CHAPTER 22
It was drizzling the next morning, Christmas Day itself. The rain made a soft hiss on the fly sheet, sibilant underneath the semi-stifled giggles coming from the next ‘bedroom’ as three little people planned their day. Blake was warm beside me, as was the bedding around me, and the only thing that drove me up and out was Bill’s shout of “Kettle’s on, you lot!”

The evening before had been a real mixture, as the vicar, Simon, led us through a proper carol service with the place packed out. All of us plus his regular congregation really strained the fabric of the old place, and I am sure some of the singing had inflicted structural damage.

Not like that, though Rhod’s enthusiasm for the songs he knew didn’t quite match his command of such things as tune or actual note required. He wasn’t alone, of course, and he was happy, so I had nothing to complain about. The damage I anticipated would have come from the singers provided by Lainey’s and Annie’s families, who were both there in force and seemed to be endowed with rather a lot of men with loud voices.

Loud, and bloody harmonious. I managed to record some of it on my phone, sending it as a mail attachment to Mam. Her text back was as immediate as such things could be.

Wonderful, love. Maybe we come next year.

Snacks, beer and proper socialising followed, and for a while a small number of our friends and their own played a variety of instruments at one end of the hall. Nobody got silly, and as fatigue hit three little people, Blake and Siân delivered them to the care of Tony’s mother and the warmth of their beds.

Blake was grinning when he returned.

“Little sod wanted to know how Santa would get in without a chimney to come down”

Elaine snorted. "We told our two we’d sent a forwarding address to the North Pole”

My husband nodded. “Yeah, Sassie explained it all to Rhod, so of course he wanted assuring we’d done the same thing, so I said yes, of course. What’s the plan?”

Siân tossed back her mop of red curls, raising the back of her hand to her forehead in a very silly way.

“Well, one of us here did most of the driving this time, so her wife will be giving her a neck rub while plying her with white wine, of course”

My old boss snorted again. “I hear and obey, oh mighty one!”

We were gathered round a couple of tables, along with Lainey’s mates Kev and Vicky, their own two offspring similarly disposed of, and when Elaine returned with a tray of drinks that seemed, amazingly, to be bloody free, I asked the important question.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow, butt? Rhod wants to see the planes”

She handed round pints and wine glasses just as Vicky placed two bottles of pinot grigio on the table, and moved her chair so she could start on the neck massage Siân had demanded.

“I think Steph has some ideas on that one, but there’s another thing we want to do, and that involves a short drive. Do that in the morning, get back here, bus to the airport before Christmas dinner. Kid’s hospital come down for that one, so we do that about five o’clock. Then the evening is ours. Bit traditional, that. Bit mad, as well”

I was intrigued. “Mad?”

Elaine grinned over her wife’s shoulder. “How well do you know Annie?”

I grinned back. “Well, intimately wouldn’t be quite the right word, would it? So let’s just say rather well”

“I think you may get a surprise tonight”

“I got a surprise a few years ago, Lainey!”

She actually cackled, rubbing her hands in an evil way. Until Siân complained.

“Oy, serf! Neck!”

Such a gentle, comfortable evening. Enough alcohol to ease conversation, more warmth than I could ever have hoped for. We left three filled stockings in the children’s bedroom just before we all settled down for a surprisingly good night’s sleep.

The drizzle eased as we got ourselves moving, helped in that process by the smells coming from the church hall: bacon, sausages, coffee, a full breakfast appearing in much the same way as the previous night’s booze. Once refuelled, the big-nosed girl stood up in the middle of the crowd.

“Good morning! I am Sophie, if you do not know me already”

A contralto voice, surprisingly musical, and a very strong French accent. Her English was good, if a little formal.

“We know there are people who wish to observe the aeroplanes, and my brother and I have a place we love where they may be viewed from afar”

The tall redhead, Steph, stood up next to her.

“Yes, and I have a magic goblin train for little people who want to see them closer. So eat up, and then we will drive out to Sophie’s place for a nice walk before returning here for a bus ride to the airport and the magic train. Any takers, meet in the car park in thirty minutes”

“Mam! Can we see the goblins and the aeroplanes?”

His face was shining, and only partly with grease from his breakfast.

“I think faces and hands need washing, and teeth brushing, before we can go. Dad, shall we go for a walk?”

He nodded. “I shall see to faces, hands and teeth then, Mam, while you sort out welly boots, hats and gloves”

We made quite a convoy as we set off from the church, and after a slightly complicated drive, we climbed a long hill to a major roundabout, doubling back on ourselves to find a car park on the edge of the Downs. A little footbridge took us over the road we had climbed and into a wood, the trees stark and bare. I don’t know how many of us were there, but I lost count of the number of children. So many of our group were cuddling up I had a little moment of soppiness and had to wipe away a tear.

Sophie, the tall French girl, was arm in arm with a tall blond man, while the cliché Frenchman she had introduced as her brother was snuggled up to a stunningly beautiful blonde of his own, their children rampaging through the undergrowth. There were at least three couples I assumed to be lesbians, as well as a herd of Welsh men and women, strolling, chatting, pointing out the birds; smiling. We came out of the woods through a little gate to find a great sweep of green space and a little belvedere, where we gathered. Sophie clapped her hands, and I understood immediately that she was a teacher. She simply had that way about her that showed how well she understood children. She pulled her brother to her side, kissing his cheek with real affection.

