by Penny Parkes
Holly sipped at her drink as Taffy tried to explain about the reality of life with three much older brothers and with every anecdote, she got a slightly clearer picture of what made Taffy tick, of how the man she loved had evolved. Even as he described waking up as a teenager, to a bed filled with frogs, his love for his brothers was obvious and absolute – even if, to Holly at least, some of their pranks just seemed rather mean.
Taffy paused. ‘Just give them a chance, Holly. Because whatever they might say or do, if you ever need them – no question, they’re there.’
Holly sighed, wondering what it would feel like to have three big brothers on speed-dial and whether that might explain why Taffy slept so soundly at night. He knew for certain that there were three pairs of hands to pick up the pieces if he fell. Apparently even if those self-same hands were the ones to have pushed him over in the first place!
‘I didn’t mean to worry you,’ he said apologetically. ‘But forewarned is better, I think. Just go in with an open mind. And relax, the whole family will love you.’
Holly shrugged, unable to articulate the fear that they might not. The only times Holly had spoken to Taffy’s mother on the phone, she had been short and to the point. Taffy had said that she just wasn’t a ‘phone person’, but Holly wasn’t convinced that was even a thing. ‘I’m not sure they want to meet me, though,’ she mumbled.
‘Look, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.’ Taffy backtracked. ‘Mum’s a real sweetie and she’ll love having another girl in her life. Four sons, can you imagine what the poor woman has been through. And yes, she might be a bit protective to begin with . . . I mean, you’re the single parent taking advantage of her baby boy, aren’t you?’ He grinned, attempting to lighten the mood and so obviously winding her up, but still.
Holly couldn’t arrange her face into anything other than the shocked horror of someone saying one of your very worst fears out loud. This day was quickly going downhill and her growing frustration with Taffy’s clumsy explanations was making her irritable. Not everything was a joke, whatever he might say. ‘Is that what people really think?’
Taffy stopped dead, suddenly appreciating how badly his flippant remark had hit home. ‘Oh Holly. Of course that’s not what they think. If they think anything at all, it’s that we’re incredibly lucky to have each other. They probably think the boys are okay too . . .’ His humour still falling wide of the mark, Taffy took both Holly’s hands in his. ‘They will love you for two reasons, Holly Graham. One: because I love you and you’re amazing. And two: they’ll see how happy you’re making me . . . You and the boys and Eric and living in our bonkers town. I’m home. I’m happy.’ He leaned in and kissed her thoroughly. ‘I’m pretty low maintenance really. I’ve got everything I want from life. All in one place. Stop doubting me, Graham. You think I don’t notice, but I do. Have a little faith in me.’
‘I do,’ she protested, but he kissed her again.
‘Most of the time, granted, but it’s bloody annoying when you don’t.’
‘Then stop making jokes that aren’t funny – it’s too real to be funny.’
He kissed her again. ‘Okay. No more jokes.’
‘Are you going to hug in a special way now?’ interrupted a small voice. Tom elbowed his way between them and on to Holly’s lap.
Taffy tried to stifle the shocked laughter that caught him on the hop and began packing together their belongings, leaving Holly mouthing mutely.
‘It happens,’ said Tom earnestly, ‘when a man and a woman love each other very much.’
‘Good to know,’ said Holly, totally unprepared to handle this conversation already. Oh, to have a precocious child.
‘Eric wants to hug Coco,’ he continued sagely, referring to Eric’s epic crush on Alice’s assistance dog.
‘He does,’ agreed Holly. ‘He loves her very much, doesn’t he?’
Tom nodded, distracted for a moment by a rogue corner of biscuit that had escaped Taffy’s attention. ‘Eric loves Winnie the Pooh too.’
‘Sorry?’ asked Holly, wondering if they were wandering off on some random non sequitur like normal.
‘It’s true. He hugs my biggest Winnie bear in a special way. A lot.’ He shook his head crossly. ‘Mummy, I don’t think Winnie likes it very much.’
Holly’s shocked reaction was totally obscured by the explosive laughter from Taffy. He clasped at his sides as the tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Poor Winnie . . .’ he managed, as Tom fixed him with a confused stare, before turning his back in disgust. If nothing else, Tom took the wellbeing of his teddy bears extremely seriously.
