by Mary Jaine
Teruko smiled happily, her hand holding her stomach protectively.
"Jakku san, we will have baby one day soon, a strong son, I have wish for a strong son, to have your courage and heart, a son to be proud of, and carry your name proudly. Parents are pleased, and all is well, look, they have blessed me!"
*
Back in England, more good news awaited us. Mum was overjoyed to hear she was having a grandchild, and Grandad was even more so. He took Teruko and me aside for a private chat.
"Jack, I used to wonder if you'd ever settle down, and with what kind of girl. You picked the right one there, she's everything you need, and she loves you more than you deserve, and I think it's about time you knew that! Your mother and I have been thinking about things while you were away, and we've come to decision. I'm getting too old to rattle around in that place by myself anymore, and to be honest, now that you're both married and gone, she's going to be even more alone. So I'm going to move in with her; she gets to look after me, I get to spend more time with my little girl again, and that house up in Oswestry, well, it's been in my family since 1767, and it would have gone to you one day anyway, but I'm signing it over to you and Teruko now. I can't look after it anymore, and I know Teruko loves the house, the grounds, and especially her chickens; there's space there for as many children as you can manage, and it needs a family to live there and love it as much as I do; you and Teruko, and that baby and all the others will do that, I know."
I couldn't speak for the huge lump in my throat, but Teruko wordlessly hugged him and kissed his cheek, thanking him and showing him how much she loved him.
*
So that's my story; I transferred from Woolwich to Donnington, just a little way down the road from Shrewsbury, and Teruko and I now live 20 minutes drive from mum, so they spend most of their days together, mum fussing over her as her pregnancy progresses, Grandad still doting on her, and me watching her blossom from girl to woman to mother. I have the best family in the world, and the best friends a man could ask for. Sai is also pregnant, so she and Teruko have their own little pregnant-female Freemasonry thing going; Harry and I avoid them when they're together, as we can't possibly win.
And they're both having boys! Harry and Sai are going to be our baby's Godparents, and Teruko and I will be Sai Fong's baby's Godparents; you're supposed to pick Godparents who will be a good influence on the child as they grow, well, I can't think of a better example of love, honesty, honour and commitment than Harry and Sai Fong; they'll be good for our son, I know that.
Every day I fall further and deeper in love with my Shining Girl, and every day I find a new and better way of telling her how much I love her. I'm truly, madly, deeply in love with her, and I love every second of it!
* * *
Shining Girl: Andy and Linda
* * *
PART 1:
My name's Linda, and this is the story about how I captured the sweetest man in the world, while fending off a complete twerp, and the most repulsive little tick God ever saw fit to curse the world with. Andy tells me a story begins at the beginning, and I've never worked out if that's deeply profound, or just trite and meaningless, but, I'll follow his advice and start from the beginning.
My parents, The Right Honourable Nigel Grosvenor-Edgeworth and Chloe Cavendish-Haldane, were the products of two of Britain's oldest and wealthiest families; theirs was a dynastic marriage in every sense of the word; the problem was, they didn't see themselves as the next generation of captains of industry; rather, they saw themselves as the beneficiaries of their ancestors' industry, business acumen, and huge wealth; they were a playboy and an 'It Girl' respectively, happy to live off the bottomless trust funds settled on them by their doting parents and grandparents. Their more responsible brothers took up the reins of the various industrial combines both sides of the families owned, and my parents lazed and played.
My father pretended to be an antiques dealer, although to be perfectly honest, he was only a dilettante at best, with a taste for antique furniture and objets d'art that he somehow never got around to selling; dancing with minor Royals at Annabel's, shooting, partying in Mustique, and being photographed in Cannes, Nice and San Tropez with his hands all over big-breasted American starlets in teeny-tiny bikinis seemed to be his main preoccupations.
Mother didn't even pretend to work; her racehorse stable, her sports cars, her various artist 'friends', guaranteed entrance to the Royal Box at Ascot, Polo at Hurlingham, a private box for The Bolshoi, and weekend breaks in Barbuda, these were my mother's life and her pastimes.
