After Forever Ends (40 page)

And he was. Nigel was absolutely beautiful, the most beautiful little baby I had ever seen. He wasn’t red or splotchy or covered in tiny hairs like some of the babies who come into the world looking like they’ve just rode in the blender. He kept his eyes open for long periods of time, too, as if he was terrified he’d miss something important. He had this look about him like he knew more than anybody else, but he was just too tired to tell us about it. When he was one week old, I picked him up to change his poppy nappy and he looked right into my eyes and bestowed upon me the first smile he gave to anyone ever. He stole my heart completely that day. Oh, yes, I loved that little Nigel.

But Nigel Dickinson wasn’t the only good news we had that season. Oliver graduated from Cardiff with a doctor’s degree in paediatric medicine three weeks after our Nigel was born. Oliver and I celebrated by making love and then running nude around the wood, throwing clumps of dirt at each other. We should have been getting dressed considering we had a big fancy party to attend at the University, but we were far more interested in just having fun. We rounded the trees, swung from branches, chucked dirt and finally ended up in a tangle rolling down the slope. We stopped at the edge of the water, my naked body on top of his, and we laughed and kissed until we couldn’t breathe.

“I’m thinking,” He said when he could talk, “That we should just skip this whole do.”

“And why would we do that? There will be people to meet who’ll be looking to give you a job!” I was picking pieces of leaves and dirt out of his dark hair. “You didn’t become a doctor to miss getting a job, did you?”

“I can work around here. I’m sure that Doctor Caldwell would take me on staff. He’s older than creation, you know, and he might like to have me take on some of this patients. And then, God willing, he’ll die one day soon and I can take over the entire practice.”

I burst back into a fit of giggles. “You’re terrible!”

“Well, he is old! He remembers when God was baptised! He was the first man to ever meet grass!” He laid his head back, then lifted it, “Really, though, Sil, do you honestly want to get all dressed up and go to some boring, stuffy supper with a bunch of boring, stuffy know it alls and talk about boring, stuffy rubbish or stay here and make love beside the sea?”

“The sea?” I laughed out loud again, “It’s a ruddy little pond!”

“It can’t be a pond! It’s got a babbling brook that leads to it from the river! So it’s got to be at least a very small lake,” He paused and scratched his cheek. “I reckon, anyway. Hey! Stop laughing at me! It’s hard to proposition love making when your wife is snorting in your ear!”

“Ah, marry me, Oliver Dickinson!”

“Again? Sure, but you’ll have to buy me a ring this time. Circumstances have changed. I have standards now.”

“Oh, shite!” I looked up suddenly.

“What?”

“Is that your father’s car?” I was looking up the drive with mounting horror.

“Oh, shite! It is!”

“Oh, shite!” I leapt to my feet as Oliver scrambled to his, “Run, Oliver, run!”

“Run, Forrest, run!” He did his best Southern US accent and slapped my bum. We were both giggling uncontrollably as we dashed up the slope and around the back of the house.

We were too late. The car beat us to the go. By the time we made it to the house, his parents were heading through the garden.

Neither of us could stop laughing. We hid at the side of the house, holding our breath so they wouldn’t hear us and come looking.

“Where do you think they are?” Ana asked innocently, knocking on the door.

“The cars are here,” Edmond cleared his throat, “They can’t have gone far. Oliver?” He shouted, “Silvia?”

Oliver tapped me on the shoulder and pointed up to the window we had put on the toilet wall. He raised his eyebrows.

“What?” I mouthed, “Me? No way! I’ll get stuck!”

“No, you can make it,” He hissed, “Get in there and tell them you’re dressing and toss me out some jeans! I’ll come round the front!”

“You’re mad!”

“It’s brilliant!”

“You’re a loony!”

“Oh, stuff a sock in it and put your foot in my hand,” He crouched down, “Come on now! OK. One…two…three…ho! Up where only dragons eat eagles!”

He practically flung me into the air. I caught the open window frame with my elbows and hit the side of the house with a loud bang. The window swung shut and bounced off my head.

“Hang on! You can do it!” Oliver was laughing so hard and trying so desperately to keep quiet that his face was purplish red. “That’s it! Put some bottle behind it and hoist yourself in!”

