After Forever Ends (53 page)

“He was never downright awful to Melissa that I ever saw,” I told her honestly, “He was always kind to her, even after they split up. She calls him from time to time and he’s always very cordial.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be then. He deserves someone who loves him for all he is, the terrible and wonderful Alex I’ve always fancied.”

“Yes, he does. And I know you’ve always fancied him. Let me tell you how Oliver and I feel about this, Lucy. You’re a woman and he’s a man. Fall in love or have your fun, whichever you choose. Don’t get hurt, don’t hurt him and keep the children in mind. It’s all we ask.”

“Of course, Silvia. You know I wouldn’t hurt him or the children.”

“I’m just as worried about your heart getting broken. It is Alexander we’re talking about. The terrible and wonderful Alexander.” I kissed my sister on the head like she was six years old, “He may have mellowed some, but his stripes are just the same. Get some sleep. We want to make a big breakfast in the morning.”

“Good night, Sissy.”

“Goodnight,” I went back to my room and slipped into my bed.

Oliver rolled over and smiled at me, “Did you see what I saw happening with those two?”

“They’ll be snogging by this time tomorrow night,” I assured him, climbing into bed.

“Do you think so?”

“I’d bet a quid on it.”

“Good. Alexander could use some female attention.”

“I don’t want to think about all that in detail, thank you,” I kissed my husband, “That’s my baby sister. But I told her to have a go at him anyway.”

“Good. He’s always liked the girl…as a person, I mean. She’s been too young for him. I don’t think he’s ever looked at her as anything more than your little sister before tonight. But she’s not a baby anymore, is she?” He paused, “Isn’t that just so odd when you think about it?”

“Quite. She’s plenty old enough to be with him now if they’ll have each other.”

“Ah, well, it’s not up to us. Just come here then and let me hold you.” He rolled me into his arms and sighed, “My Sil. Whatever they decide I’m glad that I have you.”

“Me, too, Sweetheart.”

It was about ten minutes later we were both asleep and twenty before Nattie woke us all up screaming bloody murder that a big cat had come up from the floor and swallowed her leg. Alexander took her off to bed with him and the rest of the night was peaceful.

Oliver and I made a fantastic breakfast the next morning, “All the comforts of Bennington,” He announced as he spread it across the table, “We have hot porridge, fat sausages and eggs, toast and bacon, juice and milk and, as it is our Lucy’s breakfast favourite, we even have sliced ham.”

“Oh, you are spoiling me!” She giggled from the doorway. “Can I help with the kid’s plates?”

Gryffin sat in his baby chair chewing on his bottle. He looked around at all of us and grinned, kicked his feet and squealed. Oliver gave him a tug on the toes, “Is that so?” Gryff giggled and kicked his feet again, “Well,” Oliver gave him few slices of banana, “I agree with you one hundred percent, Lad! What’s that? You want some melon? Can you manage that with one tooth?” Gryffin shouted and threw his bottle, “Well, right then! No need to raise your voice and toss your drink! I’ll get you some!”

“Lucy,” I said, “I’d love your help! Carolena won’t eat eggs. She’ll have porridge and bacon, right, Caro?” My daughter nodded, “And Nigel likes his toast dry. No butter for Nigel, never, not on a thing or he goes mental. Just a little jam on his, if you please, right, Nige?” Nigel gave me the thumbs up, “Other than that, he’s got the Dickinson stomach and a taste for everything, just cut it up so he can eat it. He goes too fast and chokes. And Nattie,” Natalie looked up at me and smiled slyly, hiding a piece of toast that she had sneaked from her daddy’s plate under the table, I put my finger over my lips as if to promise I’d never tell, “Nattie likes everything. Just give her a little of it all chopped up and she’ll be happy.”

Lucy nodded, but she was still lost. She tripped over Duncan as she crossed the room.

“Where’s my toast?” Alexander demanded, dramatically looking about the table. He stood up and checked his seat, “Where’s it gone?” Nattie giggled wildly, “You have it!” He cried, “You stole my toast!” He pulled her up out of her chair on to his lap and kissed her neck so that she squealed, “I’ll have you for breakfast!” He pulled her plate over, “Sit with me, Muffin, and let Lucy have your chair.”

