CHAPTER 35
Dinner wasn’t just good, it was excessively so. Mam had prepared, with some help from me, a meal that consisted of just about every traditional ingredient she could fit onto the plates, and plentiful in terms of quantity as well as variety. By unspoken agreement, pudding was left for teatime. Beer and wine were not.

Dishwashers are wonderful.

It was sweet watching how Paul imitated me in cutting stuff up for his companion, even if she was rather older than Rhod. He had clearly fallen hard, and the more I saw of Paula’s resilience, intelligence and sheer spirit, the less I could blame him. Without the intervention of a certain local family, what could she have made of herself? What would I have done myself? Moot points, both of them. I had more than enough blessings to count right there and then.

“Di?”

“Uh? Oh. What?”

Blake settled my head back onto his shoulder as Rhod pushed a plastic tipper truck round the floor, Tucker perched in the back.

“You were away with the fairies. Nodding off?”

“Na, just thinking. Counting blessings, isn’t it?”

I snuggled in a little closer.

“You up for a New Year’s Eve blow out?”

“Sounds fine to me. Those two should be over their jet lag by then, lightweights that they are”

Two cushions hit him.

We were just settling down to whatever ‘blockbuster’ film or other was scheduled to coincide with our delayed dessert when my mobile rang. I looked at the caller ID: Lainey. I showed it to Blake, who simply raised an eyebrow as I disengaged and went out into the hallway. I had a touch of dread coming on, as Elaine was usually eye deep in her own family at that time of year. Police, girl. Professional.

“Lainey? You OK?”
“Aye, Diane. I’m over in Surrey, with a friend. Phone’s on speaker mode”
Surrey. All at once, I knew exactly who she meant, and I found myself collapsing onto the third of Mam’s stairs.

“Adam? I mean… Annie?”

Shit, shit, SHIT, Lainey? Why today, of all days? What happened to staying away, leaving her to live her new life? I fought my way back to P, P.
“Diane? What….”
The voice was just about the same, but then I had heard her face down her family, and she had never been the most manly of men. I slapped myself at that thought, for I had seen no man in that café, nor in her wedding photos, unless it was the one she so clearly loved. Speaker phone? Smile at Annie, and flay our friend.
“Lainey’s told me it all, or I suppose what she thinks I should know, A—nnie. I didn’t want to rock your boat, and, well, Elaine, this is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it? Not quite what we agreed, not at all”

Before I could start telling Elaine her fortune, I heard her wife’s voice, and knew that things would be straightened out without my help.

“Diane?”

“Yeah?”

“Elaine’s gone off with Siân, left me the phone, aye? Sounds like she’s overstepped more than a bit”

I found myself weeping, and there was no reason for it. Nobody had been hurt, no lives were being wrecked, but it was all so bloody awkward. What was I supposed to say to her? She took the initiative, thankfully.

“What has she told you about me, Di?”

“Ah, stuff, you know, and I’ve been keeping an eye out, following the press and stuff”

“I’d never have put you down as a stalker, woman”

I caught the smile in her words in time to avoid biting.

“Bit hard to avoid, Annie, what with that bomb and stuff. How is Sergeant Armstrong?”

“Oh, not back to his best, but still very tasty… Forget I said that bit, aye? He’s getting stronger every day. Touch and go a bit when, you know, but he’s got a strong wife. Dad now as well”

Her voice went a little distant.

“Dennis Adam, that’s his boy; and Elaine tells me you have one of your own. Why that name, Di?”

“How could I not, Annie? You’re a hard one to forget”

She sighed.

“You do know I don’t swing that way, don’t you? Married? Eric?”

“I had worked that one out. Lainey showed me some pictures from your wedding. Now and again, I make a decision that’s right”

“Eh?”

“I never asked you out, did I? One of my few good decisions, that one and picking my own man. Now, how are we going to sort her out?”

“Punishment?”

“No, not that. She’s not well, Annie. I don’t think she’s been well for some time. You know about the men we lifted for the gaybashing?”

“Aye. Your rape as well. You are not the only one to follow the news”

“You know about Sarah?”

