‘Wings?’
Dum-dum-der-dum-dum-der-dum. The first bars of the wedding march started up and Eve’s nerves spiked. They entered the chapel and she saw Jacques waiting for her, wearing a stunning black tailcoat suit, white shirt with a high collar – very Poldarky – and she gasped at how handsome he looked. She really had expected him to be dressed somewhere between Elvis and a giant Robin. The chapel was decorated in twinkly snowflake lights and was full of people she loved: elves, Violet’s husband Pav with their little boy Kasper, Myfanwy and her fiancé Robbie, Cariad, Phoebe’s family, friends, Welsh lads, Polish lads, Patrick – Auntie Susan’s other half – and Davy alongside Jacques. And standing at the front was Nick, in full Father Christmas costume and looking more like the real thing than the real thing ever could.
She began to walk down the aisle, Phoebe sashaying behind her, channelling her inner Kardashian, and dear Violet trying not to stand on her train.
When she drew level with Jacques, he winked at her and her heart kicked. She really was a lucky bitch.
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here . . .’ was as far as Nick reached before the pain shot through her and it took everything she had to hold on to that holly-berry smile.
Chapter 75
Jackie wasn’t the huggy sort; her compassion showed in the throw she’d had warming on her radiator for when Palma came in and the chicken that was roasting in the oven to feed her. Jackie had picked her up from the hospital on the day of the fight; Palma would stay at hers overnight, until Tommy and Neil came back from London. Jackie made her sit in the oversized rocking chair in the conservatory and put a hot chocolate down on the table at the side of her.
‘Thank you for doing this, Jackie,’ said Palma. ‘I’d have been all right at Tommy’s by myself.’
‘Like hell you would,’ said Jackie, in a tone that didn’t entertain such nonsense. ‘He’d never have forgiven me for leaving you alone and I wouldn’t have forgiven myself. The least I can do is feed you and we can watch the fight together. Our telly is bigger than his anyway. Seventy-inch, his is only sixty-five.’
Jackie gave a little smile and looked down in her cup for a moment, as if taking a cue on what to say from the swirl of cream on the top.
‘I’m sorry about what happened to your daughter, love,’ she said eventually. ‘I know it’s nothing like, really, but I lost a baby when Neil and I first started living together. At five months. It was hard. The baby wasn’t planned but . . . it hurt us. Tommy doesn’t know.’ She coughed away the slightest of wobbles in her voice. ‘It never leaves you, but eventually you find a place to put your memories so they don’t rub your insides raw.’ Then she jumped up as if to move away from a draught of cold sadness that was threatening to envelop her. She whipped the throw from the radiator and put it on Palma’s lap. ‘Anyway, put this over you. Keep you warm.’
Palma was moved by such a simple consideration and said thank you, because gushing would have embarrassed her; less was more with Jackie.
‘They told me that Gracie has already saved the life of one neonatal baby so it wasn’t all for nothing.’ She’d half-drowned in a pool of grief on the first day, but when she’d heard that on the second, the news had placed some solid ground beneath her feet. She’d felt her lungs take their first deep breath since Gracie passed and she’d slept for longer that night than she had in weeks. ‘I know I couldn’t have kept her, Jackie. My head knows that, my heart just needs to catch up.’
‘Tommy’s a good lad. He’ll look after you . . . oh, talk of the devil and he’s sure to appear,’ said Jackie, as her mobile phone started playing ‘Eye of the Tiger’. She picked it up and began to speak into it. ‘Yep . . . she’s here . . . course I picked her up . . . She’s sitting with me and we’re going to watch you kick Frank Harsh’s arse, so you better not let us down . . . yep, I will . . .’ She handed the phone over to Palma. Tommy’s dear voice conjured up a picture of him so clearly that he could have been standing in front of her.
‘Hello sweetheart, how are you? Sorry, I said I wouldn’t ask that because it’s stupid.’
Palma smiled. No one had the right words. The nurses had smiled a lot and softened their voices when they needed to check her caesarean wound and do their obs. Annie had rung and said that she had no words for her but she and Joe were there if she needed anything; Iris had sent a card with the simple message, ‘God Bless’.
‘I’m okay, Tom. Are you?’
