CHAPTER 19
The gifts at home were nothing special in themselves, but special in their import. Little things, like Merry’s cross, chosen for the person with care and precise love.

There were music books, cycle shirts, a new Brooks each for Eric and myself, little pieces of jewellery or clothing that each meant something. The visitors were due to depart on Boxing Day, so it became a true family Christmas, the sort of day that evaporates with no memory of where it went, in meals and moments, chatter and naps.

For it was, now, with the exception of Simon, who had somehow appeared at our house, and the girls, a family group, as the Woods and Woodruffs settled into their own little world. It was delightful, no less, to have them round me, a small foretaste of what I hoped would appear at our wedding. Uncle Tom was in the kitchen with me as we were making yet another pot of tea, and I wondered whether getting an urn might be the simplest solution.

“That young man, Annie, that vicar, aye?”

Here it comes, I thought, the third degree about Merry.

“Aye, uncle?”

“As…a woman, love, what do you think? Is our girl being a silly spinster, or does he hold, I don’t know, possibilities?”

There is a particular way that last word is said in Wales, where every syllable is separated and the third heavily stressed.

“Uncle, he is a very good man. I have had many dealings with him, and Stephanie many more. He wears his heart very much on his sleeve, aye? Merry…she is a very lonely girl, but she will not, cannot, let her principles lapse because of what she sees as weakness, aye? Simon, Simon is, I don’t know, he is a man of very deep faith in his god, but also in mankind. You know I am not one with the beliefs you and the family hold to, but I can recognise sincerity and goodness in someone, and that is what I see in him. I think Merry likes him very much”

“Would you call him good-looking? I ask out of curiosity, aye?”

I looked at him in a little bit of shock. Did he just ask me to venture an opinion as a woman on whether a man was fanciable? I suddenly realised that the conversation wasn’t about Merry, or at least only partly about her. This was my uncle trying to show me his acceptance. He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face up to his.

“Why tears, cariad?”

“You bloody well know why, you wonderful man. Pour the bloody tea while I wipe my face, and yes, I think that if things are done the right way, Simon and Merry will continue to get on extremely well, and I pray for her sake that it doesn’t go wrong. Oh, and yes, he is fanciable, and he seems to think she is. I caught him ogling her bottom the other day”
He busied himself with the cups as I washed my face.

“Very odd, Annie, that you have to come all the way over here before our family can heal. Not complaining, is it, just wondering how we let everything go all stupid between us”

He paused, and cocked his head. “Sometimes, you just need a look from a different angle, isn’t it? I look at you now, and, well, I wonder whether I needed glasses back then. Your dad, may God rest his soul, he must have been absolutely blind, aye? Got another tray, love?”

And that was it. Conversation over, but his mark made, his position clear. As he left the kitchen, Eric slipped in.

“Annie, love, can we have five minutes on our own? I’ve possibly been a bit naughty”

I grinned. “You being naughty can sometimes be rather nice, love”

“No, I am serious here. I do truly believe I have done the right thing, but I just have a fear that you might, well, react…”

He was in an odd mix of anticipation and apprehension, and I saw Ginny looking in from the hall.

“What have you done, my love?”

“Well, I spoke to Den, and he spoke to the Super…”

“Carry on”

“Oh, fuck it, here”

Ginny looked just a little tense as he handed over a medium-sized envelope. All that was written on the front was “For the love of my life”, and there was something long and rectangular inside. I tore the flap off.

Two items. No, three. A letter, and two air tickets, and I knew immediately what the mad, generous, loving man had done.

“When, love? When do we fly?”

“End of April. It all came from a chat with Sally and Raj, but I wasn’t sure that you wouldn’t think I was pushing you too hard,,,”

I kissed him, and over his shoulder saw Ginny’s face relax and spread into a wide grin, and she wandered off into the living room with a little fist-pump of triumph. When I let him speak again, he was subdued.

“I was really worried, love. The money has come from my side of the house sale, as I didn’t want to just dip into the joint stuff.”

“I thought it was all joint stuff, love”

He looked embarrassed. “I have sort of lied to you. I wasn’t sure how much you would need, so I squirreled a bit of my side away into a high-interest account, and I’ve been adding to it…”

“Adding what?””

“Well, sort of avoiding lunch and stuff for the last year”

“Hang on a minute…for the last year?”

“Year and a bit, yes. Sort of after that first trip to Shrewsbury.”

“Let me get this straight, aye? You, on your own, started saving for MY surgery, right after we got together?”

“Well, yes”

He was looking down, chin buried in his collar, and, as my uncle had done for me, I lifted his chin to see his eyes.

“Eric, love, you knew, back then, that you were staying with me?”

He tried to smile. “Yes. That was a shock, it knocked me back big style, yeah, but that day, you dressed up, and suddenly…I felt so bloody stupid, so blind, cause suddenly there you were, and I realised what my life was missing, and we had always been mates, and then I could see that you were so much more, and–“

I shut him up again, the same old way. A little later I said my piece.

“That is where we differ, aye, for I have always known what I am, or rather what I was supposed to be, I just never had the courage to do anything other than run and hide. You did that, you and the girls, you stopped me being stupid, and you never turned away from me. This is my finest Christmas present ever, and I don’t care if you told lies, because they were good lies, and what we are going to do now is go in, together, to our family---OUR family, you are being assimilated---and make an announcement. Aye?”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. They made a choice, and they have made it clear to me what that choice is, and I am proud of them. I just wish…oh, shit, I just wish I could have had Mam and Dad along for this. They would have had a hard job understanding, but if Tom and Arthur can get there, well, shit, Eric, don’t let me get weepy in front of them, aye?”

“Aye, love. I did a bit of research, yeah, with Sally and Raj, and we think we have the right man for the job”

"I have him here, right now"

We made our way into the living room, where a horde of relatives filled the space from the front window through the dining room to the conservatory, and as Ginny tried not to dance in her seat, I held up my hands for silence.

“Ladies, gentlemen and banjo player, we have an announcement to make”

I heard John mutter “Well, she can’t be pregnant”, which warmed me in an odd way.

“No, John, that isn’t on the cards yet, much as we would wish it, aye? No. My beloved man here has been sneaky as a sneaky thing, and to put it in a nutshell, I–we---fly to Thailand in April for the adjustments I should have been born with!”

I tried not to pick up on the winces that came from the men, at the thought of someone taking a knife to their pride and joy, and bit back the urge to explain how I saw it as a sort of external tumour, malignant in the real sense rather than benign, for its presence had come so close to killing me. Let them think as they wished, as long as they continued to accept me and my husband to be.

Aunty Esther was the first to come and offer a hug, followed by Leah and Myfanwy. Merry waited her turn, and as the handshakes eased and the hugs were released, she put her arms about me and squeezed.

“Congratulations, my dear, really. I will be at your wedding, as we all shall, and we will sing and glorify the Lord for his generosity”

She dropped her voice to a whisper. “And if I haven’t got a certain vicar pinned down by then I shall join a convent, aye?”