CHAPTER 62
He wasn’t putting it on as I would with Tony (mmmmm), or as he would with me, but casually, carefully, as a friendly thing. I was proud of my uncle at that point, proud of my entire family.

It summed up the whole of our little break. A boy, his dog, his dad and the rest of the family, boy and dog running noisily about while alleged adults did mostly adult things, typified by Hywel depositing a cupful of cold sea water in the middle of Suzy’s sunwarmed back. Her screams echoed from the cliffs, and I turned to Tony with a ‘don’t even think about it’ Look just as Jim emptied his little bucket over my kidneys.

Before he could get away, I grabbed him up and dove full length into the waves holding him, Pie splashing after us barking as a laughing little boy wiped his eyes with one hand while splashing me with the other.

I felt sorry for Enid just then, with only the boys left of her family, and I resolved to let her share as much of mine as she wanted. After all, she actually was family now.

That was a good day, a really good day, and I still look at the pictures with a smile born of fond memories. Eventually, of course, we had to pack the cars and head back East to our homes, and it would be weeks before we got the last of the sand out of stuff.

“Mum…”

“Yes, Jim?”

“Are we coming back again?”

“Why, don’t you want to see Nana Sioned and Bamps and the rest again?”

“Ooh, you always tease! You know I do!”

That said it all, really. They had welcomed me back to life, what else could I do than offer them everything I had?

We gathered at Alice’s place after dropping Suzy off, and with Tony’s agreement I ran my sisters’ request past the older pair while Jim and Pie released some energy in the garden. Enid looked thoughtful.

“I did say to you about grandchildren, didn’t I, Sarah? Would the girls accept me as a grandmother?”

I had to laugh, and explained my earlier thoughts. “Enid, my family is your family, if you want them, but I think you know what we all think. Of course the girls would love a proper nana for any kids they might get, it just adds another layer of love to everything.”

I took my husband’s hand. “I just worry that Tony will feel diminished in some way”

Tony squeezed me back. “I had a longer chat with the girls while you were drowning our son, love. They were very clear that they wanted any child to know who their father was, so they would tell all when they thought they were old enough to understand. Jim gets half-brothers or sisters, I get to be a father again, Mum gets more grandkids….and while we can’t make a child together, I can’t think of anyone closer to you than your sister. In an odd sort of way, it makes sense”

In a moment of insight that almost made me burst with love for him, he added, “Those two girls are just like you, you know, when you used to watch other women who could have kids, and despair because you couldn’t. Look at you now, with Jim, and don’t shake your head at me like that. You are a natural mother, and you make your sisters green with envy. If you agree, I’m going to do it.”

Alice smiled. “I’ll do some research and find out the best way. I am sure we can order anything necessary in, or even go for IVF if necessary”

I slapped his thigh. “Don’t even THINK of trying the traditional method, you!”

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Back to work once more, and Andy was still buzzing with his own impending parenthood, while Anne definitely seemed to have reached some sort of calm place in her heart again. For a start, she was eating lunch with us once more, instead of sprinting off for a bit of self-harm. Regardless of this Jon’s intentions, he seemed to be having nothing but positive effects from where I was standing. Suzy, of course, was buzzing for her own reasons, and wondered if we were going to enact some form of symmetry, where she restored cosmic balance by making my own journey, but in reverse. Hywel certainly seemed to have done something to her, apart from the obvious. I had noticed a slow change in his dress sense as well, so it was clearly a two-way street.

A week after our return, Janet invited four of us round to dinner, and I was able to cash in on Anne’s goodwill by having her babysit as Tony and took the two older ladies round to the Head’s home. To no surprise on my part at all, Pat was there. Janet served up a rather nice dish of chicken breasts in tarragon sauce, together with some extremely well-chilled and bone dry rosé wine, and a tarte aux pommes to finish with. She had clearly been on a cross-Channel shopping run, and the conclusive evidence came out on the cheese board. We settled into easy chairs with coffee, and Pt took his place next to Janet on the settee. I had a suspicion forming about the reason for Janet’s little party, and as Pat took her hand I could feel his tension.

“I have a little confession” he said, the joke falling rather flat.

“I have come to a sort of crossroads in my life, well, we have come to it together, and would like some–well, advice, if possible, but mostly support. We would like. I have to keep remembering the pronouns…

“Alice, Sarah, you both know that things have stirred between Janet and myself. I will make no false protestations, but be assured that we have not taken that step too far. I am a man of conviction, of faith, and I have taken vows. Vows that I now wish to break.”

Alice was nodding. “So you finally found ‘the one’, then, my friend? I know you, and know you won’t go off on some silly game of Satanic temptation and all that nonsense. You want our support, you shall both have it”

She looked round at us. “Sorry, a little presumptuous, but I am right, aren’t I? You stick by your friends, you two, and I know Enid does.”

She turned back to the couple, and I noticed Janet was trembling. Alice reached out for her other hand. “It’s all right, Janet. Pat, who have you spoken to about this?”

He looked down. “Aidan, my confessor.”

“And?”

“He said some things about Satan and temptation, and rising above sin…”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him to stop talking out of his fucking arse, and gave him Genesis 2:18 and walked out. Look, I have to make a decision here. You should all know that my faith is an absolute, God is there, He loves me, He loves all of us, and I can not and will not believe any such drivel as Janet being an emissary of Satan, that’s just bollocks. God has placed us before each other, and I have a choice: to turn that gift down, or to renounce my vows”

Tony nodded. “Game theory. It’s a no-brainer, really, Pat. You have a choice of you both losing, assuming that Janet feels the same way, and she’s being very quiet there. Anyway, a choice of you both losing, or just one of you. The trouble is, realising what the ‘loss’ is, and then seeing the gain, the recompense. What I mean, Pat, is you either both lose, or Janet wins and you break even. As I said, a no-brainer.

“Look, Pat, you know that neither of us is at all religious, so perhaps I don’t see the importance it has to you, but you are not turning your back on the Church, just asking for a change of job. From it you gain a loving wife, and she gets a filthy-mouthed old pisshead who just happens to be a bloody good man.”

He looked closer at them. “It is marriage, isn’t it? You’ve asked her, haven’t you?”

Pat, PAT, blushed. “Yes, conditional on what we decided tonight, and what the Bishop says, yes, I have, and she has accepted.”

I started to laugh, and they all stared at me. “I’m sorry, it was just Anne, the other day, complaining about having to go shopping for an outfit for Andy and Bev’s, what the hell is she going to say when presented with another one?”

That broke the dam, and it turned into a proper evening of congratulations and celebrations, as two good friends announced their love openly.

That night I lay cwtched up with my husband after making love together. “I feel contagious, cariad”

“It’s not just you, Sar. It’s Alice. she’s the one that has really knocked people around, with her courage and generosity. I’m not trying to steal your thunder, but she is the one who has been shaking the tree. You just showed her the way out of a bad place”

He kissed me. “And don’t think I mean anything by that word ‘just’, you could never be ‘just’ anything, as long as you are just mine”