‘I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. We’ll be driving up as soon as we can.’
‘I’ll be watching you tonight,’ said Palma.
‘I’ve given Jackie a big box of chocolates for you to share whilst I’m on. Don’t let her eat them all.’
‘I heard that, Tommy Tanner,’ Jackie cut in.
‘I’m bringing the belt back home for Gracie,’ said Tommy.
‘You do that,’ said Palma. She’d told him to put all his grief in his boxing gloves and he promised her that he would.
‘I love you, Palms,’ he said, tenderly, emotion thick in his voice. ‘I don’t know, one minute I was helping you up from the ground in the park, the next you became my everything. How did that happen, eh?’ His words found her heart, warmed it, healed it a little. She’d mend with Tommy, she knew. They’d be all the stronger for what had happened. Gracie had bound them together and she would always be part of them both.
‘I don’t know how. I’m just glad it did.’
Someone shouted to him in the background.
‘Go do it for Jackie and Neil – and me and Gracie, Tommy. Do it for all of us.’
‘I will. And then I’m going to buy you the biggest diamond I can find, if you’ll wear it,’ he said.
‘I’ll wear it,’ she said, ‘I love you, too and I’m so proud of you, Tom,’ and she handed the phone back to Jackie.
After wishing him luck, Jackie put her phone down and sighed. ‘Oh, Palma, it must have been hard telling him to go when you needed him the most.’
Palma smiled at her. ‘It wasn’t, Jackie. He was there for me and now I’m here for him. I’m part of it all. I want him to live out his dream because it’s become my dream too.’
Jackie curled her hand into a fist and presented it to Palma who bumped it with her own.
‘Welcome to Team Tanner, love. Nice to have you on board,’ she said.
Chapter 76
These were contractions, no doubt of that at all.
‘You okay?’ asked Jacques, bending to her as the congregation sang ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.
‘Yep,’ she squeaked. How many verses did that hymn have? It felt as if they’d sung twelve already.
Great. Now liquid was tickling down her legs. Her waters had broken in the chapel and had it not been for the massive frock, Father Christmas, twelve elves, a dozen snowmen et al would have been witness to a pregnant lady waterfall.
The interminable hymn finished at last. Nick asked if anyone had any lawful impediment to this marriage. No one did, but Davy MacDuff coughed as if he might, and there were a few chuckles.
‘Do you take this woman . . .’ began Nick with slow, Santaesque gravitas. Oh, please hurry up, thought Eve. He was speaking like an old 45 r.p.m. record being played at thirty-three and a third.
‘Do you take this man to . . .’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Eve, interrupting him and then bowing over as another spasm of pain washed through her.
‘Darling?’
‘I’m okay, Jacques. I’m just . . . giving birth. Nick, please, carry on.’
Contractions were supposed to come on gradually, weren’t they? These had threatened to split her in half from the off. Her Granny Ferrell had sent a curse for not being invited to the wedding, like Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. It was the only explanation.
Above her head she heard a swoop and locked still as Effin had told her to. Stephen the snowy owl landed perfectly on the altar carrying a ring bag on one foot, which Nick couldn’t unhook and Effin had to step forward and do it for him
.
Eve tried to say her vows but her brain could only retain one word at a time. Candles, think birthday candles, she thought to herself. ‘For – puff – richer – puff – for – puff – poorer – puff . . .’ She ran out of mental candles.
‘Auntie Eve, I think you might have wet yourself,’ whispered Phoebe from her side.
Eve crunched over, straightened up again and insisted she was fine.
Jacques said his vows at top speed then pushed a beautiful eternity ring onto her finger.
‘Inowpronounceyoumanandwifeyoumaykissthebride,’ yelled Nick as Jacques picked up his wife, bump, waters and all and ran down the aisle.
*
‘Thomas, crank that train up,’ ordered Jacques.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Thomas said, in full headless chicken mode. ‘Oh my, my.’
‘Thomas, you useless coc, full accelerator,’ screeched Effin, jumping on the back. ‘I’ll drive you to the hospital, Missus. It’ll be quicker than waiting for an ambulance.’
The Nutcracker Express did what it loved to do best; it sped down the track at full pelt, throwing its passengers from one side to the other then screeched to a halt, depositing them at the gates with whiplash.