“Screw you!” I growled as quietly as I could. I struggled to gain a foothold on the rough wood, “You’ll pay for this one, Oliver Dickinson! I swear it!” I was hanging halfway out kicking my legs to free myself from the window, which was now clamped against the small of my back, “Stop laughing so loudly! They’re going to come round and see my fanny sticking out!” I screamed as I plummeted to the floor and landed with a hollow thud.

“Way to go, Love!” I heard from the other side of the wall.

Realising I was not hurt in any way, I grabbed a pair of Oliver’s dirty jeans and tossed them out the window, “I’ll have you for this one!” I told him, catching the jeans as they didn’t quite make it and fell back down to me. I flung them again and they went straight out, then I wrapped myself in a bathrobe and hurried to the door. I yanked it open harder than I meant, slammed my hands on to my hips and nearly shouted, “Hullo!”

Edmond and Ana shrank back in what I think was fear. Ana gathered herself first, “Hello, Darling! We thought we’d missed you.”

“No, no, just taking a bath,” I pulled a cobweb off my forehead and slapped my hair thinking a curl was a spider, “Come on in!”

“We saw the dog up the way chasing the chicken…” Ana paused, “Sweetie, your legs are all scratched.”

“You’re filthy as the road.” Edmond added. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes, chickens, you know? Chasing dogs. Happens every day around here. Dirty legs, too. That’s why we have the bath, you know? Not for the chicken, of course. Who’d bathe a chicken? I killed one once, felt very sorry about it.” I forced a laugh that made me sound as mad as I seemed. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Tea anyone?” I could feel my face burning. Where the hell was Oliver?

“We’d love some tea.” Edmond pretended not to notice a bra I had hung on the back of a chair to dry and a box of Tampax sitting beside the breadbox. He mercifully ignored a bottle of self-heating sex oil set in the middle of the kitchen table as if it were a vase of daffodils as well. If he knew what we’d done on that table he wouldn’t have been so keen on sitting down for tea.

I picked up the bra, tossed it into the sink and shoved the Tampax into a cabinet, grabbed the oil and threw it into an open bag of dog food, then spun, faced them and smiled too widely, “And what brings you two out to the wood?”

“We came to congratulate Oliver on his success. Where is he?”

“Oh, he’s…” I peered out the window, “Outside…somewhere.”

“Did we come at a bad time?”

“Never a bad time, Dad!” It was Oliver who said it. He burst through the door as if he were a grand sultan. I stared at him in horror. The jeans he was wearing were obviously unbuttoned, only coming halfway up the pelvis, the front and back were covered by tea towels like a loincloth pulled through the belt loops. The legs of them clung tightly to the middle of his calf. He was almost waddling.

He looked at me with a smile that positively beamed. He was enjoying every second of this nightmare. He tried to act proper as a clump of dried dirt fell from the side of his head and hit his shoulder.

“What on Earth are you wearing?” Edmond demanded. Ana just stared at him with a combination of shock and amusement.

“Oh, these? These are Sil’s, of course! Sometimes she gains a pound or two and her clothes get a little snug, so I put them on and go walking around. Gives me another opportunity to get into her jeans, if you know what I mean,” He winked at his dad, and then scratched his bare chest, casually tossing some debris on to the floor. “Right! I’ll have to go find a pair of my own now. Silvia, do tell me, did you happen to see any of mine lying about?”

I set the teapot on the stove and excused us.

“I think they’ve been alone here too long, Dear,” We heard Ana mumble just as we shut the bedroom door.

“I think we’ve interrupted something we don’t quite understand.” Edmond added. “And I’m sure we don’t want to, either!”

We burst into the loudest fit of laughter we had managed yet that day. And, worse yet, we could not stop.

“I’ll get the tea ready while you two get cleaned up and dressed,” Ana called back to us,

“Take your time!”

We lay on the bed and laughed,. “I wish they’d leave,” Oliver winced, holding a stitch in his side as he struggled to peel off my jeans.

“We’ve got to go out there.”

“No, leave them. Maybe they’ll have their tea and go.”

“Oliver, you are positively evil!”

He gave me that grin. Oh, I loved that grin. It was pure, unadulterated mischief, “I’ll show you how evil I am when they’re gone!”

“Promise?”

He stood up and pulled on a pair of his own trousers, “Promise.”