‘Sorry,’ said Taffy, before dissolving once more, until Holly joined in and the pair of them laughed until they cried.
Chapter 16
Holly had never considered herself a terribly religious person, but she did feel, as they barrelled down the increasingly narrow country lanes towards Taffy’s parents’ house the next morning, that a certain amount of faith might serve her very well right now. The fronds of cow parsley hung into the lanes and swiped the windscreen as they passed, leaving trails of dew to trace their path behind them.
She stared out of the window as Taffy gave the twins a running commentary. ‘And that over there? That’s the field where Rhys and I dammed the stream and caused a big flood. And that tree on the horizon – I got stuck up there once for six hours . . . You see that ditch by the road? I fell into that on my new mountain bike when I was showing off.’ He pointed to the tiny silver scar on his forehead. ‘Five stitches,’ he said, almost proudly.
Holly shook her head at him. ‘Don’t give them ideas.’
He shrugged. ‘Boys will be boys, Holly. In fact, the more you restrict them, the more they’ll act up when they’re given a little independence later on. My mate Rhys? His mum was so anti-army the whole time we were growing up, she’d go on and on about it. So, what’s the first thing he did after school? Only went and signed up, didn’t he?’
Holly reached across and laid her hand on his thigh as he drove, watching the clouds scudding across the sky that perfectly mirrored the expression on his face.
They turned off the lane onto a mud track, where the lush rolling fields either side were dotted with sheep grazing in the sunshine. ‘Nearly there!’ he said to the boys in the back.
Holly slowly exhaled, trying out the mantra she’d been working on. ‘I am not taking advantage of your son and lumbering him with my offspring. I am not taking . . .’ Too wordy, perhaps? She swallowed hard, suddenly realising how terrified she was of walking into their home, of meeting his brothers and trying to make a good first impression. Tiredness aside, even she could acknowledge that she was only this worried because of how much she cared.
‘Right,’ said Taffy in a low voice, as though he had anticipated this last-minute wobble. ‘This is an anniversary party. People will be talking about weddings and marriage.’ He glanced at her sideways to make sure she could see he was smiling. ‘This does not mean that you have to get all twitchy. Even if there’s a pop-up vicar and a bridal bouquet with your name on it! It’s just talk, not pressure, okay?’
Holly nodded. ‘Got it. Smile. Be nice. No twitching. Marriage a good thing.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t be such a cynic, Graham. Fifty years is quite some record. We, on the other hand, are going to take our own sweet time. And it’s our decision when and if it happens, deal?’
‘Deal,’ she said.
They pulled up outside a ramshackle farmhouse that seemed to epitomise everything she knew about Taffy: it was scruffy, yet cared for – welcoming and familiar. The front door burst open and six or seven dogs came bursting out as the welcoming committee. Holly could see two spaniels, a black lab and several others whose breeding was possibly a bit more eclectic.
The twins happily piled out, completely unfazed by the canine attention they received. Tom said firmly, ‘Sit!’ when one of the dogs got a little too licky and, to everyone’s amazement, every single dog sat beautifull
y still. Tom’s face lit up as though he had won the lottery. ‘I am the Alpha Dog!’ he proclaimed delightedly, patting his leg to see if they would fall into line beside him. When they did, Holly couldn’t help but be impressed.
Mrs Jones – call me Patty – came out of a different door, wearing a vast floral apron and wiping her hands on a tea-towel. ‘You made good time, Meirion.’
Holly turned to look at Taffy, inappropriate laughter threatening to burst. ‘Meirion?’ she whispered, her eyes dancing at this nugget of information. How had she never stopped to think about what his real name was?
He just shrugged, completely unfazed. ‘Only Mum calls me that and even then it’s mostly Merry instead.’ He scowled for a moment, as though assessing her reliability to keep this particular secret. ‘Of course, if you tell anyone at home, I shall have to kill you.’
Holly nodded, desperately trying to keep a straight face and wondering what other little secrets she might discover on this flying visit.
‘You’re just in time for breakfast, so don’t dawdle about,’ Patty called.
