The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy)
Page 20
Andrew had joined her in her bed as usual and was holding her as closely as he could, kissing the scar and crinkled burn mark that decorated her shoulder, thanking God in his turn, as he did every day, that Kathryn had been spared and given to him for all time. Sometimes they talked – trivial things, things that would be of no interest at all to anyone else, but which delighted the two of them in their shared understanding of each other. Sometimes they were quiet, communing solely through their touch, each telling the other that they were by far the most cherished, by far the most revered, by far the most important individual in the whole of the rest of the world.
‘Out of all the hours in the day it is at these times, early in the morning, when we share a bed together, that I am always at my happiest,’ he was telling her, between his kisses. ‘You always give me such hope, such optimism, such enthusiasm to face the new day.’
On her part Kathryn was feeling just a tiny bit queasy. She knew that feeling. She had felt it in the mornings several years before.
‘It is mine as well,’ she told him. ‘I could happily lie here all morning with you, just feeling at one with you, loving you from the bottom of my heart. When we are together like this I can want for nothing more. I just feel so complete, so at peace....So in some ways it’s a pity that we shall not have many more times together like this, communing so deeply, on our own.’
Andrew scrabbled onto his elbow to take a look down at her.
‘What ever do you mean?’ he asked her.
She rolled over to look at him. She looked into his anxious blue eyes, smiling.
‘Well, it is early days, to be sure, and I may yet be mistaken,’ she told him. ‘But I have felt a little sickly this past few mornings and I seem to think that we may shortly be obliged to share our morning indulgence with a new, small member of the household. I know it shall be a sacrifice, but I half thought you may be just a tiny bit pleased as well.’
‘Pleased?’ In a split second Andrew’s face revealed all those emotions that a gentleman can be presumed to feel on first learning that he can expect to become a papa – shock, surprise, incomprehension - and then the most perfect and utter delight that ever a person can feel. ‘Pleased? Oh Kathy, oh lieveling – oh my darling - I should say that I am pleased! I had thought that my life could get no happier than it is just now. I have been so much blessed already. But now – to become a papa – to - oh, glory, I know not what to say.’
Kathryn gazed up at her husband and smiled at him again. They said no more but shared their joint delight in companionable silence until Sally, bringing in their breakfast as usual some time later, saw their faces and divined the news at once.
‘And we are going to celebrate by visiting little Bob,’ said Andrew, taking the tray and pouring Kathryn’s tea. ‘We shall take a picnic there, I think. It is his birthday after all. What a present for him! We shall tell him about the new little brother or sister that his papa will soon have to play with and that he must look down on us from heaven and share it all, just as he would have wanted to had he still been alive.’
‘Well I’m very pleased for you and no mistake, Mr B,’ she said, walking over to the window and flinging the curtains back to welcome the bright morning sun. ‘You will make a wonderful papa. I cannot say that I’ve ever been more pleased for anyone in my life.’
Andrew and Kathryn scrambled out of bed and made their way to the window. It was the perfect blue day. The deep blue sea, still as a lake, stretched away from them for as far as the eye could see. They stood side by side with their arms entwined, staring out at it, contented, as one. It had brought them together, it had taken Giles away. They were each silently thanking it as they thanked it every day for delivering its bodies to the beach.