“Ah. I see. Does she know?”

“No. We agreed to keep her out of it. Trouble is, I think Lainey’s focus got a little tight, if you take my point. Little things, little tells, isn’t it? Always on about ‘three of them’ even when it was loads more”

The more I spoke to her, the easier it became. My old friend was still there, if slightly filtered, and it was clear that the filter in question was simple comfort in herself. Annie was silent for some seconds.

“Annie?”

“Yes?”

“She’s broody, isn’t she?”

Her answering sigh was so long and loud I wondered if the phone had broken.

“Absolutely, Di. Both of them are. Dennis doesn’t help. And please take this the right way, but you make it worse”

“What the hell can we do?”

Suddenly, she was laughing. I waited for her to finish, and she was almost apologetic.

“Sorry, girl. Had a really silly thought, didn’t I? I’ve overheard a few things; Elaine hasn’t exactly got the softest of voices, has she? Both of them, her and Siân, they’re going for IVF, aye? I was going to say her brother-in-law’s giving her a hand, but I suspect the hand in question is actually Sarah’s”

I found myself laughing at that, even as my eyes continued to leak.

“You are one dirty sod, Annie!”

“Nope! Just a happily and healthily married woman. Anyway, you are right. I think she’s been losing it for a while, but she’s got strong people around her. Now, what are we going to do? You and me, aye?”

“Oh, shit knows, woman!”

It suddenly felt right to say that, so I kept up the flow.

“I asked her to leave you alone, Annie. No old ghosts at the feast sort of thing. I will be honest: I don’t know where we will go, you and me, but I think we both need a little time to settle things”

“Aye. I don’t think she was thinking when she rang you, so I am off to see she’s OK and then get on with our own Christmas, me and my man. One day, Di, one day we’ll sit down together, aye?”

“Aye. Keep in touch, please”

“I will do. So long for now, my sweet woman”

She hung up abruptly, and I found myself sobbing, Blake appearing to hold me as if he was telepathic. I couldn’t explain, not just then, so I washed my face, dug out a smile and went back to my family.

One advantage of being on a team like mine should be obvious, and blindingly so in the holiday season. We had slogged over what I found myself thinking of ‘Chrismas’, but the actual party nights had been left alone. Elaine had worked them, of course, but then she was brass, and rank hath its obligations. We had no big jobs on after our three packages had been so neatly delivered, and so for what seemed like, and in fact actually was, the first ever year I had been free for the whole week I fully intended to make the most of our opportunities.

We spent a few days as tour guides, of course, and we had one slightly awkward outing insisted on by Bridget, to a certain car park. Tammy was the one who surprised me there, bringing out a small piece of crinkly paper.

“It’s an Italian biscuit wrapper, Di. Trick we do in restaurants, and Bridge told me what she did with the stones, so I thought of another way. Have a look, mate”

She had written on several of the unfolded papers, simple things like ‘Fear’, ‘Pain’ and so on. There was no wind for once, and she set one of the papers on that wall I remembered so well and produced a cigarette lighter.

“Watch, love. Works indoors; not tried it outside yet”

She sparked up the lighter and touched it to the paper, and to my surprise it flew straight up into the air, burning up so completely it seemed to leave no residue at all. I got her idea immediately, and it was a wonderful book-end to match my old friend’s pebbles. That was when I really saw what Bridget had seen when she met Tammy, and at least part of why she loved her. As we worked through the wrappers, our messages grew sillier and sillier, and when Tammy lit one that read ‘sand in sunblock’ I saw the real value of her little game.

Bridget had hurled Ashley Evans out of my life, while Tammy reduced him to the level of gritty Factor 25. I took it one step further, burning ‘dogshit on trainers’ to seal the point. There were other people using the car park that day, and I am sure they must have thought we were barking mad.

I didn’t care. I was with family and friends, I was deeply in love with all of them, and I was free.

I saved one wrapper for a private sort-of-prayer, and as it flew aloft to vanish in a wisp of smoke, the words ‘Old Adam’ went with it.