Holly was about to say that they’d already eaten when Taffy laid his hand on her arm warningly and fractionally shook his head. ‘Never turn down food or a dog-walk,’ he murmured under his breath. ‘Sorry, something else I should have said.’
Holly stepped forward to say hello and found herself crushed into an enormous bear hug from Patty. A genuine affectionate squeeze – not even of the checking-for-back-fat variety that Milo’s mother liked to inflict.
‘Let’s have a look at you now,’ said Patty, holding Holly at arm’s length and looking into her eyes. ‘So this is the lovely lady who’s stolen my Merry’s heart, eh?’
Holly felt herself stiffen as though she’d been lulled into a false sense of security. When Patty’s face broke into an enormous grin and let forth a deep gutsy roll of laughter, Holly dared to breathe again.
‘Well, hasn’t he found himself a corker?’ said Patty, with such a strong Welsh lilt to her words that Holly’s brain took a moment to translate. ‘Now come and introduce me to these lads of yours, Holly, if we can tear them away from their dog training. We can take them for a yomp over the hills later on if you like; buy ourselves some peace and quiet.’
A few minutes later, Holly found herself being swept into the kitchen on a tide of chatter and spaniels. Taffy’s father and brothers had been put to work on a batch of bacon sandwiches and Holly was beginning to wonder how to tell them all apart. All of them tall, dark and athletic, Taffy really did look like the baby of the family and it was evident in their affectionate teasing and greetings that they all still viewed him as such.
Aldwyn, Dylan and Bobi all greeted her with hugs and kisses, Mr Jones only offering a ‘How-do’ from beside the Aga where he had been put on bacon rotation duty. The twinkle in his eye at watching Taffy trying to persuade Tom and Ben to wash their hands told Holly everything she needed to know: he may be an old-school farmer but he was a softie at heart.
‘Right then,’ said Patty. ‘Boys, do you want a little biscuit and a drink while you’re waiting?’ Obviously the five minutes until the bacon would be ready was deemed too long for a small lad to wait for sustenance. ‘You must be starving after your drive.’
Holly was about to leap in to intervene and to make sure that Ben didn’t eat anything he shouldn’t, but Patty was there before her. She leaned across to Holly and quietly said, ‘Now I made these myself and there’s not a scrap of dairy gone anywhere near them, so you mustn’t worry, poppet. And there’s no nuts either, because I didn’t want to risk it.’
Holly inexplicably felt the tears well up in the back of her throat and could only manage a strangled thank you. Patty gave her shoulders a rub. ‘Seems to me that Taffy was right and what you need, my darling, is a little more kindness in your life. Now sit yourself down and let my boys wear your gorgeous twins out while we have a coffee.’ She leaned across the table. ‘Dylan. Bobi. Aldwyn.’ She hadn’t raised her voice but she had their instant attention. ‘Take Ben and Tom out to feed the chickens and see if there’s any eggs this morning, would you? I don’t know about you, Ben, but I like a fried egg in my bacon butty.’
The easy camaraderie in the room was unlike anything Holly had ever experienced before. She took in all the scribbled pictures stuck to the fridge and the array of framed photographs on the vast windowsills, featuring a parade of ballet dancing grand-daughters and a selection of slightly faded childhood snaps of the four brothers as teenagers. In these, the age gap was more obvious than it was now; the three older boys already tall and lanky, as a younger Taffy – sorry, Merry – followed their every move. It certainly explained why the whole family was so protective of him. And possibly his competitive drive to keep up at all costs.
Patty watched Holly with interest, trying to get the measure of this tousled-headed woman who had appeared in her kitchen with a pair of adorable boys at her heels and her youngest son clearly smitten.
‘I speak as I find, Holly, and you should know that when Meirion told me he had fallen in love with a single mother, an older lady to boot, I did have my concerns.’
Holly looked up, eyes wide, wary of what Patty was going to say next. It was as though Patty had read her mind and her worst fears were now being discussed over milky coffee with a geriatric spaniel propped against her leg. Patty smiled then, leaning forward to take Holly’s slender hand in her own. ‘But it seems to me that it’s actually what he’s been waiting for and you’ve finally made him look at his priorities. It was all very well and good him wanting to be a locum and foot-loose and fancy-free, but now look . . . I haven’t seen him come home so proud of his achievements in a very long time.’
