Eliza came down to an empty house. Looking out onto the garden she stopped for a minute to appreciate the vision of family and friends all in her garden. Jonny proudly showing them around. This was the vision she had of their nest. Her stomach fluttered. For a second she had forgotten she was pregnant. She hadn’t felt much movement from the baby in the last few weeks. The performances, and their chosen secrecy, had masked that. Here and now she could feel a significant squirming. It caught her by surprise and she held onto the work top to steady herself, just as everyone started to filter back in.
“Drinks anyone?” she called out, trying to ignore the alien feeling in her stomach.
“I’ll sort it.” Jonny’s mother took over.
Eliza linked arms with Leesa and lead her over to the buffet.
“I can’t believe you didn’t let on that you were coming across.” Eliza was immediately drawn to the ham. Great big chunks of home baked ham, sat next to a pot of coleslaw. She could smell the savoury notes wafting up and making her salivate. She inhaled deeply and licked the smell off her lips.
“Well I was dying to see this place and Jonny said you had a surprise planned for us all.”
“Yes.” Eliza didn’t have time to elaborate before Leesa’s kids bounded up, nearly knocking her over.
When Leesa had turned her back to help with the kids, and whilst she thought no-one else was looking, Eliza piled a few slices of the ham into a bread roll and covered it with coleslaw. Squashing it down so the bread became all doughy again. She couldn’t ram it in fast enough. Little groans of pleasure escaping from her mouth, mixed with distraught pangs of guilt.
“What you got there?” Jonny asked sidling up behind her. He spied the pink meat slipping out from the side of the roll. Her mouth chocked full with the carnivorous contraband, creamy juice from the coleslaw dribbling from the corner of her mouth.
“Eliza?” He was shocked, but in a good way. His shock soon turning to laughter. Full on deep belly laughs.
“I’m absolutely mortified, but I can’t stop myself,” she cringed.
Everyone stopped to look at what Jonny was laughing at. He was uncontrollably sobbing now and couldn’t stop to explain what had set him off and why Eliza was stabbing at him with her fork. Begging him to stop.
When he finally calmed himself enough, he looked at Eliza through bleary, tear filled eyes.
“Now?” he asked.
She nodded. Still a little mad at him for laughing at her and still a whole lot mad at herself for breaking her twenty year vow of vegetarianism.
“Everyone,” he bellowed. “We’ve got an announcement to make.”
Eliza quickly wiped her mouth with a napkin.
Jonny’s father turned down the music on the hi-fi.
When he felt there was sufficient hush and enough guests had filtered from the living room and garden into the kitchen. He put his arm around Eliza, who now had her hand resting on her belly.
“We’re going to have a baby.”
Leesa set everyone off with a “whoop, whoop”. Cheers, claps and hands slapping counters and table tops echoed around the room.
Jonny’s mother rushed over to them. Giving them both a full on kiss and rubbing Eliza’s belly.
“When?” Jonny’s father called out.
“September.”
Everyone breaking into small independent conversations and coming up to congratulate the pair of them.
Leesa ignored her children pulling at her top and went across to hug Eliza.
“Never mind me keeping a secret from you. What about you? How did I not notice?”
“I know,” Eliza replied. “It’s completely insane isn’t it?”
They both hugged and did a little jig.
“Has anyone told you how much it hurts?”
“No, and to be honest I’m really not gonna think about it. So…” she held her hands up to Leesa, “before you start. Just don’t.”
“I won’t…but it does hurt you know. Like a bitch!”
“Oh well thanks for the sisterly sorority.”
“No problem. You can count on me to share the love,” she joked. “Anyway, come on. How far gone are you? Where was the wicked deed done? I want all of the gory details.”
Eliza slapped her playfully. “I’m four months and the rest is for me to know and you to wonder.”
“Four months? You’re hiding it well.”
“I know. Thank goodness. I’m hoping I’ll stay quite neat.”
“Pah! Perfect excuse to stuff your face with lots of lovely things and not feel guilty about it.”
