It was a bit of a rushed day, but we got the nature reserves in, complete with a sighting of a kingfisher. An Island tour was completed by car, with just a few tick-box moments, such as a ride on the Alum Bay chairlift and a stop at the top of St Catherine’s Down. Rita was bouncing about happily, and her English was just about good enough to ask how big the Island was. That, oddly, was something I knew, thanks to a friend who had cycled the thing for his 50th birthday.

“There is a cycle route all the way round the edge, and it is a little over one hundred kilometres long”

That surprised Pablo, but I was still shuddering at the cost of the ferry, which was almost exactly one pound for each mile of that circuit. Eventually, as Rita ran out of steam, and after a stop for lunch in Niton, we were once more boarding a ferry, this time for Portsmouth, part of a cunning plan of mine. I suppose it was absolutely typical of me.

I was sore all morning, from where he had been, but how was he feeling? He took my hand freely, there were constant smiles and little touches, all of which lifted Rita’s mood well beyond smugness, but I couldn’t help remembering exactly what we had done. Fucking margarine was far too literal a phrase. It was still a good day, though, despite my fears. Hot and cold, that was me.

We finished our little drive at Fishbourne, and once aboard the return ferry, my plan started to run. The fortifications, Spinnaker Tower and a few hints about the Historic Ships set their hooks into the pair, and all I could say was “Not enough time; perhaps we might come back?”, which seemed to be a popular suggestion. One top up halt at the big supermarket on the way out irritated me a little, for no sooner were we back in the car when Pablo seemed to gain a mystic revelation that his bladder needed relief. I was left sitting in the car with Rita while he dashed back into the shop, and that, naturally, left me open to interrogation. Pablo’s joke about her being some sort of STASI/Gestapo apprentice stopped being funny.

“Caroline?”

“Yes?”

“You, Papa: you are happy, yes?”

There was no way I could deny that one. Terrified it wouldn’t last, fearful he would wake up from whatever daze he was in, shocked at the bleakness of my former life, revealed by their presence in my house, and, worst of all, the understanding that at some point in the very near future, even if he didn’t snap out of my dream, they would both be leaving, and my life would be back where it was.

“Rita? Yes. I am happy. I think your Papa is also happy”

She flung herself at the back of my seat, doing her best to hug me with it, and then Pablo was back with us. I raised one eyebrow.

“All drained, then?”

“Er, yes. Tonight’s meal?”

“Camp cooking, my dears. Pasta with Stuff”

“What stuff?”

“Wait and see, but we now have wine, so if it tastes bad, we won’t care!”

It’s a bit of a slog along a busy motorway until the turning for the Forest, but I knew the way all too well. I was tired by the time we parked up by our tents, but not too tired to delegate. That was when I realised I was calling Pablo ‘Papa’. Shit.

Pasta with Stuff was something I had evolved early in my camping days, consisting of fusilli pasta, chosen for its speed of cooking, dropped into a mishmash of tinned chopped tomatoes and anything else I could find, all ‘improved’ by the addition of oregano and that universal remedy for crap stews, hot chili powder. This time, I added stewed beef, mushrooms and most of a tube of tomato puree, plus some garlic.

It got eaten, as did the trifle I had picked up, and yes, the wine was opened and poured. It was still with some trepidation that I settled down in my sleeping bag, though, as Pablo seemed a little distant. When he returned from his ablutions, though, he made a point of pulling me closer, so that I was resting with my head on his arm and my hand on… No T-shirt. I moved my hand down a little, with no objection from him, and a similar discovery: no shorts. My heart rate was lifting steadily.

“Caroline?”

“Yes?”

“I did not need the rest room. But I found this”

It was a plastic bottle of proper, fit-for-purpose lube. Shit, yet again.

“I do not make too many assumptions?”

“Pablo, you can… oh, just shut up and come here”

-----

We spent the next day well away from the car, with a slow walk round to the Gun at Keyhaven, taking so long because every single lagoon, pond and mud scrape held something new for him. The tide was just receding from full flood, which let Rita discover the game of Gloop, where a stone is chucked onto liquid mud, disappearing in a little fountain of brown gunk, along with that sound: ‘Gloop’.

While I was enjoying seeing his delight at finding new birds, I was actually finding a few nice ones for myself, including a raven and a ring ouzel. There is a little bridge over the sluice gate on arrival at the harbour, usually with cars parked nose-on to the parapet, and we lingered there for a while. The tide had fallen enough to reveal a lot of mud, and while that was covered in godwits, the wall itself had a number of turnstones trotting about, utterly unconcerned by the cars and their occupants.