Effin ran as fast as he could to unlock them, threw the gate keys back at Thomas, then helped Jacques to load Eve into his vehicle.
Please do not let me give birth on a dust sheet in the back of a builder’s van, prayed Eve inwardly as she grabbed onto both her husband’s hand and the corner of a bag of cement at the peak of her next contraction.
Chapter 77
Jacques ‘Junior’ Glace was born in the back of Effin Williams’s builder’s van on a dust sheet, delivered by his father two traffic lights away from the hospital whilst his mother grabbed onto the corner of a bag of cement to offset the pain of her contractions. He totally ruined his mother’s beautiful wedding gown but she would learn to forgive him for that.
Later that night, when Eve had been transferred to a hospital bed and into her big T-shirt nightie kindly dropped off by her Auntie Susan, she lay with her nine pounds nine ounce baby, drunk with milk, sleeping gently on one side of her and her grinning, Poldarky husband on the other.
‘That didn’t go as planned,’ she said with a sigh.
‘The modern-day equivalent of a stable and a manger, maybe?’ suggested Jacques.
‘Oh, it was worse, much worse. I don’t think Mary had that amount of stitches either.’
‘We missed the buffet. And I had crackers made especially. And the cake – goodness me. Tiramisu-flavoured. With loads of rum.’
‘I hope everyone enjoyed it for us,’ Eve smiled and looked down at her boy. When it came to a choice between a few sausage rolls or meeting this little – well, huge – guy who had had the cheek to steal the bride’s thunder, it really was a no-brainer.
‘Effin and the Welsh lads have reached home,’ said Jacques, lifting his sleeping son’s tiny hand and marvelling at it.
‘Oh that’s good. We won’t have Angharad on the warpath then.’
Jacques sighed contentedly.
‘I think that anything you and I do isn’t destined to go to plan, but I don’t really care.’
‘Me neither.’ Eve chuckled. ‘I think we should consider ourselves married and not try for another renewal, though.’
‘What a great idea.’ His phone beeped and he pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the screen and smiled.
‘Tommy Tanner won. Knockout in the sixth round.’
‘Oh, that’s brilliant,’ said Eve.
‘It certainly is. I had twenty pounds on him at five to one. Will you be up and okay to make Christmas dinner on Monday?’ Jacques took Eve’s hand and kissed the back of it.
‘I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be tucking into hospital food and you’ll be eating tiramisu-flavoured wedding cake.’
‘No, I’m going up to your Auntie Susan’s for turkey with all the trimmings,’ said Jacques. ‘Obviously I’ll come up and visit you afterwards.’
‘Thanks a lot. Very kind of you.’ Eve feigned indignation.
‘She’s invited us up for New Year, too. You and our son.’
Our son. They both grinned.
Right on cue, the baby stirred, frowned at this strange world where there was no liquid to bounce around in but warmth and milk and people who stared at him with big curves on their faces.
Eve handed him to Jacques. The man who had rekindled the blown-out flame in her heart. The man who made every day feel like Christmas Day. Where would she have been now had she not met him?
Jacques marvelled at the little boy in the cradle of his large hands. He was the most perfect thing he had ever seen in his life, give or take the sight of Eve walking down the aisle towards him with her green eyes shining. He would never tell her that she had looked like a very happy, very beautiful, very rotund snowwoman.
‘I suppose I’ll have to grow up now and be sensible,’ sighed Jacques.
‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ said his wife.
Daily Trumpet, 24 December
Last night the world of boxing saw Tommy ‘TNT’ Tanner hold on to his British Welterweight title as he knocked out Londoner Frank Harsh with a crunching left hook in the sixth round in London’s O2 arena.
In an emotional speech delivered from the ring, TNT paid tribute to his girlfriend, who watched the fight from home. Their newborn daughter Gracie died three days previously of a rare condition. There was hardly a dry eye in the arena as Tommy said, ‘On Wednesday my daughter lost her fight so I was determined to win mine in memory of her.’
The Following Summer
‘Well here we all are – together again,’ said Di, tilting her head back and letting the sun shine down on her face. Beside her, two red-haired little boys sat in their double buggy, kicking their sturdy legs contentedly and staring at the women lounging on the grass around them as if trying to work out the connection between them. ‘Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself?’