Quite how my older brother, Andrew, or Andy for short, and my twin brother Freddy and I came about has always been a mystery to me; my parents hardly ever seemed to be on the same planet as the rest of us, or each other, let alone the same bedroom or time-zone, but things must have got interesting a few times, hence the three of us. I put it down to divine providence and boredom, as there's really no other explanation. They never brought their dalliances home, but I only needed to see a picture of my mother in one scandal-rag or another, with her mouth glued to some pop star's and his hands up her dress a limited number of times to realise what she was up to.
That my parents stayed together at all was always a source of wonder to me, seeing as they never did the things married couples are supposed to do together, obviously preferring instead to do them with other people, but they did love each other, in an aimless, entirely non-exclusive sort of way. I suppose it helped that they were both almost ridiculously good-looking, a set of genes none of us seem to have inherited; 'not bad' is probably the kindest description you could give of me, and as for Freddy...
A description or two is called for at this point. Freddy and I, as twins, share the same blue eyes and brown hair, like our mother (well, that's her real colour; at the moment she's channelling Gwen Stefani, so her hair is currently a brittle platinum), but we both look like daddy; we both have that same 'aristocratic' chin (whatever that is), and the same smooth, high forehead, straight nose, and wide full mouth that makes daddy so attractive; however, Daddy is tall and well-built, while Freddy is short and slightly built, with the muscle tone of a rubber band, and the personality and social skills of a paperclip.
I tower over him at 5'6", and weigh in at a comfortable 9 stone, or 126 lbs for our transatlantic chums (and don't ask me what that is in kilos; if I knew, or cared, I'd be French, a terrible fate...) with a slim build and a 22" waist, long hair that falls to the middle of my back, nice but not extravagant 32B boobs, and I've been told I have a nice shapely bum, due mostly to sport and gymnastics all the way through school.
Freddy is 3 inches shorter than me, and considerably skinnier; if he stood sideways-on and stuck out his tongue, he'd look like a zipper. Andy once tried to get him to exercise with him, claiming he looked like a gate-post with a toast-rack stuck on half-way up, but Freddy revels in looking like a half-starved, skeletal, famine victim; I think he thinks it makes him look lean and interesting, but really, he just looks famished. I also think he's hoping for a growth spurt. Otherwise he's doomed to spend his life as an Oompa-loompa, but without the charm; personally speaking, I just wish he'd wash more often; please don't let me be the only girl in the world whose brother selects which socks to wear by picking the ones that don't make a sucking noise when you pull them off the floor...
Andy is two years older than us, and he's the big, eye-catching one in our family, see below.
Growing up with a twin brother and an older brother was interesting; Andy was always the one I turned to when I needed something, wanted something, or needed a shoulder to cry on; I soon worked out that, twin or no, I had absolutely nothing in common with Freddy, and his coterie of creepy little friends were equally unappealing; at least Andy didn't spend his time teasing or annoying me, but when I came home for my coach-weekends, there would be Freddy, usually with one or more of his sweaty, weedy little cohorts, gearing-up to try and make my life miserable once again.
That, of course, didn't trou
ble me in the slightest; Freddy's friends were all as puny as he was, and a good open-handed smack in the right place, the way Andy had showed me, would have had any of them curled-up on the ground and crying for their mummy.
I think you've probably got the message by now that Andy and I are more connected than my twin and I ever were; over the years, Andy came to be the one I needed and depended on, and eventually I came to see him as more, much more, than just my big, gentle, patient, sweet older brother. The trouble was, I didn't really know what was happening to me; all I did know for sure was that Andy made me feel safe, secure, wanted, and loved, and I adored him. More of that later.
It was Freddy that concerned me; he'd started acting possessive and over-attentive towards me, which unnerved me a little; I didn't get it, as he was usually such a creepy little pizzle. So I kept my distance, and ordered him to do likewise, or I was going to barge into his room late one night and kick him so hard he'd be singing soprano the rest of his life.