“Papa?”

“Yes?”

“Two things. First, look in that tree to our left. See it?”

“Yes! Is it a falcon?”

“Female peregrine, but forget that for now. Behind us, over the reeds. That is a bloody pair! Never seen that here”

“Pair of?”

“Marsh harriers. The dark one is the female. You are bloody bringing me luck!”

Let him watch, or let me watch; it didn’t matter which. We followed the harriers until they moved off, and then I turned to Mrs Peregrine to snap some decent shots, her feet bright against the dead wood. Once that was done, well, he got a proper kiss. I pay my debts.

We had lunch in the Gun, before making our way over to Sturt pond, where there was another welcome surprise in a flock of golden plover, and--- It was a very good day of birdwatching, and our last night’s camping involved a meal of noodles and more Stuff, and yes, Pablo was affectionate. As we drove back in one hit the next day, he was full of the need to make another visit. Plan successful.

I was absolutely shattered when we got home, as I wasn’t used to so much driving. It was another reminder of my bleak pre-Pablo life, reinforced when I picked up the mail from the mat, trying to work out when I had last received a personal letter.

The answer was obvious, and that letter had come from the man beside me. There was no discussion about sleeping arrangements, as all assumptions were clearly correct. Rita reached new levels of irritating smugness, and even with the language barrier, we were both able to communicate more than adequately.

That was another little revelation. I had liked her from the moment we met, for who wouldn’t? Now, I found myself caring for her. She was so cocky sometimes that it was hard to remember either her age or the fact that she had been so ill, so recently. Over the next few days, while Pablo had another meeting in London, we spent our time together, exploring both my music and my films, although we saved the final part of Lord of the Rings until Papa was home. Life was good, life was amazing, until time came for their Germany trip.

I saw them off at the airport, but it was absolutely traumatic. It had taken me such a short time to grow accustomed to him in my bed, but it felt so right, and then bang, gone, along with the bustle and giggle of Rita. I was lost. There was only one thing to do: I went back to work, and of course that meant Lauren. We did our usual coffee-shop catch-up

“Thought you were on leave?”

“Well, cancelled some of it”

She looked at me, or rather peered, then slumped.

“Fuck, you’ve got it bad! Have you---shit, you have, haven’t you? Shagged him?”

I couldn’t answer, but she could read my hesitation. She shook her head.

“One part of me wants to slap you, the other one wants to know how well the surgery---really?”

“Yes”

“Fuck. Er, that is all I need to know”

“That is all you are going to get”

My mouth wanted to say so much, but I couldn’t open up quite as quickly as I needed to.

“Lauren? Can I trust you?”

“Oh, for… you bloody well know that one. What has got you so scared?”

“He’s off in Germany right now, for work, and, well…”

I drew a couple of deep breaths.

“My bed feels empty, and I don’t know what to do”

She sat and thought for a few seconds, then shook her head, before looking up again.

“Would you be able to put up with a fat slapper?”

“Sorry?”

“Oh shit, I remember when he, my first husband, when he fucked off with that sleazy cow from Tesco’s. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, so new to it all. I mean, I’d been there more than once before, but that time I was actually married and… I can stay with you, if you want. Let you have someone else beside you to fart and steal the duvet”

She moved in that night, but she wasn’t a farter, although she did indeed take more than her share of the duvet. It was just for two nights, but once again I was reminded of my luck in the friends I had found. The day that Pablo and Rita were due to return, I was working a late shift, so that I could be at the airport for their return, due in the late evening. I had just settled down with a cup of tea at the start of my break when Lauren came rushing up.

“Seen this, love? In the Guardian?”

She thrust the ‘supplement’ part of the paper at me, open to somewhere in the middle, and the first thing I saw was my ‘crown of wings’ picture.

“What’s this… they stole my picture?”

“Nope. Read the credits underneath”

The title spread was of that picture, with a separate block of six others to one side, and they were all mine. Underneath, I found some very small print:

Photographs from Sanchez Herrera’s website. Clockwise from top left… Main picture…

At the end of the list of bird names was the sentence ‘All photographs copyright C Nelson’.

“Bloody hell!”

Lauren was nodding.

