Epilogue: Three Decades Later

I turned off the A19 at The Cleveland Tontine junction with the A172. I was tired and stiff after so many hours in the car; if I hadn’t taken a few ‘souvenirs’ with me I’d have gone by train! It was a good five hours driving time, plus say another hour of hold-ups on the M42 and M6 around Birmingham, plus the perpetual joy of the 50 mph speed limit where they’ve been widening the A1 at Leeming Bar since Pontius was a pilot, plus a couple of half-hour stops for a leg stretch, a cup of what they claim is ‘coffee’ – (though it is almost unbelievably better than it was even twenty years ago) – and a pee. I’d left Cardiff just after eight that morning, and it was nearly five o’clock now.

I turned off the main road almost immediately onto the side road to Ingleby Arncliffe, where I could stop, and I picked my mobile phone off the passenger seat. I really don’t like the combination of mobile phones and driving; someone we knew quite well was killed a couple of years ago in a head-on collision by a young girl who was texting as she drove – it was an utter waste of two lives and caused a great deal of hurt to both families.

I clicked on one of my saved speed-dial numbers. It was answered almost immediately.

“Hello, my darling, I’m just on the 172, be about ten minutes!”

“Great! I’ll put the kettle on!”

“Love you!”

I ended the call and replaced the mobile on the passenger seat, then got moving again, turning right at the ‘Blue Bell’ and then back onto the A172. In just over the anticipated ten minutes (a tractor and trailer and no place to safely overtake), I was turning into the gate of an old Georgian Rectory, the gravel crunching under my tyres as I went past the door and then reversed into my usual parking space.

I picked up my overnight grip and the bag containing my suit – I’m too old a hand at travelling to actually wear the suit if I don’t have to – and bounced up the three worn stone steps to the door. Julie was holding the door for me, and I just had time to drop my luggage on the old pew in the hallway before my baggage lover had the door closed and was demanding a hug. I was home!

The dogs enthusiastically welcomed my return; once the excitement was over, Julie and I had a cup of tea and a home-made flapjack. It was very welcome. Then I got up, put the mugs and plates in the dishwasher, and stretched my cramped limbs.

“I could do with a shower; it’s been a long day.”

“Want your back washed?”

Well, I was hardly going to refuse, was I?

We have a fairly recently refurbished wetroom next to our bedroom; it’s bright and airy with the big Georgian window, although the roller blind does reduce the light (and the risk of being spotted from outside) when we are actually using the facilities. It’s got a sealed marble floor and travertine wall tiles, with a nice big shower head. Cost a bob or two, but we thought that it was worth the money. Naturally, there are some grab rails fixed to the wall, purely for safety’s sake, of course. You can’t be too careful with wet floors.

We expressed our mutual delight that I was safely back home.

“Why don’t you soak in the bath for a bit while I start supper?”

That too was a good idea; I was still a little bit car-shaped from a day behind the wheel, so I did that while I listened to the last bit of the six o’clock news on Radio Four. At 6.30, there was a play, which was the usual modern miserable stuff. It was tedious enough for me to pull out the plug, get out of the bath and switch the radio off before I started drying myself on the lovely big bath sheet that had been warming on the electric towel rail.

Like nostalgia, BBC Radio Four just isn’t what it used to be.

For many years, you could depend on a light-hearted half hour before The Archers, something like “The News Quiz“, or “Just a Minute“, or “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue“. They always left me smiling – even if I would never understand the rules for Mornington Crescent, or knowing that “our scorer, the lovely Samantha” or her male model counterpart ‘Sven’ were, despite the cheers and wolf-whistles that greeted the announcement, completely fictitious – and these days there was precious little simple carefree amusement on the radio. I grumbled to myself some more, and put on some casual clothes before heading back downstairs.

My wife was just putting a bowl of hot salad potatoes on the dining table – our favourite home-grown variety, Pink Fir Apple. I waited until she stood back up before grabbing her for a kiss. She didn’t mind one little bit, and kissed me back with enthusiasm.

While we were embraced, Julie came in behind us with a plate of tomatoes and a bowl of lettuce.