After a while it started to become more than tiring, and became a little bit frightening. It got to the point eventually that one year we were both home from school on coach weekends, and Freddy developed the habit of suddenly bursting into my room, on the pretext of asking me something, or to tell me something, or because he was looking for something. I complained to Daddy, but I'm not sure to this day he even got what I was saying; he just gave me vague assurances, slipped me a twenty-pound note, and basically patted me on the head, so, no joy there.
I couldn't turn to Andy for help; he was off at boarding school too, all the way over in Shrewsbury, and, because he was playing in the Inter-School Rugby Tournament that year, held over several Coach Weekends leading up to the summer holiday and Prize Day, he was staying at school, and I wouldn't even see him until the week the summer break began, after Prize Day.
So I gritted my teeth and avoided sweaty Freddy and his oik friends on the last couple of Coach Weekends before school gave out and Andy would be home all summer to keep him away from me. My last coach weekend, Andy invited me up to his school for Prize Day; of course I said yes; the only down-side was that sweaty little goblin Freddy would be there too, as he also went to Shrewsbury.
Boy was I glad I went! All of Andy's friends were gorgeous, but two stuck out for me; Harry Waterfield, who was just the most gorgeous boy I'd ever seen, and Jack Cameron, who easily matched Andy for height and heft. I'd seen both Harry and Jack play rugby on TV, when the two of them, together with Andy, were selected for an England Schoolboys XV to play a Rest Of The World team at Twickenham, but to see them in the flesh; my heart was all a flutter! I did see Freddy occasionally, sulking and glowering in the background, but paid him no mind; what was he compared to these sporting heroes?
After that, I started spending my coach weekends with friends; I'd get cajoling, wheedling, finally angry, then hostile, phone calls from Freddy, demanding I come home, but even the stupidest guy will eventually come to understand that constantly being told to 'Piss Off!' means just that.
Appeals to my parents (when they were visiting our planet) to get him off my back made no difference; their response was that he was growing up, he'd calm down soon, just ignore him. I was just waiting for my mother to tell me to tap him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, they were that disconnected from reality by now...
Finally, the great day came, and I was finished with that prison of a school forever; my 18th had come and gone, and summer stretched before me; I took a Gap Year, and travelled around a bit, mostly the Med, to try out the sun-spots my mother seemed so fond of, occasionally even crossing paths with her and her herd of acolytes and hangers-on, some of the young men even assuming I was a chip off my mother's old block, but I soon put them straight; besides, orange tans and over-whitened teeth do nothing for me...
When I came back to England, I hung-out with friends who'd also taken Gap Years, clubbed and partied a little, and eventually ended-up working for a while in London as a library assistant at The Houses of Parliament, so, with the Gap year I'd taken, I was 19, and a little more worldly than when I'd left school when I was ready to start at university.
I'd been accepted at City of London, my university of choice, to study Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, or PPE; we had a place in London, so my accommodation was sorted, and I had my living expenses paid by the trust-fund my grandparents had set-up for me, knowing just how feckless, aimless and irresponsible my parents were, so I was looking forward to a nice, long, peaceful summer that fateful year.
Freddy had eased-off on me, and he'd even stopped creeping me out; now he was just a lurking presence, no longer threatening, just ubiquitous and slightly sad.
I'd worked out a long time ago that he was hoping for a...relationship with me, and the thought disgusted me, ever since Cornelia Sykes had asked me, half in jest, half seriously, and all maliciously, if I was 'doing it' with my twin brother; when I replied in the revolted negative, she back-pedalled, going-on about how 'twincest' was common, they all did it, why should I be any different, blah, blah, blah. Feeble Freddy, the poison dwarf? Akkk! Someone pass me the bucket...
There was only one thing false about my whole response to her snide little questions; the thought of doing anything even remotely intimate with Freddy gave me a case of the crawling heebies, but, and this is a big but, there was no such feeling when I thought about Andy that way.
As long as I could remember, Andy had always been my protector, my confidante, my mentor in the field of directed violence, and the token adult in my life, even though he was only two years older than I was; he was cool, competent, capable, masculine in a way I couldn't define but that sent shivers up and down my spine, and I loved him dearly. I'd always adored him, but, as I approached my twenties, I began feeling things for him that were definitely not appropriate, but were nevertheless impossible to ignore, nor did I want to, and that itself gave me pause for thought.