“My brother, Roland, he brought me here a long time ago, and it was the saving of my life, so we try the best that we are able to do to come here at the feast. For those who wish, if you regard just---there!”

Rhod grabbed my leg.

“Mam! I can see the planes coming in!”

He was right. Our position gave is an uninterrupted view right across the land below to what I realised were the South Downs above Brighton. A steady procession of airliners came past from the left or took off to the right, and Rhod’s joy was lifted even higher when the tall blond man, who said he was Benny, handed out a few sets of binoculars and showed the littler ones how to use them.

The older folk produced flasks, the kids played at being planes again, and as their energy ran down and our fingers chilled we made our way back through the woods to our vehicles. A drive back, parking up and straight back out after a toilet visit, and this time our guide was Steph and our group almost entirely composed of children. There was a bus stop just across the road from the church, and after ten minutes we proceeded to fill the number 100 bus. Off at the ‘South Terminal’ stop, children gathered in pairs by the busy road, up three flights of stairs via what Steph called her secret door.

That took us to what looked like a long corridor extending from a glass wall, and as we assembled the doors nearest us opened on the shuttle connecting the two terminals. Steph was clearly in charge.

“Right, you lot! I am Mrs Woodruff! This is the train that takes people backwards and forwards between the two terminals. Underneath us are lots of goblins, all sitting on bikes. They have to pedal very hard to move the train, and they all have to start together. Now, look out the front. Can you all see the tracks? You all need to hang on tightly, and when you see the green lights come on between the rails, that is the signal for the goblins”

[‘Please stand clear of the closing doors’]

“Mam! Mam! Green!”

Off we went, and for a minute or so we got views of the parked airliners, as well as some speeding along the runway, and of course we didn’t get off at the North Terminal but rode the shuttle back, which gave us views of the approaching planes, and…

I lost count of the number of times we did the trip, and was beginning to cool towards Mrs Woodruff, the sod, until she finally led us off the train and into the concourse proper, where there was a coffee shop, with tea, and NO cakes. I gave her the sort of Look Elaine had taught me, and she just grinned.

“Tires them out, love, and lets them sleep. Trust me, you don’t want them lively tonight”

So we gathered them up, Steph led the way once more to a bank of lifts, down we went and through a bicycle parking area to another bus stop. Another 100 bus, another short ride, and another bus stop right next to the church. This time, what greeted us was the aroma of roast turkey and all the necessary ancillaries, accompanied by the vicar’s wife holding a bundle of aprons.

We did the meal together for the hospital children, and then the bloody dishes, before we settled down with those same dishes refilled for our own dinner, and I was steadily getting blown away by it all. We were a large group of people, gathered from at least three countries, many of whom didn’t actually know each other, or barely, but the feeling of community, of affection, of bloody LOVE, was undeniable. This was everything that bastard had taken from me at sixteen, this was everything my parents had thought lost.

This was the man beside me, in so many different faces, so many different personalities. I found myself tearing up again. We ate, we laughed, we groaned in repletion as children who should have been unable to move after their own meals simply defied both physics and biology and ran shrieking through the hall and the safe spaces outside it, and we cuddled up to those who mattered to us.

Full dark outside, and tired children went to bed with grandmothers and older aunties to watch over them as Simon the vicar unveiled the lumps that had been sitting quietly at the end of the hall, revealing several bloody beer barrels. He grinned and shouted something about love and happiness, right here and now, and as the first pints were poured it was to the sounds of a number of instruments tuning up. That surprised me, and I was even more surprised to see Annie on stage in a little black dress and heels, which seemed rather out of place, and carrying a flute.

Folk music, in the end, with Steph on violin and Eric, who I realised I had hardly said a word to, such are the joys of motherhood, on guitar. Elaine’s sister brought round more plates of snacks as the music stirred some aimless sort-of-dancing, and I noticed her own outfit of T-shirt, denim mini and heeled boots. Hmmm.

The music was actually quite infectious, and hubby duly dragged me up for a dance, which was quite nice right up until I realised Eric had swapped his guitar for an electric bass, both Steph and Annie had somehow plugged their own instruments in, and a man the size of a chest freezer was on stage with them. Ye gods, he had lungs!

“FINISHED WITH MY WOMAN CAUSE SHE COULD NOT HELP ME WITH MY MIND!”

Black Sabbath? In a bloody church? The instrumentation was unconventional, the singer was bellowing (tunefully) rather than screaming, but it damned well worked, and it set the mood for the rest of the evening. They worked through stuff I half-recognised, mixed in with stuff I didn’t know at all, but the common theme was utter insanity in the playing. The teasing redheaded Mrs Woodruff was gone, replaced by a raving lunatic in a swirl of auburn hair as she did Stuff to her violin rather than just played it, Eric was the epitome of a rock guitarist, all power chords and cock, and Annie strutted.

All the painful shyness I remembered, all the gentle smiles and impish sense of fun, all evaporated like a snowflake on a bonfire as she did indeed strut, doing incredible things to her flute that easily matched Steph’s endeavours before taking everything more than a stage further, eyes closed, damp hair sticking to her face. I had my dancing shoes on, as Elaine had demanded, so by god I danced.

We danced, we drank, we grazed on plates of nibbly stuff, and after it all I took my husband back to our little bedroom, where we made love, in all senses of the word, as quietly as we could as the love and life of that evening cleansed my soul.