“Leave the poor lad alone, Sheila! At his age he can’t take too much excitement!”

“He started it!”

“You did, did you? Oh well, as long as you don’t make any promises that your body won’t be able to keep!”

I pretended to be offended. She’d certainly not complained about my performance an hour earlier!

She just giggled in that endearing way, and fluttered her eyelashes at me. So did my wife of nearly thirty years. They will keep ganging up on me!

“Twin’s just doing the trout on the barbeque; we heard the bathwater going out so we didn’t think you’d be long. We can have dinner and then take the dogs for a leisurely ramble; it looks like another lovely evening. Be a darling and get a bottle of the Pouilly-Fume out of the fridge?”

I’d just poured four generous glasses of our favourite dry white Loire Sauvignon Blanc when my brother-in-law entered the room with a dish of four freshly-grilled trout. He’s a devil for being there as soon as the cork comes out of the bottle! (He says precisely the same about me, to be fair.)

We sat down and helped ourselves, raising our glasses to each other before we started eating.

“So, Jon, how was your trip?”

“Not bad! It brought back a lot of memories, so I spent a lot of time thinking about the good old days on the way back!”

What did you expect, dear reader?

Yes, I married Sheila, and Julie married Adrian.

We were all the very best of friends, the twins had not found anyone by the time they graduated, and it seemed a very neat solution for us to marry them and for us all to find a home together. They got to live under the same roof for the rest of their lives, and Julie and I would also be together – and besides, I loved both girls, and Julie loved both of us men. Adrian and I were best friends, as were Julie and Sheila.

I’m not sure exactly when the germ of the idea took root in Julie’s mind (I suspect it was most likely that Valentine’s weekend when Adrian had reminded us all that if Sheila got pregnant there would be a real problem explaining who the father might be), but she first raised it with me on our way back from spending another weekend with the twins at the end of April, just before they got into their final year medical exams.

“Why don’t we invite the twins to share the flat? It’s handy for the hospital, and there’s room for four?”

I looked closely at her. I’d known her so long that I just knew there was something else she wanted to discuss, but wasn’t sure how best to bring up in conversation.

“But if we get married this summer, won’t it seem a bit odd to immediately take in lodgers when we haven’t done so for the last two years?”

She grinned, a little uncertainly.

“I’ve got a suggestion about that, darling. Please hear me out before you say yeah or nay.”

So I listened to her suggestion, and admitted that it might well work. It wasn’t actually all that difficult to agree with.

Julie had spent a lot of that Easter weekend (when I’d been on duty at the plant) talking to the twins about their plans and hopes for the future; she’d told them that our local hospital was being ambitiously re-developed on a greenfield site, and in return they’d told her where they were thinking of applying for their next stage of training, the mandatory two years working in a hospital, and that they’d selected places which were all in the north or north-east of England, so as to be closer to us.

We slept on it for a while, and then spent a Sunday hotly discussing the pros and cons and trying to find a flaw in the arguments. We were pretty sure that the twins would bite our hands off once they understood that it meant that they could be together forever, but it was still with some trepidation that we got on the train to Bristol the weekend after the twins’ last exam. We really valued our friendship with them, and didn’t want them to feel pressured in any way.

We took them out to the Italian for a celebratory meal despite the lateness of the hour, and then when we got back to the flat, asked them to sit in their easy chairs as we had something to say.

I thought that Sheila’s eyes were going to pop out of her head when I got down on one knee in front of her, the strangled gasp from the chair next to hers suggested that her twin was equally amazed as Julie looked up into his face. As we’d arranged, we both started speaking at the same time.

“Adrian Carter.” “Sheila Carter.”

“Will you marry us?“

Sheila burst into tears.

Now, I haven’t had a lot of experience of proposing marriage, but from what I had heard, it’s normally supposed to make the recipient happy. I was nonplussed by her reaction, but I did quickly get to my feet again – and was then almost bowled over as she sprung up and threw herself at me.

Ye gods, she nearly squeezed the life out of me. It took a few minutes before she could speak coherently, and then the words flew out almost faster than she could form them. Adrian was making a cup of tea while Julie helped me calm Sheila down, and then everything came out.