I suppose, looking at him objectively, he was never going to be Jude Law or Brad Pitt; he has a firm chin with a cleft in it that had always fascinated me when I was a little girl, piercing, ice-blue eyes, a forehead that's going to be craggy one day, just like grandfather Grosvenor-Edgeworth, and a mop of curly black hair that always looks like he's run his fingers through it instead of combing; he wasn't a pretty-boy, not like Harry, or Jack, but he was quietly, ruggedly handsome, and self-assured in a way that had girls his own age constantly twittering around him, much more so than Harry, who honestly had no clue just how gorgeous he was .
What did it for me, though, was the lower 6 feet or so of him; at 250 lbs, Andy was built like the powerhouse rugby player that I always knew he'd become, with massive shoulders, a deep, square chest, and powerful, muscular legs that gave him a 100m time of 10 seconds, Olympic qualifying territory for a man 100 lbs lighter than him; no wonder the British Lions had snapped him up first chance they got. The fact he was sweet, gentle, good-natured, and actually cared about me helped no-end, too.
He was away at medical school now, in his third year at Edinburgh, so his club rugby days were over, apart from the occasional collegiate tournament, but Edinburgh University Medical School were absolutely ecstatic they'd nabbed someone with Andy's intellect, who also, and entirely coincidentally, had been capped for England a dozen times and had captained the British Lions in two Six-Nations tournaments before his 20th birthday.
The prestige of the university medical school, already one of the highest in the world, took a sharp upward curve by having an England International and captain of the Lions on the student roll. For me, though, watching my big brother lead the British Lions out against France, Australia, the peerless Springboks, and the mighty New Zealand All-Blacks was a thrill I shall never forget.
Freddy, weasel that he was, had taken a gap year too, then tried to get into City of London, but was unsuccessful; the best he could manage was Aberystwyth, which suited me; the further away he was from me, the better I liked it, and it was sweeter knowing he would be incarcerated
in grim Aberystwyth all the way out on the West Wales coast, a storm-lashed place of no interest whatsoever; there were so many stunningly beautiful places in Wales to site a university, so why pick a place that was almost impossible to get to? Still, it would at least keep my manky brother a long, long way away from me for the next couple of years. All I had to do now was last out my last summer at home and keep Freddy and his creepy-crawly friends at bay for a few short weeks.
Events conspired against me, though; the headmaster at Shrewsbury School was leaving, and a reception and presentation, followed by a finger buffet, was being held to honour him, and as many old boys as possible were invited. Andy called to say he was going, and would I like to tag along? With the prospect of running an eyeball or two over man-candy like Harry Waterfield again, try and stop me!
There was going to be a rugby match too, a testimonial game the following day, but I'd decided I didn't want to stay over and watch the match, so had bought a day-ticket on the train to go home to Bath after the reception.
I arranged to meet Andy at Shrewsbury station the morning of the reception, but when I arrived he texted me to say he was running late, there was a smash-up on the M6 Toll; he was stuck on the approach to the M54, and it would be another 30 minutes before he got there, so he suggested I should make my way to the school, and he'd meet me there.
The 'rents of course were nowhere to be seen; probably off trawling for new playmates in the Comoros or somewhere equally far-flung and trendy, (but not together; that would have just cramped their style), but that was nothing new; they'd never once shown up at any of our school functions; half my friends thought I was making them up anyway...
I was just about to climb into a taxi when I heard what I'd secretly been dreading.
"Lin, Lin, Hi, wait up, Lin, it's me!"
It was Freaky Freddy, looking even more unappetising than usual; a summer spent avoiding him hadn't improved the way I felt about him. He was still a weedy twerp, and now he was here; a quick, heartfelt prayer for God to drop a bus on him went unanswered, so I gritted my teeth and waited for the usual leering and pathetic attempts to look up my skirt or down my blouse.