“I know. I’ve just done that with a ham sandwich. Can you believe it?”
Leesa laughed in exactly the same way Jonny had done previously.
As the party guests started to drift away, Leesa asked if she could give the children a bath before they went to bed. Jonny’s grandad jumping in asking if they wanted to go look at the stars whilst Leesa ran the bath. They did, a bedtime story he called it. Kurt went with them.
They ventured into the domed hut and snuggled on either side of their father, leaning back as instructed, onto the bean bags inside. Jonny’s grandad used both hands to wind the wall mounted handle that pulled back the roof.
“So who can see the moon?”
“Me, me,” they both yelled.
“Do you know what the moon is made of?”
“Cheese,” the youngest shouted out.
“Doh!” the eldest chastised, “it’s not made of cheese. It’s a planet like earth.”
“What’s a planet?” the youngest asked.
“It’s where people live.”
“Oh…so who lives on the moon?”
“No-one.”
“Oh. So why is it a planet?”
“Mmm. Good point,” murmured Jonny’s grandad. It had been a while since he had been up against the wit of five year old.
Kurt knew it wasn’t a planet but let it go. He loved the way his girls were lapping up the mystery of the sky with Jonny’s grandad. It reminded him of Leesa’s father. Now he was retired he had so much more time for his family.
The youngest started sucking her thumb. A sure fire signal that she was about to go to sleep. Never mind. He would maybe let them both go to sleep here and carry them up to their beds. He was sure the bath wouldn’t go to waste, persuading Leesa to have a bit of one on one time was never a problem. And he couldn’t remember the last time they took a romantic bath together.
He took the youngest up first and suggested to Leesa that she hold off the kiddy bubbles in the bath and substitute something a bit more adult. She was up for it, as he predicted. Never lost her libido when the kids came along like so many other mothers he’d heard about.
Jonny had lit a fire pit in the garden and Tammy and Dirk were lounged out on a canopied sofa next to it.
“We’ll be down later.” Kurt called across to them as he carried the eldest up to bed.
“No rush,” replied Jonny. “Gonna light the barbecue in a bit. Got some proper meat to put on it. Although you’ll have to fight Eliza for it!”
She punched him in the arm. “Stop it!”
He just laughed, shrugging his shoulders at her.
They’d set up this patio area away from the annexe at the other side of the house. A cosy retreat, with a pergola that they’d had lighting suspended from. At one corner there was a brick built barbecue and in the middle of the seating area a fire pit.
Jonny grabbed an armful of cut logs from a wooden store next to the patio and arranged them on the pit. The flames and sparks dancing in the darkness. Charcoals on the barbecue were piled up ready for lighting when Kurt and Leesa reappeared.
He sat down next to Eliza on a padded wicker sofa. She curled up her legs next to her and rested her head on his shoulder, watching the flames lapping around the new fuel he’d added to the pit.
Half an hour later Leesa and Kurt joined their gathering.
“Waar ben je geweest?” asked Dirk.
“Nooit vind je het erg,” replied Leesa.
“Hey!” Jonny interjected.
“Well isn’t it about time you learnt Dutch?”
“Hmm. Probably, but you guys speak such good English, there’s no point.”
“What about when your kids start speaking in Dutch.”
“Not gonna happen.”
Eliza sat up. “Why?”
“Cos they live here in England. What reason is there for them to speak another language?”
“Because…” she argued.
“Because, what?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. Not every country speaks English.”
“Yeah but more people speak English than they do Dutch.”
“But it’s good for them to learn different languages. It helps develop the brain.”
“Yeah develop the brain by speaking different languages and then destroy it by drinking alcohol and taking drugs.”
“Philistine!” She laid back down on him.
He chuckled. He loved winding her up. It was starting to become a past time. Something he inherited from his father, he supposed.
“Nice bath?” Eliza asked Leesa.
“You know…I’ve had better,” she replied, smiling as she scooped up a handful of peanuts from a bowl on the table.