Oliver and I exchanged glances. There had been no reason to move Nattie. There would have been an empty seat on the other side of the table. “I think Alexander’s back to his tricks,” Oliver mumbled to me under his breath over the stove. I nodded in agreement.

Ollie and Alex went to help Edmond with a plumbing issue later that morning. Lucy, the children and I had lunch outside and waited for the twins to come home. Then Oliver and I went through our evening routine of bathing the children and getting them into bed. We did this without Alexander or Lucy, who took a long walk and then were discovered sitting side by side on the rocks by the pond having a private chat. Oliver and I kept our distance, but we checked every once in a while to see how the situation was progressing.

“Nothing! He’s not even holding her hand!” I whispered around nine o’clock as we poked our heads through the trees.

“What? That’s not the Alexander I know! He was doing so well!” Oliver strained to see through the foliage. “What the bloody hell is his problem? Is he that out of practice?”

“What about my sister with her forty-five year old? You’d think she’d know how to take control of a situation! Look at her sitting there like she’s twelve years old and on her first date!”

“Christ, what’s taking him so long?”

“Don’t ask me! He’d have had her flat on her back by now a few years ago!” We watched Lucy put her hand on his shoulder and leave it there. She scooted just a little closer, “Look at her! She’s begging for it!”

“He’ll be at it soon enough.”

“Let’s hope one of them does something at least before everybody goes grey!”

Lucy looked over her shoulder in our direction and we both ducked back under cover. We hurried to the house giggling.

At eleven o’clock that evening, Nigel woke up wanting a drink. Oliver told me he was going to go check on Alex and Lucy again. After about two minutes, he came into the house and closed the door, “What time did you say they’d be snogging by tonight, Darling?”

“They are not!”

“They are!” He grinned and slapped his hands together, “It’s disgusting, really!”

“Oh, yay!” I clapped my hands. “How disgusting is it?”

“Well, they’re not nude or anything, but they’re snogging right good.” He plopped down on the couch beside me and took my hand, “She’s sitting on his lap facing him with her arms and legs around him. It’s sickening!” He pretended to shiver, “A couple of tramps! Makes me want to vomit!”

“Oh, good for them!”

“I say!” He gave me a thoughtful glance, “The winds are changing in the wood, Love. Let’s hope this is what’s supposed to happen.”

“That Melissa hurt him badly,” I pulled my knees to my chest, “Rotten stinking old tuna fish sandwich, she is, even if she was sick in the head. Lucy wouldn’t do that to him. She’s waited to too long to be able to love him fully. It’s been against the rules until now.”

Oliver nodded, “That she has. He didn’t think of her as more than a child, but when Caro was born he said to me, he said, ‘Oliver, I should have married that Cotton girl’. I swear he did.”

“You never told me that.”

“Well, Love, I was a little distracted with you and the baby.”

“Hmm. Well, don’t let it happen again.”

“I promise. The next time we have a baby I will pay more attention to what is happening with the other people around us.”

“Right!” I put my head on his shoulder, “Well, we can’t make them fall in love. It has to happen on its own.”

He looked very serious for a moment, “My brother and your sister. Is that twincest?”

“Can’t be. They’re not biologically or legally related. And neither you nor I are involved with either of them, so, no.”

“Thank God! …well, would you look at that?”

“What?”

“On the television, Love. It’s Alexander’s green tie. He’s been looking for it all over.”

“I hate that tie. It’s awful. I’ve thought about hiding it on him myself.”

“Yeah, but your sister’s favourite colour is green, is it not?”

I thought for a second. “Yes, it is.”

“There’s magic here in the wood,” Oliver nodded, saying this as if it were something new, “I swear there is.”

The happy news about having our dear Lucy in the wood was that she decided that Glasgow was crap and she abandoned it to reignite a life in Wales. She got a job working at a realtor's office in Newtown and bought herself a truck so she could navigate the wood, even though Alexander took her to work most mornings. Alexander, in fact, took her most places most of the time. The two had embarked on a new direction in their relationship that included hand holding, snogging, snuggling, dates, family outings, sniggering and meaningful whispers. It was everything eleven year old Lucy would have wished for. However, six months after she arrived, the adult Lucy was still sleeping on the sofa and getting frustrated with it as well.

