Chapter 68
Shortly after Christmas
‘Sure you don’t mind?’
Gemma, who had been lying with her head in Joe’s lap, looked up at him sleepily. ‘Course not. I’m looking forward to it.’
Joe gave her one more kiss. ‘Lynette and Mike need a break. Actually, it sounds like they’re here!’
Two pairs of hands were already hammering on Joe’s door. They opened it to two boys who, Gemma could swear, had grown since the nativity play. They rushed in past her, hurling themselves at Joe.
‘Uncle Joe, can we go now, right now to Madame Two Swords?’
‘It’s Too So, silly.’
‘’Snot.’
Lynette gave Gemma a ‘do you know what you’re letting yourself in for’ look.
‘And can we have loads of ice cream and stay up really late to hear Big Ben strike midnight?’
Mike chipped in. ‘Listen folks, please don’t think we’re rude but we’re going to miss our plane if we don’t go. I know we’re late, but …’
Gemma interrupted him. ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. They’ll be safe with us. I cut my teeth on my little brother; well, not literally, but you know what I mean.’
Lynette looked slightly startled. ‘I think so. Bye then. Ring if there are any problems.’
‘Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe. What’s this?’
Charlie, ignoring his parents’ departure, was pointing at the red and white cage on the side table. ‘That’s the Puddleducks hamster,’ said Gemma proudly. ‘He’s called Hammie. One of the children was going to take him home for the holidays, but her mummy is having a baby so I’ve got him instead.’
The boys were poking their fingers in through the bars. ‘We’ve got hamsters,’ said Fraser. ‘Our neighbour’s looking after ours. We know lots about hamsters cos we get them every two years. That’s when they die, you know.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Gemma, feeling for Joe’s hand and marvelling that the tingly touch of his skin now felt the most natural thing in the world. This would have been as likely as a blue moon three months ago. ‘Hammie is a he, not a she.’
‘No way!’ Charlie was jumping up and down so the cage was rattling. ‘Look. Hammie’s got babies!’
Gemma and Joe stared at the three, no four, tiny pink noses now emerging from the sawdust, the nostrils twitching madly. Too late, Gemma remembered that three-year-old Molly, who had had Hammie for the weekend recently, had, so she told Gemma, put him in the cage with her own hamster so they could ‘play’.
‘A hamster’s gestation period is between sixteen and twenty-three days,’ announced Fraser importantly. ‘Gestation is the time between boiling the egg and giving birth.’
‘Swot,’ said Charlie, elbowing him. ‘You only know cos we’ve just had a facts of life project at school and you Googled it. Anyway, it’s not boiling the egg. It’s infertilising it.’
‘Fertilising, silly.’
Gemma didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘How come we didn’t notice?’ she said quietly, leaning back into the man standing behind her.
Joe ruffled her hair. ‘Because we’ve been doing other things for the past twenty-four hours,’ he whispered back.
Gemma flushed. Kitty reckoned she’d always secretly fancied Joe, and that he’d always secretly fancied her. It was why, she said, they had each been so anti the other at the beginning. Couples who were fiercely mutually attracted often started off by loathing each other.
‘Is it fireworks?’ Kitty had pried when Gemma had rung to tell her all about it.
‘Absolutely,’ Gemma had replied, feeling both embarrassed and also remarkably lucky at the same time. Joe had been so understanding when she had told him about her complicated history with Sam. He’d nodded at the parts which Barry had previously frowned about, and gave her comforting squeezes when she’d got to the bit about discovering Sam was Danny’s father.
‘You must think badly of me,’ she had said with a slight tremor in her voice, ‘starting a full relationship with Barry so soon after meeting him.’ She’d looked away shyly. ‘It might sound like a cliché, but I’m really not that sort of girl.’
‘I know you’re not.’ Joe had taken her into his arms. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I love you. But we can all make mistakes, and it’s better to realise that before it’s too late.’ He began to give her small butterfly kisses all over her face. ‘Just think how awful it would have been if you’d married Action Man, as I’m afraid I call him. Then you’d have had to wait for another divorce!’
He was right. What a narrow escape! Joe then admitted that he’d always been attracted to her sparkly eyes and wit. She confessed that she couldn’t resist a smouldering northern Colin Firth, mixed with Mr Grumpy.
Could that really only have been a few days ago? It felt as though they’d been together for ever. Joe put his arm around Gemma as the boys continued to examine the hamster cage and its contents. They’d agreed that when his godchildren came to stay she would go back home every night. It wouldn’t have been right for her to sleep over too. But it didn’t mean they couldn’t show affection to each other. It was one of the many things they had discussed, along with Gemma’s decree absolute, which would make her free in three weeks, and Joe’s decision to turn down the new job offer and return to Corrybank, as Beryl had suggested.
‘You’ve got babies! You’ve got babies!’ chanted Fraser, jumping up and down.
‘No they haven’t, silly. Uncle Joe and Gemmie are humanoids like us. Not hamsters.’
‘Babies,’ Joe repeated. His eyes searched hers, and she felt her insides melt like the chocolate ice cream, which – she now remembered – she’d taken out of the freezer and forgotten about. ‘I rather like the sound of that. Don’t you?’