Chapter Twenty #2
Like Dai and Thelma, he and Laurel had been childhood friends, then teenage sweethearts.
They had grown up together, and tried to grow into new people alongside each other.
Luckily, they have developed a supportive friendship that has allowed both of them to become the people they were trying to be.
But all that took a lot of honest, and often awkward, conversations.
Plus one very drunken snog at her parents’ Christmas party.
But he can’t imagine what that rekindling would be like after a whole life, after marriages and children and the loss of those spouses too, when you also hadn’t spoken for that entire time?
How do you grow through that? How do you find each other again?
He almost doesn’t want to intrude on her quiet thinking, but needs must. They have a dog to help.
Christopher gives Nash a nod, and they clamber out of the van.
Hearing them, Thelma comes to life and hops down from the tractor in a swift, surprisingly spritely move.
Perhaps she’s been thinking about it too, a wholesome, tentative reunion precipitated by some light meddling on his and Nash’s part.
But that hope is instantly quashed when Thelma slams open the barn door and strides in. So much for tentative.
‘Iesu grist! A witch appears at my door,’ Dai cries.
‘Move over, you old bastard,’ she hisses, kneeling down in the straw next to Nessa, whose panting has got faster since they were last here.
‘Oh Nessa,’ whispers Nash, as he and Christopher join them on the floor.
‘The boys said she’s in labour, aye? How long?’ Thelma’s words are to the point and delivered like a whack to the head.
‘Since the early hours. She was a bit off in the evening. The panting started while these boys were gone.’ He nervously looks at Christopher and Nash, and checks the watch on his wrist. ‘Could be close to twelve hours now.’
Thelma hmms to herself, running her hands gently along Nessa’s abdomen.
‘Is that a normal amount of time?’ asks Christopher.
‘A tad long,’ she replies, her eyes focused on the dog. ‘I’ve got you, girl.’
Nessa seems to understand, relaxing ever so slightly under Thelma’s experienced touch.
‘Is she going to be all right?’ Dai asks quietly. And then, as if that was too much vulnerability, he adds, ‘Thelma Edwards, if you kill my dog, I’ll—’
‘You’ll what? Not speak to me for another fifty years?’
‘Lord, I’ve seen what you’ve done for others—’
‘Could we possibly help the dog without arguing?’ suggests Christopher, which prompts a chorus of ‘No’ from Dai, Thelma and, for some reason, Nash. ‘Why are you encouraging them?’
‘Sorry, I got caught up in it all,’ he says sheepishly.
‘Also,’ Thelma says, with a flick of her hair. ‘It’s been Powell for near forty years, God rest my Eric’s soul. Thelma Edwards was someone else.’
That hits even Christopher like a punch to the chest.
‘You,’ Thelma says to Nash, taking charge. ‘We need hot water. Dai, do you have owt?’
He doesn’t look up from the dog. ‘Go round to the sheep barn and you’ll see an instant hot water tank on the wall. Should be some buckets too.’
Nash gets to his feet but hesitates.
‘What are you waiting for? A pat on the head?’
‘The keys? Is the barn unlocked?’
This prompts a chorus of laughing from both farmers.
‘It’s unlocked,’ reassures Dai. ‘Who the hell is going to break into it in this weather?’
‘Good point,’ Nash says, disappearing out of the door.
Thelma continues her inspection in silence, while Christopher and Dai share occasional worried glances. At least they’re not arguing anymore, but bearing witness to their uncomfortable silence is almost as bad.
Inspection seemingly finished, Thelma nods. ‘We’ll get the pups out all right, and have you nursing in no time, girl. You’ve done really well so far.’
Together, Christopher and Dai deflate with relief. She’s going to be okay.
Dai, however, might not survive the night. The look that Thelma gives him could turn milk. ‘She’s a bit old for a litter. You should know better.’
‘It was an accident,’ huffs Dai. ‘Bloody dog appeared over the fields when we were out getting the sheep in, some hiker’s pet. I told them to put it on leash so it wouldn’t scare the sheep, but . . .’
‘It clearly had something else on its mind,’ finishes Nash, opening the door with his hip. ‘She’s okay?’
Christopher gives him a nod, and the huge grin that breaks across Nash’s face brings a smile to his own. That’s not a look he’s seen Nash make before. A kind of childlike glee he wouldn’t have thought typical for such a snarky little man.
Nash sets down a washing-up bowl of scalding hot water on the floor between them all, and without batting an eye, Nessa washes her hands in it with some hand cleaner from her bag. Christopher wishes he was even ten per cent as hardcore as this tiny terrifying woman.
‘The panting means it’s puppy time. How many?’
‘Eight, according to the vet,’ Dai says.