“It’s not about the sex,” She told me one evening in private, “It’s about the fact that he only lets me get so close. He throws up boundaries and road blocks as we go along. He’s hot and he’s cold. I never know which it’s going to be. I’m so bleeding confused my head hurts!”

I told Oliver what she‘d said one morning when it was just he and I straightening up the front room, “What’s with that? Why isn’t she upstairs with your brother by now?”

“Because,” Oliver puffed a pillow and set it on a chair, “My brother is in love with her.”

“So tell me again why she’s not in his room?”

Oliver sighed. “Oh, Silly Silvia. Think about it. My brother’s in love with her. Don’t you know what that means?”

“It means he should be putting her in his bed by now. He‘s put enough women into his bed he didn‘t love, why not try something new and make it meaningful?”

Oliver laughed, “No, Love. It means that he’s scared shitless.”

“Of Lucy?”

“Yes, of Lucy! And of having his heart broken again,” He looked at me and immediately understood that I didn't, “Think about it. He’s got her here with him all the time. They adore each other, yeah?. Always have. She loves his children and they love her. It’s perfect, isn’t it? It’s a fantasy, yeah? Too right to be true and it came too easily. He didn‘t even have to win her over, it was built in that they were both emotionally involved. So what happens if he actually makes it real? What happen if he takes her upstairs? What if in the end he winds up hurting her? Or, worse yet for him, what happens to him if she decides she doesn’t love him the way she’s always thought she does and runs away like Melissa did?”

“That’s barking! She wouldn’t!”

“I agree. I don’t think she would, either, but it’s where his head is right now. He’s scared. It’s her who’s going to have to make the first move if anything’s going to go forward and I think she’s going to have to push hard, too. He likes things where they are. It‘s safe for him.”

“My God, Oliver, I never thought I’d see the day when Alexander was afraid of a girl!”

“Aye, neither did I, especially not Lucy Cotton, but he is.”

“Well, can’t we do something about it?”

“We could strip them naked and glue them to each other.” He suggested as he folded a blanket and laid it across the back of the sofa, “Or we can just stand back and wait until he pulls his head out of his arse.”

“Well, that’ll be a sonic boom.”

I watched the two of them, Lucy and Alexander, from a distance. To be honest, I didn’t think they’d ever get it straight. There were times when they were so blissful together I thought they’d elope as Oliver and I had. Alex was spontaneous and romantic with her and she doted on him and the children. They would seem to be so happily devoted to each other and then out of the blue, Lucy would come to me in tears, confused and hurt and feeling rejected because Alexander had pulled away.

“I cocked everything up,” My sister told me at the table when it was just the two of us folding towels, “I told him I love him.”

“Did you now?” I asked with interest, “And how is that a cock up?”

“You should have seen the look on his face. It was like I stuck a dirty sock under his nose,” She buried her face in her arms.

“What did he say?”

“He said the worst thing possible.”

I shut my eyes and cringed, unable to fathom the worst thing Alexander could come up with to say. I hesitated to ask, “What was that?”

“Nothing! He said absolutely nothing!” She laughed, but not like she thought that it was funny in the slightest, “And I immediately changed the subject to what we should do for Natalie’s birthday!”

“I’m sorry he’s such an arse,” I told my sister sincerely.

“I love him just the same,” She lifted her head, “So I think that makes me the arse.”

One night in late September, nearly four months later, Oliver and I were startled awake by the sound of voices. Not the playful voices of the elves or the tender voices of lovers whispering in the night, but the thunderous voices of two people who were very much in the midst of a nasty row in the garden.

Oliver and I hurried to the window in the kitchen.

“Don’t you walk away from me!” My sister screamed, chasing Alexander through the grass. “Alexander, I mean it! Don’t you walk away from me! Let’s finish this!”

“What the fuck do you want from me, Lucy?” He turned halfway across the garden and faced her. He shook his hands in a manner as if to say he was ready to throttle her.

“I want you! Are you that bloody stupid?” The gestures didn't seem to faze her, “I want to know where we stand!”

“And I need to get away from you so I can think!”

“About what? About how much time you’ve wasted?” She stood her ground. “About how long you think I’m going to wait for you to realise that you love me, too? How long do you think I’m going to let you string me along? I won’t wait forever for you to make up your mind!”