Kurt glared at her, stooped down to pick her up and threw her over his shoulder. Slapping her backside, he strutted off towards the house.
She kicked and screamed, banging her fists on his back. Peanuts flying everywhere.
“Put me down. Put. Me. Down,” she yelled.
“Only if you admit you’ve just had the fuck of your life.”
“Okay. I’ve been well and truly fucked and won’t be able to walk properly tomorrow. Now will you please put me down.”
“Thank you,” he plonked her on the grass. Draping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her into the crook of it. Kissing the top of her head.
“So how you feeling Eliza?” asked Tammy.
She had now become part of their extended family. Her innocent and open character refreshing. She never had a bad word to say about anybody. A startling contrast to Dirk. Where he was rough and crude she was soft and sweet. Even down to the way she dressed. It was like she wasn’t aware of how hot her body was, but scantily clothed it didn’t leave anything to the imagination. Today she was hardly wearing some teeny sports shorts and a racerback t-shirt. She was all college girl. Only stopping on full blown pigtails to fall short of the image.
She often said the wrong thing, but it was only ever a mistake. Never a deliberate downer on someone. Like when she had asked Eliza why she had left it so late to have children. It wasn’t a dig at her age or looks. It was an innocent question.
Tammy’s expectations and life outlook were narrow. She’d grown up in a rural part of the Netherlands only leaving to go to university in Amsterdam. She met Dirk on a night out with some friends. He’d made a beeline for her. Wanting to “dirty her up” as he had so crudely put it. In reality he liked that she was different to the usual groupies. Not looking for anything more, or for that matter less, than he was prepared to give.
She had her own way of standing up to him. Not in a challenging way, more of a “I don’t get that, so I’ll just ignore it and move on” type of way.
Eliza liked her. A lot.
“Yes I’m feeling fine now. Just a little nervous.”
Tammy came to sit next to her, and took hold of Eliza’s hand. A natural thing for Tammy to do. Eliza didn’t know if it was borne out of the six year old or the sixty-six year old Tammy. There was no real in between with her.
“You’ll be fine. I’ve been a birthing partner at all of my sister’s labours.”
“How many sisters have you got?”
“Eight. But only six of them have children.”
“Oh, wow!” Eliza exclaimed. Wondering if she would ever contemplate anyone other than Jonny being there.
“So do you want children, Tammy?”
Eliza saw Dirk’s ears pick up. Holding a mouthful of beer as if the action of swallowing might be too much if she came up with the wrong response.
“Yes, but I don’t want to rush anything. At the moment I’m happy just the way I am.”
Dirk swallowed.
“And Dirky…” she continued, “well Dirky has his daughter that he has to form a relationship with before he’s mature enough to have any more children.”
The atmosphere chilled a little. Jonny walked off mumbling something about getting the meat for the barbecue. Kurt took a sudden interest in the fire pit, stoking the logs with the iron poker. Then when he realised he couldn’t do that continuously for the next ten minutes, went off in search of Jonny.
Leesa sat forward on the sofa. “We’ve told you before Dirk, you’re more than welcome to bring Floortje to the farm. She’ll love to spend the weekend there with us and the girls.”
“Yeah. Sure. If her bitch mother will allow it.”
“Have you met Marjorie?” Eliza asked Tammy.
“Yes.” She shrugged her shoulders as if to say she didn’t have an opinion. Eliza didn’t push it.
“So have you thought of any names for the baby yet?” Tammy asked.
“Yes. I’ve got a list of Dutch names and Jonny’s got a list of English ones.”
“Hmm. Like that is it?” Leesa joked.
“Aren’t there any names common to both languages.” Tammy deadpanned.
“Yes. But that’s not the point.” Eliza jested, “it’s about having the national upper hand.” She leant over to Leesa and Tammy. “I’ve even told him I’m not sure about taking an English surname when we’re married. He thinks I’m serious too.”
