CHAPTER 57
I slipped into the living room with a quilt, and, as gently as I could, laid it over the two.

There was an empty bottle of wine on the side table, as well as a part bottle of Auchentoshan single malt, and I pitied them for the hangover that lay in wait. As I placed the quilt over them, Janet grunted and snuggled closer into her priest. A bit naughty getting sozzled with kids in the house, but there was no way I could stay angry at them. Let them have their little moment.

We congregated in the kitchen for our cuppa, just as Mam and Dad arrived. I closed the living room door, and brought them straight through.

“Janet and Pat have put the kids nicely to bed, but they are spark out in the living room. I have given them some bedding, so let’s just leave them to sleep. I think a cuppa, then off to bed for all of us. What time do you want the taxi, sis?”

“Ah, give us half an hour for the tea and then we’ll be off. I’ve been counting units, so I should be fine for the drive tomorrow. Noon should do you?”

“Yeah, fine. Thank you all for today, I really can’t tell you what it means”

Mam laughed. “You forget something, cariad. Everyone else here already knows what it means from the inside, so just keep smiling and we’ll understand”

That night, or rather early morning, I lay beside my new husband watching my life, my lives, unreel before me. Pat had been so right, nothing ended, we began. I fell asleep mumbling odd French phrases to myself in practice for the afternoon.

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I had set no alarm, but that was redundant when we got child-bombed a little after sunrise.

“Morning, Jim, can you collar Stevie and the girls, there are people asleep in the living room, so please don’t wake them.”

Off he trotted, and I realised that there was a smell of bacon coming up the stairs. I grabbed a nighty for the sake of my parents and wrapped myself in dressing gown and slippers before heading downstairs. Now, I know this was not what most people think of as a wedding breakfast, but it suited me well, and in a few hours we would be in the South of France, so I had no worries.

Besides the children, there were four adults in the kitchen, my parents and the naughty couple. Janet fixed me with a challenging look, almost a ‘what are you looking at?’ stare, and I realised she was awaiting some sort of critical remark. I winked at her, and carried on loading the tray my mother had prepared for the ‘bridal suite’. Pat, on the other hand, just gave me enough of a level stare to catch my eye, at which point he mouthed a silent thank you.

I had no idea what the hell they were going to do. The one thing I could be reasonably sure of, knowing Pat’s sincerity in his faith, was that there would be no ‘fornication’. He was too wound up in his religion and his vows to step into a sexual relationship with anyone. There seemed no way out for either of them. It must have been acutely painful watching almost everyone else pairing up and smiling, dancing, touching…that waltz had been their only public show of affection, indeed the only one possible for them.

Our packing was done already, apart from all those little last minute extras, such as the toothbrush I was using after breakfast, but before that we saw off Janet and her: her lover, that was the only word I could come up with. I could only get a few snatched words with her as I hugged her good bye, but I did my best to get across my love and hope for her. I think she felt it.

Tony was right, after all, in not trusting her. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but in his work-developed sensitivity to the “wrongness” in people, he had picked up on her desperation. I had some idea of how utterly lonely she must have been, and that pain had been what had caught Tony’s senses. Alice had triggered so many things, it seemed.

Oh, how utterly shitty life can be!

Anyway, we had better things to think of. There was a steady stream of visitors to the house that morning, all wanting to wish is a last farewell as the honeymoon check-in approached. I was quite touched to see how Bev appeared to have merged parts of her body with Andy, as she was never more than six inches away, and while Hywel just grinned at me Arwel was keen to know how soon we could be back over home.

“I was telling that Alice how nice it is round Bosherston, and I thought if you were down in the Summer, like, we could show the boy the beach at Barafundle. No sheep there, so the dog would be OK, yeah?”

My big uncle was nervous, plain as could be. There was clearly some connection between him and Alice, but I couldn’t see it being anything physical. Both of them knew very well what was behind the padding, and I could only imagine that Arwel was suffering that odd double exposure, where a transwoman flickers in and out of reality before a nervous man. He sees the body jumping from woman to tranny while all the time he hears someone he likes, and how he deals with that confusion is a mark of his strength of character.

I suspected that he felt he had found a friend, no more, but her clothing was short-circuiting his composure. Nevertheless, he was trying, and I was proud of him.

It was time. I hugged Jim and told him he had to be good for Bamps and Nana Sioned, and of course Nana Enid and Aunty Alice, and with our cases wedged into the boot, we were off to Gatwick with Elaine and Siá¢n. Once we were onto the A20, Elaine started.

“Fuck me, chwaer, what the hell was gong on there with the priest?”

“Two lonely people getting some warmth, was all”

Tony nodded. “I can see now where I was getting the ‘bollocks’ signals from. I think she was about to have a breakdown, that’s why I was thinking there was a lie in there. Poor girl”

Did I say I loved the man? “What to do, love? I think we have no choice but to keep quiet and let them sort it out”

He was nodding, and Siá¢n chipped in. “I don’t know them any better than you, but they obviously care for each other. Nothing we can do but step away a little and watch their backs for them”

Did I ever say I thought my sister in law was lovely? Yes, I did. And she is.

Gatwick was its usual manic self, but Elaine insisted on parking in the extortionately-priced short-term car park and coming in with us. The entrance was really crap, as despite multiple ‘No Smoking’ notices, all doorways were packed with chain-smoking junkies, lots of whom were clearly airport staff. The ground was covered in dog ends and decaying filters, despite the many waste bins available. Delightful.

Thankfully, the inside was better, and after a bit of queuing, our bags were dropped and we were given quite a tearful farewell by the girls before we queued once again for security.

Tony held my hand as the little Airbus took off, not because he needed to but because he wanted to, and because he could. We made our way down across France, past the Alps and their snows, and then suddenly we were turning out over a beautifully blue sea, and running along the coast towards our airport. There were stupidly large hotels along the shore, and then the clank of the gear coming down sat us upright in our seats as we settled with one small wriggle onto the runway at Nice.

Our luggage wasn’t lost, nor broken, and there was a bus service right into the middle of town. Tony had done his research, and we got off the bus at the station. There was rather an unpleasant walk through a smelly tunnel, down Avenue Durante, and then we were at our hotel. Black wrought iron balconies, brass-trimmed glass doors, it faced onto a pretty crappy street. We checked in, Tony’s time working the French border coming in handy, and we were led out the back door…to a courtyard with a small fishpond, and a fountain, and palm trees, and it was gorgeous, so I kissed him. The porter raised an eyebrow, and Tony just grinned and said something like “Loon dumyell”, at which our man beamed, and Tony got a handshake and I got kissed cheeks. Tony explained later that what he had said was “honeymoon”

Our room was in an annex facing onto the little courtyard. We were away from traffic noise, and there were tables round the little pond where we had our first married meal apart from Mam’s breakfast, and the reception. We ate, and we drank, and then I insisted we walk down Durante to Promenade des Anglais, where we crossed the traffic and a cycle motorway to a beach of flat white pebbles in the twilight. I took my man in hand and walked him down onto the stones, where I made him kick off his shoes, then walked him further till the warm water lapped at his knees, and I kissed my husband as the cars roared past and the water surged up and down our legs.

Not only could I happily get used to this, I fully intended to.