With raised eyebrows, she hands towels to each of the men. ‘When the puppies come, clean them up. Rub them warm. It’s cold and she’s been at it a while, so chances are they’ll need our help breathing air for the first time. Us helping takes the pressure off Nessa. Right?’
‘Right,’ they chorus, towels at the ready.
‘You’ll be used to this, of course,’ Dai says to Nash.
‘If the American is such a pro, why am I here?’ Thelma snaps indignantly.
‘I just play a veterinarian on TV.’
Thelma returns this proclamation with a withering look. ‘That does not count.’
It doesn’t take long for the first puppy to finally arrive, squealing and wriggling, and the room feels lighter for its arrival. One down, thinks Christopher. Seven to go.
Thelma explains that, due to Nessa’s age and exhaustion, she’s going to cut the umbilical cords for her, and that together they are all going to help remove the sacs from the puppies.
That way, Nessa can concentrate on birthing the puppies and then getting them feeding.
‘It’s unusual’, she stresses, ‘but unusual circumstances mean cautious medicine.’
Despite, in her opinion, his lack of proper training, Thelma plops this first one in Nash’s hands. He breaks open the sac and cleans up the puppy’s eyes and nose with such tenderness. The puppy is quiet, so Nash checks inside its mouth for any blockages and the puppy whines indignantly.
‘See now, you’re a whizz, lad,’ says Dai.
Christopher agrees that Nash is definitely a natural, but doesn’t say it out loud. He’s not sure why.
Soon there’s a wriggling puppy in Christopher’s hands. He takes a huge breath as he wipes the sac from her face and gives an awoo of joy as she starts to wriggle in his grasp.
Nash reluctantly gives his puppy back to Nessa, tucking the little dog in against her side where it immediately begins to nuzzle for her nipples.
Poor girl, this is going to be a long night.
Once he’s satisfied that the second puppy is okay, Christopher plops her down next to the first puppy, just as puppy three is handed over to Dai.
After such a long wait, they’re now coming way faster than Christopher expected.
Dai rubs the third puppy a little too vigorously for Christopher’s sensibilities, but the pup seems not to mind.
A fourth appears, taken up by Thelma, and she does the same kind of vigorous rubbing.
Is that something they learned together, whelping puppies as children?
Reunited by Nessa, the two puppies chorus in squeals for milk and life.
Another puppy is passed over to Nash. Five down, counts Christopher.
‘Not long to go now, girl. You’re doing brilliantly,’ whispers Thelma.
Poor Nessa looks exhausted, but she keeps going and puppies keep coming. If Christopher had a wobbly sense of time from running his own bakery, it truly has nothing on this.
‘She is such a good girl,’ says Dai.
Their eyes meet, just for a second, and Christopher swears he can see that old love between them, or even just an echo of it.
Love doesn’t go away. It can’t. It’s like energy – all it can do is be transformed into other things.
For them, perhaps hate, but haven’t the great romance writers spent their careers telling everyone that the line between love and hate is very thin?
Christopher is snapped out of his sentimental musings when the puppy in Nash’s hands lets out a roaring burp, and then promptly poops all over the towel.
‘He’s good at this, isn’t he?’ Dai insists, as he takes another puppy from Thelma’s hands. ‘Can’t have been all movie magic, surely. Didn’t you deliver puppies in that one with the lawyer and the Kardashian girl?’
‘It was kittens,’ chorus Nash and Christopher.
The cringe that rips through Christopher’s body could rival the puppy’s burp, and the heat that emanates from his cheeks could warm the entire room.
That’s not even one of the top Nash Nadeau films that most romance fans would have seen; that’s a deep cut from his IMDb.
The kind of film that now just attracts people wanting to complete their ‘weird celebrity cameo’ lists on Letterboxd.
Still clutching puppy number five but wrapping it in a clean towel, Nash bursts into peals of satisfied laughter. ‘I knew it! I knew it. You’re such an Eve.’
‘Who is Eve?’ Dai asks, confused by the chaos he’s unwittingly unleashed while warming up puppy number six, who is completely bone white, like a tiny ghost.
‘All About Eve? Low-key movie about superfans turned maybe evil,’ Nash laughs. ‘And don’t worry, Christopher. I’m just impressed that you know the plot intricacies of one of my least successful films.’
‘Channel 5 runs all the Hallmark movies,’ Dai explains. ‘I’m a sucker for a good Christmas movie, but I’ll take what I can get the other ten months of the year. Gethin got me onto this.’
Nash sighs. ‘I never knew I’d have a fan group amongst Welsh farmers. Marketing are missing a trick.’
‘Which Kardashian?’ Thelma asks.
‘Khloé.’