“Well it would be wrong of you to ever give Jonny anything easily now would it?” Leesa jibed.
“Yeah. Suppose I’ve got a bit of a history on that score.”
On cue, Jonny walked back to the group with a tray full of meat and Kurt with a crate of beer.
“You lot lightened up yet?” jested Jonny. “We’ve got flesh to burn now. All in honour of my good lady, Eliza, the carnivore.”
Eliza tutted. “I’m never gonna live that one little indiscretion down, am I?”
“It wasn’t an indiscretion. It was enlightenment.”
He dumped the packs of meat on to the stone slab next to the grill and went across to her. Kneeling down he took her face in his hands. “You know I’m only pulling your leg, Angel. I love you and I’m so very proud of you.”
He softly placed his lips onto hers, kissing her lovingly in front of all their friends.
Her heart swooned. He was everything to her.
Strong. Soft. Romantic.
Pulling away, he looked into her eyes a little twitch of his mouth. A merest glimpse of white teeth. “My little meat eater, you.”
“Humpf.” She pushed him away, so he fell backwards. Catching himself with his hand. Laughing at her reaction.
“Cock!” She stuck her tongue out at him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Are you ready for this?”
Eliza was sat in the cockpit with Jonny. His newly purchased plane purring away on the runway.
He was waiting for the all clear from the tower and was as excited as hell. It was the first time Eliza had been up with him. Only agreeing to it because he had said it would make him the happiest man on earth if she agreed to him flying her and his family to their wedding. How could she refuse?
In the back was his mother, father, grandfather and grandmother. They were all strapped in to the plush leather armchairs. Champagne glasses at the ready. Everyone waiting to toast their inaugural flight.
Eliza had originally sat in one of those comfy looking armchairs. A fake smile planted on her lips, trying desperately not to let the fear show in front of her in-laws. She’d even let out a fake yodeling yawn. A signal that she was justified in closing her eyes before they were airborne.
Unfortunately for her Jonny was havin
g none of it.
“You’re up here with me,” he commanded.
“Don’t you think your grandad would like to be up front?”
“Probably, but I need you to be up here?”
“Why?” The panic rising in her chest.
“Because we need to get this whole ‘I’m afraid of flying thing’ kicked in to touch.”
“I’m sure we don’t actually.” Her lips pursed together tightly.
“Erh… yes we do. We fly too often in our line of work for it to carry on.”
He had unstrapped her and was pulling her along the plane.
She couldn’t protest as much as she felt inclined to. Not with his whole family there.
He pushed her down into the co-pilot seat and swiftly secured her in with a seat belt. Offering her a headset, so she could have the fully immersed experience.
“But I don’t want to see nothing in front of us like this.” She flailed her hands in front of her. “I feel too exposed.”
“Eliza you stand up on a stage in front of sixty thousand people and expose your soul to them. How is this so difficult?”
She had no response.
“Trust me. Please?”
He took her silence as acceptance and started with his preflight checks. Announcing out loud what he was doing. For her benefit mainly.
She took it all in. Twiddling her thumbs nervously and spinning her ring around and around her finger.
“Ready,” he announced across to her. It was more of a statement than a question. Her time to object over.
They taxied in silence to the runway. Jonny talking into his headset. Eliza listening in.
As they sped down the tarmac, she felt the panic build and she had an overwhelming urge to clamber to the back, but before she could act, Jonny pulled back on the tiller and the nose of the plane lifted.
All she could see was a cloud filled sky. Normally at this point her eyes would have been well and truly shut, but she couldn’t stop looking at the approaching white cotton-wool-like forms. The first few wisps rushed by them, and then the plane jolted a little as they entered the main mass of fluff. Her eyes darted across to Jonny who was perfectly calm. Relaxed even. The plane straightened up at the top of their ascent and they emerged out of the cloud mass into a blue serene space. Navy sky above them and bright blue to all four sides, pristine white below.
Loving his ANGEL_A Rock Star Romance Page 22