‘Just the one thing?’ he asked quizzically.
‘Definitely,’ I said stoutly. But it wasn’t just the one thing. I had no way of communicating with Luc and he, clearly, did not feel it was safe to leave his family yet. What if he never did? What if he saw how frail his mother was now and decided that he must marry again, give the twins a proper mother? Forget me and our hopeless situation?
I surfaced from my back hole to find Frank making a pot of tea. ‘Mr Grimswade has been telling me what a help you are being to him.’
Aristotle Grimswade, the delightful elderly owner of St Christopher Antiques was becoming increasingly frail, so I spent as much time with him as I could, helping him send things to live auctions and also putting some stock up on on-line sites.
‘Just don’t sell the bear,’ I had begged him. I was very fond of the vast and ancient stuffed bear that had greeted me (or so I’d thought) when I had first entered the shop. ‘One day I want to buy that.’
‘Where are you going to put it?’ he’d asked. ‘Not in your flat, surely?’
‘No,’ I’d agreed. That would be far too small. In fact, I needed to move, but not until Luc had come back to my time. I hated that he had no idea why I had not returned to him, that he might think I had deserted him, and the risk of him not being able to locate me if I moved was enough to stop me even looking at new homes on-line.
If he comes back, the horrible, negative voice in my head kept muttering. You need him, but he isn’t here. You’ll have to get used to managing by yourself.
* * *
Of course, when Luc did come back it was typical of us, involving loud bangs and shrieks – anything but romantic, in fact.
It was a Wednesday morning. Trubshaw was being particularly bloody-minded and was refusing the new (and expensive) cat food that I had bought him. He complained loudly, then retreated to the sofa to sulk and shed all over it. The cover was, of course, just back from the dry cleaner.
I told him what I thought of him and decided to try the new, and also expensive, cereal I’d bought at the same time as the Gourmet Kitty Knibbles. Food was becoming increasingly comforting. So was shopping.
Of course, I had put the cereal on the top shelf. I was stretching up for it when there was a thud behind me, a shriek of catly outrage and Trubshaw shot into the kitchen area, straight under my feet. With Sod’s Law operating to its fullest, I dropped the open packet on top of myself as I fell to the floor on hands and knees.
The swearing from the sofa was blissfully familiar, even if Luc rarely used bad language in my hearing. I crawled through the crunching muesli and peered around the end of the island unit.
‘Hello.’
He blinked at me, then grinned and I saw, with a wrench, how haggard he was looking. ‘What is that in your hair?’
‘Breakfast.’ I shook my head to get the worst out, then hauled myself to my feet, suddenly very nervous. Now was the time for the big reveal, with the emphasis on big. I stepped out from behind the island and just stood there while he looked at me.
Luc didn’t say anything. He was off the sofa so fast that I would have fallen on my backside if he hadn’t caught me up in an all-enveloping hug. Then he kissed me, very softly, and, finally, stepped back, his hands still on my shoulders, and said, ‘You are pregnant?’
‘Um. Yes. You noticed?’ I said, my hands on the very significant bump.
‘A baby,’ he breathed.
‘Two actually. It is another set of twins.’
‘Can we sit down?’ He sounded as though I had punched him in the solar plexus, but he was smiling, thank goodness.
We reeled over to the sofa, sank down on it in a shower of cereal grains and had a long, slow and very satisfactory smooch. When we eventually came up for air I said, ‘This is why I was sent home. It wouldn’t be safe for me to travel with all that bumping and the rough landings. I realised when I got back, and could think again, that I hadn’t been taking my contraceptive pills since Jerald was killed – it simply went out of my mind and then, with the accident, it was the last thing I was thinking about.’
‘But you were pregnant when you came back here,’ Luc said, suddenly anxious.
‘Only just. And it is all right, honestly. I have been checked out really thoroughly. Everything is as it should be.’ No wonder he was anxious: his wife had died giving birth to the twins. ‘Childbirth is so much safer now, I promise you. We are all going to be fine. But how are the boys? And your mother?’
Everyone was better, apparently, which was why Luc had felt able to come to me. We brought each other up to date on all our news and I explained that I had stopped volunteering as a Special Constable as soon as I realised I was pregnant, not because I needed to stop so early, but because I was working all the hours I could and taking any translating job that came along. ‘I’m going to need a bigger flat. Or a small house,’ I said. ‘One bedroom isn’t enough.’
That started Luc worrying about how to support us and how to move money forward in time. I wasn’t going to object – he quite rightly wanted to share the responsibility and I wanted the best we could provide for the babies.
‘But how?’
‘You have inherited family jewellery and have decided to sell it,’ Luc said, unpinning the very handsome sapphire from his neck cloth. ‘We could start with a valuation on this.’
* * *