We got dressed then and did our best to compose ourselves as we went to entertain our unexpected guests, but it wasn’t easy. Every little thing that day was hysterically funny, from Oliver re-explaining his master plan for snagging an old man’s medical practice to his father telling us about a mummy coming into the museum from Cairo that was dropped down the steps. We laughed especially hard when Edmond said that Alexander was finally all grown up.

After they’d left, Oliver and I sat out in the garden by the big tree. It had cooled off and gotten windy, but it was a perfect late afternoon to just sit and be close. So we did, just sat and enjoyed the familiarity of each other.

“I think we were very rude to your parents,” I told him.

“If we were it’s because of the way they raised me,” He said flatly, shooing Duncan, who was having a jealous moment.

“Do you think that Alexander is seriously grown up just because he had a baby?”

“I suppose he is, yes. I suppose he thinks he has to grow up like everybody else. He’s full of nothing but piss anymore.” He gave the dog another nudge.

“Well, we never have grown up. Look at how we behaved today.”

“You don’t have to be dead to be grown up, Love. Look at my parents. They’re all grown up, yeah? Dad works, comes home, and says, “Hello, Dear!” Sits on his fat arse and eats his pudding, then he says, “Good night, Dear!” and gets into his bed by nine and goes straight to sleep. And my mum, she’s cleaned that house so often it doesn’t even get dirty anymore. She doesn’t have much else to do so she watches ladies programmes all day. She’s bored shitless. That’s no life, is it?”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.”

“I’m a doctor now, Silvia, and from what I’ve been told a pretty good one,” He was looking straight ahead, watching the wind, “Yet I’m still running around like an imbecile tossing dirt clods and laughing like a twelve year old. I don’t ever want to come home and say, “Hello, Dear”, eat pudding and go to bed. I want to come home, say, “Hello, Dear,” eat my pudding off your beautiful body and go to bed with you all sticky in my arms. If growing up means we have to be like my parents, sod it all. I’ll stay a jackass forever.”

“Do you think we keep each other from growing up?” I stroked Duncan’s fur. He had realized Oliver as not going to allow him space between us and surrendered, lying by my side instead.

“I think we keep each other entertained and amused and that’s what keeps us from being like them. I think we’re content, not immature. There’s a difference between being immature and acting silly.”

I turned and studied his face for a moment before I spoke. I loved looking at his face, especially looking into his eyes. If you look closely enough at anybody's eyes you can see the light of God and that light was bright in Oliver. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yes, Love. Anything,” He had so much kindness stored in those eyes. You could actually feel it on your skin, like he could envelope you and draw you into a safe place. My God, how I loved that man.

“Do you remember the worst thing that ever happened to us?”

“Of course I do. How could I forget?”

“Well, I’ve been wanting to show you something,” I reached into my pocket, “I bought two of these a week ago. One for me and one for you and two to be sure and they both have these cute little plus signs on them.”

Oliver took the plastic stick from my hand. “Oh, Silvia!”

I laughed, watching the smile spread across his face.

“We’re almost through our first trimester! I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was so scared something would happen and go wrong again and I wanted to see the doctor first to make sure the baby was all right. She says everything is fine!”

“Oh, Silvia!” He threw his arms around me and squeezed me tight, “And me tossing you through a window! Shame on me! Silvia! Silvia!” He rocked me and kissed my neck, “A wee little muffin! A baby for us, Silvia! Now we’ll have somebody else to throw dirt at! We’ll have to invite mum and dad back out to watch!”

Every moment of your life is a gift. In the end when you are old and all your friends and family have died or have gone away and your bones ache every second, if you are lucky, you still have your memories. And what are memories if not moments locked away in your head and in your heart? They’re like little sparkling treasures in a box waiting for the lid to be lifted so the light can shine upon them once more. I like to open that box. I adore my memories. When I am dead and gone everything I owned will survive me. But I will take my memories with me. At least the ones I didn’t pass down. The ones I did hopefully will become the treasures of those I chose to tell.

I had a wonderful pregnancy, the very best a woman could hope for with a first child. I checked my belly every morning to see if I had a bulge yet, but I didn’t manage to produce one until the end of my fourth month. It appeared around the time that I stopped my endless indulgence on grapefruit and began to endlessly indulge on sour green apples. Oliver brought a sack of them home for me every night, that sweet man, along with anything else I had wanted the day before or he thought I might like. He took excellent care of me and our baby.