“You need to see if you are entitled to a fee, my girl! Read the rest; I’ll watch the counter if you run over your break”

The article was a translation from an original in a German newspaper with a name I couldn’t pronounce, and it covered Pablo’s visit to his German friend, featuring interviews of the two of them as well as some slightly clunky statements from his government minders. In summary, his impeccably green tourist business was being hamstrung due to unfair sanctions imposed by the horrible Americans. Pablo, however, while agreeing with the official line, spoke more about how he limited his group sizes to what could fit into a single car, so that other members of his community could benefit from sharing the income opportunities he generated in a climate of imposed poverty---etc. I didn’t actually care, because it was all so wonderfully positive, and they were my pictures, in two national bloody newspapers, and there was more: two people I was starting to really, really care about were due home in a few hours.

A few seconds later, I re-ran that thought: home?

I sat quietly for about five minutes, looking at the pictures over and over again, before walking out to join Lauren.

“Thanks for this, love”

“No worries, girl. How are you getting back to your place?”

“Bus, I suppose. Same way I came in”

“Want a lift?”

“Wouldn’t say no! You’re in H, aren’t you?”

“Benefits of seniority, or in my case, age. I’d say ‘rank’, but I know how you think”

“I won’t say ‘pretty’, then”

“Cow”

“Tart. Hello, sir, is there anything in particular you are looking for?”

She was with me when they arrived, and while I remembered her previous advice about not seeming too keen, I did my best to ignore it, and greeted both of them in an extremely enthusiastic way, and stuff propriety.

Lauren came in for a nightcap, and as we talked through the newspaper article, Pablo opened a bottle of wine, and Lauren accepted a glass, then, after a pointed look at my sofa, its friend. I knew exactly what she was waiting for, and after we had finished our drinks, she got it. I opened the bed up, brought her a spare nighty, and after all three of us had hugged her, I went upstairs with my man, that phrase warming me in wonderful ways.

No, we didn’t, both of us being rather too tired, but we did talk, and it was Pablo who led the conversation.

“Lauren cares about you, Caroline”

“We go back… You know my history, or the important parts. I am still surprised that---”

He put a finger to my lips.

“I now know you. It makes… It helps me find my way out of confusion. A confession, now. When I answered your call, in Cuba, I did not know what to expect. I saw a woman, expensive boots, I thought, well, I will have some money this week, and then we found the owl, and I saw your little telescope. Such a wonderful thing!”

“It came from Lidl, Pablo! Only cost twenty pounds!”

“Really? Oh. That is not what I thought. Well… then we saw the owl, and that was the telescope, as I have said, but it was your photographs. You had the face of a child, so open in your joy. You were not saying ‘Look at how I take wonderful photographs’, but rather ‘Look at my luck in capturing this image’. That is you, Caroline. When the newspaper people wanted images, they said I must claim them, and I said no, that my lady had taken them, and that her name must go with them”

“Really? Your lady?”

“How else should I call you? I think your friend, Lauren, she also sees this in you. You do not claim the credit for anything, and I believe that is because you doubt that you deserve it”

He wriggled a little, so as to settle my head on his shoulder.

“You asked me to describe you, and I said how you hold yourself as if anticipating a blow. You do not feel that you deserve anything good. Lauren also sees this”

“Lauren was the person who stood by me when I decided I could no longer pretend”

“Decided, or perhaps realised?”

“Yeah, better description. She has always been there for me”

“The one true friend, yes?”

“I have other friends”

“But she is the centre. I am not like her, for what you say is that she saw you from the beginning. I had to learn. When we rode on my bike, I felt that I might take some advantage, a tourist woman, but that day… And then that hijo de puta made his comment. Your reaction was when I started to see you clearly. When you gave us a dinner, and we danced, and Rita smiled so widely”

He took a couple of slow breaths.

“I cursed the fates when I had to miss your departure, but I have a daughter, and she will always come before all else”

“Pablo?”

“Yes?”

“What’s brought this on? You are being very serious”

“Ah, so many things! Part of it is the talks in Germany, with the embassy people, and I have some news there, but… Caroline?”

“Yes?”

“How do you… We sleep together now. How is that for you? Not the… Not the intimate things, but the sleeping?”

I cuddled him s tightly as I could.

“I’ll answer two questions, then. The one you tried not to ask, that is amazing, something I never expected, but I believe that it is so wonderful because it is with someone I am happy to fall asleep beside, and happier still to wake up with. I have got used to this, and I will miss it when you leave”

I will be devastated when you leave.

I felt him nodding.

“Yes. That is much how I feel. What has happened since is that I have spent only a little while apart from you, and it has felt like an amputation. I have a question for you, and while I believe I know what your answer will be, I must ask and not assume an answer. Will you come with me on the trip to Gibraltar? I wish to watch the migration, but I would love to share it with more than one person I care for”