well,” He leaned back and looked into my eyes, “Maybe you should think about staying home full time with the baby.”

I couldn't believe he was suggesting it. “And waste all that schooling?”

He scratched his chin, “Well, no. Not really. I’ve told Doctor Caldwell that we’d do well to have our own laboratory at the office. Do everything in house, so we don’t have to wait so long for results. He agrees, but we’d need someone to organize it. Mind, you could do that.”

“And how would I stay home with the baby if I did that?” I liked the idea of what he was saying, I just wasn't sure if we could manage it.

“Well, you wouldn’t have to be there all the time,” He explained. I could tell this was something he'd been thinking about for a while. Oliver often seemed as if he were incredibly spontaneous, and he could be, but more often than not when he made large moves they were pondered for a long period of time and ironed out in his mind so that there were no mistakes, “You set it up and help us hire a few people. If we needed you, you could bring the baby with you. It‘s a paediatric office, Love. The baby will fit right in.”

“How will we afford me not working?” I had to be sure before I agreed. I wasn't making a great salary, but it was half of his and together we were sure to do all right.

“We’ll deal with that,” He answered placidly, patting his knee to signal Duncan that he could join him on the chair, “I’m making more now and we’re beginning to catch up. I have my trust coming soon and that will put us ahead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Silvia,” His dark eyes bored right into my soul, “I’d rather have you home with our child than out making us rich. Some things money just isn’t worth.”

I put my notice in to the chagrin of my employers, who offered me a raise to stay. It was tempting, but a sharp kick from within my uterus told me it wasn’t a good idea. I declined and left the building with an intense feeling of relief. All my life I'd dreamed of being a scientist, but now the only thing that was important to me was my family. My husband and that little baby living inside of me were my main focus and I was thrilled I had the chance to dedicate my entire life to them. Working was a stress on my mind and on my body and I knew the baby and I were much better off just buzzing about the cabin and avoiding the cold winter that raged outside our doors. Plus my belly was getting so big I was having trouble getting in and out of my car. I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I couldn’t drive.

Not that I needed to. Oliver came home every night with a bag of goodies, kissed me on the mouth and then put his hands on and kissed my belly. “Hello, you muffin!” He’d say, “I heard you’ve been telling your mother you want oranges! Healthy choice! You’re going to be a clever one, you are!” and then he'd stand up and come back to me, “Come here,” He's take me into his arms, “I missed you all day.”

“I missed you, too. Are you hungry?”

It was a rhetorical question, of course. Oliver had been born starving and never ceased to be seeking a meal. And so we'd have dinner and then we'd sit together and chat and giggle or sometimes, just lie close and be quiet and enjoy the time we had alone.

He had been right, as he usually was, about Doctor Caldwell. The good doctor had enthusiastically taken Oliver on staff as an assistant doctor. He was grooming him to take over the practice when, three months later, as Oliver put it, “Being older than the first rays of light, he took his retirement and carked it on hols in Poland.” My husband was more than happy and willing to take a loan to purchase the practice from Missus Caldwell, which included a wide area around where we lived. He took out more money than he needed and by our eighth month, Oliver and I suddenly had some money to burn.

Well, what does one do when they have a baby on the way and money in the pocket? Pay off debts, I said! But Oliver responded, “Yes, Love, that, too!” and set about building the most beautiful nursery I had ever seen. He took everything out of the room we used for storage and put it up in the loft one Sunday. I watched him from my perch on the sofa without asking any questions until he began to pour hot water he had boiled into a bucket.

“What are you up to, Sweetheart?” I peered at him over my book.

“Alexander and Nigel should be here any time now,” He replied as he poured in dish soap into the water and swished it around with his arm. “Gor blimey! That’s hot!”

“That's nice, but I asked 'What are you up to', not ‘When will Alexander and Nigel arrive’,” I had to smile at him. He was so cute with his arm stuck in that red bucket.

He returned the grin, “I’m clearing out the office. Making a proper room for our baby, Love. Did you think I’d wait until spring?”

“Actually, I thought we would.”

The front door flew open with a bang before he could respond. Alexander and a bundle of blankets that was Nigel stumbled in and forced it closed against the wind. “It’s bloody insane, that wind!” Alex leaned against the door before he took off his hat and shook it at Duncan, who rushed straight over to play, “Silvia!” He looked up at me with a huge smile, “You’re round as all those apples you eat! You look absolutely beautiful! Give me a hug!”

“Give me that baby!” I waddled into the room and took Nigel from his father, “Hello, My Little Muffin!” Nigel peered up at me and smiled, sucking on his tiny fingers. “Oh, how I love you, Nigel Jacob Dickinson!” I peeled away the blankets and kissed his squishy face.

“I’m getting water all over the floor,” Alex apologized, tugging off a boot with Duncan attached to it, “Sorry, Sil. I know you’re keeping a clean house these days.”

“No worries,” I shooed the dog, “Where’s your wife, Alexander? Off having another botched series of collagen lip injections?”

“She’s working,” He shook his head, “You just can’t stop, can you?”

“Not when it’s so easy and so much bloody fun!”

“Well, that’s her real mouth. I’ve seen pictures when she was a child.”

“That’s a tragedy!”

“Ah, I still love you, Sil,” He unbuttoned his coat, “There’s nothing you could ever do to make me stop, either, so please quit trying.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha!” I kissed Alexander on his frozen cheek “You’re the one who taught me how to be evil! I was so sweet before I met you!”

He paused for a second, “Well, yes. That may be true.”

“It is true,” Oliver confirmed it, “Remember that innocent little girl we once knew? Now she’s self-proclaimed evil! You corrupted her!”

Alexander gave me a smile, “Well, at least I taught you well.”

I sat with Nigel in the front room and played with him while the twins cleaned the walls in what was to be the nursery. “Do you know the Muffin Man? I do! I do!” The baby squealed in delight as I tickled him. “I know the Muffin Man! His name is Nigel and he’s the most handsome bloke in Wales! He is! Oh, yes, he is!”

After a while Alexander came out and put his coat and boots back on. He went off into the garden and came back with four buckets of paint and a large black bag strapped to his back.

“You’re painting in this?” I asked seriously. “It’s a bit cold, isn’t it?”

“I am and you’ll stay out of there if you know what’s good for you. The window will be cracked, Sil,” He walked past me with the coat still on, “Take care of my boy!”

“I am!” I called after him and returned to Nigel, who was my most favourite pastime. “We don’t need them, do we? No, we don’t! We have each other and jars of smashed bananas!”

I was not allowed in that nursery until the following evening after a furniture delivery truck came and left several large boxes, “Oliver!”