‘Well,’ said Holly slowly, ‘I’d love to take the credit, but it’s all down to Taffy really. He’s so passionate about Larkford, that he . . .’
‘Well, he is now,’ said Patty with an effusive chuckle. ‘He calls it home now.’ She picked up a vast mug and took a sip. ‘He never did before.’
Holly realised that Patty was right; when she first met him, Taffy would always refer to his parents’ house as ‘home’ and now, that was how he referred to the house they lived in together. True, in an ideal world, they would find somewhere new together – somewhere that didn’t have uncomfortable echoes of Milo lurking in the shadows – but Holly now suspected that ‘home’ for Taffy might have more to do with the people he lived with, than bricks and mortar.
‘And I have to say,’ Patty continued, still watching Holly very closely, ‘it’s lovely to have young lads in the house again – as much as I adore my grand-daughters, it’s a very different pace of life. They’re all at ballet this morning, but they’ll be here later and you’ll see what I mean. I always think that boys are like dogs, you know,’ she confided, little knowing that Holly had already been briefed. ‘Physically demanding it is, looking after little boys; but then that’s nothing to how emotionally demanding it is with these little girls.’
‘So girls are like cats, then?’ Holly ventured and earned herself a grin.
‘Do you know, I think you might be right. You’ll get to meet Shona when they come, Aldwyn’s wife. Now there’s a lass who knows her own mind – terrifies me, she does,’ Patty confided.
Holly nodded, quietly unable to believe that anyone could intimidate Patty, with her maternal certainty and calm control. Holly could sense that this kitchen was very much her domain, and as the only woman in the family for many years, she wondered how Patty coped with her daughters-in-law and their cat-like offspring.
Her questions were answered, as a flurry of barking outside announced the arrival of several cars and chaos ensued. It was nothing short of a miracle that, within five minutes, the entire extended family was packed around the kitchen table, tutus jammed inwards and muddy wellies swinging under the table. The bacon and tea was flowing as freely as the conversation and Holly simply allowed herself to be swept up.
This was how she had imagined that some fam
ilies celebrated Christmas – it hadn’t occurred to her that it could happen over a bacon sandwich, simply because they all took so much pleasure in each other’s company. She listened in as Bella, the youngest of the ballerinas at five, proudly lectured Ben and Tom on who was related to whom and how. ‘You can be my cousin now if you like,’ she said, casually, as though it were an honour she lightly bestowed, but Holly could see a longing in the way that Bella leaned forward to hear their response.
‘Alright,’ said Tom, also nonchalant but looking up at Holly with big eyes. ‘Mummy, can Bella be my cousin?’ he asked.
There was an awkward silence amongst the grown-ups at the possible implications of this question. Patty chuckled and gave Holly a wink. ‘Out of the mouths of babes . . .’
‘One big happy family here, aren’t we, Bella?’ hedged Taffy easily. ‘And go on, admit it, it’s quite cool to have a couple of boys to play with?’ Taffy leaned across to Holly. ‘Our Bella here is a bit of a tomboy. Deeply resents the ballet, don’t you, Bill? She’d rather be up a tree in her jeans, but as the youngest, she just has to fall in line really.’
Holly looked around the table and could see what Taffy meant; Bella’s big sisters were most definitely girly-girls and Shona was a rather stunning, if overly made-up, beautician. The opportunities for mud-pies and snails were clearly only possible at her grandparents’ house.
‘Taffy calls me Bill, because he knows I’d rather be a boy,’ proclaimed Bella firmly, daring Tom or Ben to comment.
Ben just nodded. ‘Cool.’
Where Patty had let the idea dangle, Taffy’s brothers weren’t quite so tactful. It would appear that when it came to the pecking order of the siblings, nothing had really changed and Taffy would always be the baby brother being forced to play catch-up.
‘Probably about time you two got hitched,’ butted in Aldwyn. ‘Me and Shona had been married for a decade by the time we were your age. And Big Picture – neither of you are getting any younger.’ He laid it down like a challenge and waited for his little brother to pick up the gauntlet.