‘You’re cheerful, Di,’ said Cheryl, distributing some paper plates in readiness for the sandwich sharing. ‘Dare we ask?’
‘All good with me,’ replied Di. ‘Husband back under the thumb where he belongs, Mum and Dad ready to babysit at the drop of a hat, all bits and bobs in full working order and regularly tested. In fact, I’m sure they put an extra stitch in. It’s all much better than it was before, if you know what I mean, ladies.’
Fil cackled and set everyone else off.
‘You’ve got your figure back, Di,’ said Cheryl, who was plumper than she’d ever been in her life.
‘You’ll get yours back soon,’ Di returned.
Cheryl huffed. ‘I don’t want mine back, I want Fil’s.’
Fil reached for a tupperware box full of egg mayo sandwiches.
‘I’m eating like a horse,’ she said. ‘You won’t want my figure in a couple of months.’
‘Wanna bet?’ said Cheryl.
Palma was standing rocking Massimo. ‘What are you feeding this monster, Annie? He’s enormous. Enormous.’ She gently pinched the baby’s full cheeks and he giggled. She had been dreading seeing Annie’s and Joe’s baby for the first time, but she needn’t have worried. There was no outpouring of stagnant grief, only a rush of gladness that two of her favourite people on the planet had been so blessed.
‘How’s the morning sickness, Palma?’ asked Di.
‘All done and dusted,’ said Palma, restored to her pink-haired magnificence and glowing. ‘I tell you, that first day when you realise you’ve made it through without having to lean over the toilet bowl.’ She patted the small growing mound of her stomach. Let’s have our babies when we’re young, said Tommy. Let’s have it all. They had moved to a bigger house with a conservatory and builders were starting on an Arctic cabin in the garden at the weekend. Tommy wanted her to have her dream too – and he’d gladly share it with her.
‘Everything going okay with you, Palma?’ Cheryl gave her a hopeful smile.
‘So far so good. There’s no reason to suggest anything could be wrong but they’re keeping a good eye on me just in case. It feels so different to last time.’
Three children now had been given the letters written by Palma to open when they were older and Palma and Tommy had taken a great deal of comfort from that. And Jackie had been right, the grief had lost its hard edges, the pain had eventually given way to something deep and thankful for the gift of her daughter. Palma wouldn’t have missed having Gracie for the world, experiencing that connection, feeling life grow inside her.
‘I have my first meeting at the Christmas Pudding Club on Wednesday. Phase two,’ Palma went on.
‘They won’t be as nice as us,’ sniffed Di.
‘Obviously,’ Palma smiled.
‘How’s the cracker business, Annie?’ asked Cheryl.
‘Thriving. Thanks to Palma. She’s a marvel.’
‘Who would ever have thought I’d find my true vocation in the land of crackers?’ said Palma, directing the question to Massimo’s toothless grinning face.
‘And being a boxer’s wife,’ added Fil. Ayo was asleep in a nest of her lotus-positioned, endless legs.
‘Fiancée, not wife yet.’ Palma twinkled her diamond at Fil, who pretended to be blinded by it. Fil was pregnant again too. She’d told them that she didn’t want to let all those maternity swimming costumes to go to waste.
The heat of the sun seemed to suddenly crank up by degrees and, as if annoyed by that, one of Di’s twins scrunched up his face and started to cry.
‘Oh, come here Jacob, you mardy bugger,’ said Di, unclipping him, lifting him onto her knee and then expertly popping out a boob. Jacob latched on and sucked contentedly.
‘I used to have sleep. I’ve forgotten what the thing is,’ she said, looking down at her son. He stared back at her with big blue trusting eyes and she felt something sweet spread inside her, like warmed syrup. She’d loved many people in her life, but this love threw every other sort into shade. It was chuffing terrifying. ‘I mean, why do we have ’em? They land like bombs in your life, they change it all. They’re heartbreaks in romper suits. I can’t look at anything on the TV where kids get hurt. It’s like I’ve had a layer of my skin ripped off and I’m super-sensitive to everything now.’
The Mother of All Christmases Page 36