Yes, the twins were more than happy to marry us.

Many months before, they’d confided to each other the fact that they loved us, but they were so frightened that they might break up the relationship between Julie and I that they’d never breathed a word to anyone else. Sheila’s emotional dam had burst because she’d thought such a solution was only a pie-in-the-sky dream, and that moment of discovery when we proposed it completely overwhelmed her.

We were up until gone three in the morning on Saturday talking it all through, taking turns playing devil’s advocate to check that there wasn’t a huge flaw in our plan. Then we went to bed. Making love to Sheila was always good; that night was especially wonderful as we alternated between almost killing each other with passion and slow intimate caresses of love.

When we did finally emerge from our bedrooms, Julie looked especially well fucked too. Adrian did wait until he and I were fully clothed before hugging me in gratitude; the girls had been happy to embrace each other while still nude, but we lads were a little more stand-offish about that!

After a late breakfast, we went shopping for engagement rings, and after visiting what seemed like most of the jewellers in Bristol (and there are a lot!), finally came to a decision and ordered a couple from the third shop we’d been to. They aren’t simple single diamonds; Julie’s has a couple of sapphires from me, and Sheila’s two rubies are her connection to Adrian. Yes, each of us got engaged to two spouses that weekend, because that was the deal we came up with.

Saturday night was for sharing; I took Adrian out and we bought a couple of bottles of real French wine and fish & chips all round; once we had eaten and let the food go down, it was the four of us on the quilts on the rug in front of the fire. Julie and Sheila alternated making love to both of us, and great pleasure was shared by all.

Then on Sunday, we had to begin facing the music. Julie and I had come to the conclusion that we needed to keep quiet for a week so that we could explain to my parents in person why we weren’t marrying each other, and then tackle the Carters.

We decided to take Alastair and Catriona Baxter into our confidence; they weren’t at all surprised and Alastair kindly cracked open a bottle of champagne. Even more kindly, they happily agreed to keep quiet as long as they got an invitation to the weddings – that made us laugh because they were already our most desired non-family guests – and as Jen’s in-laws, they would have been top of my Mum’s list anyway!

Okay, so my mother did raise her eyebrows a little bit when Julie and I announced our decision, but we’d never formally been engaged, and I took Dad out for a walk around town (and a long slow pint at The George, followed a second even slower one) while Julie managed to convince Mum that it was indeed what she really wanted.

Yes, that is a slight understatement about raised eyebrows. Mum took me into the garden for a quiet word, looking me sternly in the eyes as she promised me that she would have my guts for garters if I ever made any of the girls the slightest bit unhappy. I may have been her son, but Julie and Sheila were both her daughters, as far as she was concerned, and she was going to guard their interests jealously.

(Of course, Mum had always understood far more than she ever let on, but she knew us all really well and just wanted us to be happy in life. It was more than a few years later when I confirmed that all the efforts that Jen and I had made to appear no closer than normal siblings had been wasted as far as Mum was concerned – Dad, of course, never suspected a thing.)

The twins’ parents were delighted, if a little worried that they were getting married quite so soon after graduating.

Julie’s mum was of course ecstatic that her daughter was marrying a doctor, so that she could boast of the fact to all her acquaintances!

Crikey, the next few weekends were hectic. Julie and I had nipped down to see my folks first, seven days later we met the twins at their folks, and the week after that, Julie took Adrian to Exeter for the day to be introduced to her mother and brother, while Sheila and I spent that day scrounging cardboard boxes and old newspaper from the local businesses in Clifton Village so that we could wrap up their belongings. Mr Waite and the greengrocer were especially generous; they both said that they would miss all of us!

The next week was the twins’ Graduation. The Carters had obviously done some thinking since the weekend when we’d gone down to see them to ask for their childrens’ hands in marriage; they immediately insisted that we dropped the ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ and address them as Kenneth and Pamela. Sheila admitted that she’d let on to them that my parents had insisted that they called them Tom and Maggie; it had been quite a step for her folks to get quite so informal between the generations, but it certainly made us feel welcome and accepted.