The Twenty-sixth

"Thank you for inviting me. I've had a very nice day," Claire said as she poured both of us yet another mulled wine.

"You're welcome. The children have really enjoyed you being here."

"Did you enjoy having me here?" she asked.

"Claire, I've always enjoyed your company."

"Liar, we had some real ding-dongs when we were married."

"Yeah, I'll give you that, but we had some real good times as well."

"We did, didn't we? What went wrong, Jack?"

"I don't know, Claire. I really don't know."

As I said both Claire and I had drunk much more mulled wine than we should have and I think we must have dosed off. The next thing I remember was that the house was quiet. Someone - I never did discover which one of the children it was - had turned the lights down. Claire's head was lying on my shoulder and her long hair was brushing against my cheek.

For a long time I sat there remembering the smell of her when she was this close to me, then I heard the hall clock strike two. Carefully extracting myself, I lifted Claire off the couch and carried her to Kylie's room where I laid her on the bed. As I'd carried her up the stairs she'd stirred slightly and put her arms around my neck. When I tried to extract myself from her arms, I couldn't; she wouldn't let go.

"Wrong bed, Jack," she suddenly whispered to me.

"Claire, are you sure?" I asked.

"For the good times, Jack. Can't we share a bed just for one night, for the good times we had together?"

With some difficulty and a little giggling from Claire, I lifted her again, carried her into my room and laid her on my king size bed. Then I lay beside her and fell asleep; her arms still locked around my neck. No, we didn't; we were both too far gone for anything like that to happen.

-------------------------

"Come on, you two, wake up. We've made some coffee for you," Angela's voice bellowed.

I half sat up, not really knowing where I was. My head was pounding as I realised that it was broad daylight outside. All three children were standing there in the room looking at Claire and me lying on the bed.

"What time is it?" I asked. But I was ignored by the children.

"I thought you said that they would..." Graham said, but he didn't finish his question.

"I think we overdid the Vodka," Angela cut him off.

"What bloody Vodka is this?" I demanded, a real mistake on my part as the sound of my voice was like being struck on the head with a hammer.

"We thought you two needed softening up a bit so we put some Vodka in the mulled wine," Angela admitted.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Jesus, that bloody hammer again!

"Come on, Dad, you two are like a couple of kids around each other. We, well, I really thought if you had a couple of drinks you'd... oh, you know."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

"Come on, Jack, you were young once. Children only see things in black and white. You'd most likely have done the same thing in Angela's place." Claire had finally joined the conversation.

"But you made a mistake with the Vodka, Angela. It always gives Jack a hangover. And, boy, can he be a miserable bugger when he's got a hangover, believe me."

I turned and looked at Claire smiling up at me.

"Are you not annoyed about what they tried to do?"

"No, why should I be? Nothing happened. And besides, Vodka doesn't give me a hangover; so I'm not a miserable bugger this morning."

"Hmmm, I feel that there's some collusion going on here."

"Don't be silly, Dad. If Auntie Claire knew what we were planning, she wouldn't have let us use Vodka," Graham pointed out.

"You definitely didn't mind what these three little tykes had planned for us last night?" I asked Claire again.

"No!" she replied.

"But we might have...."

"Yes, it's been a long time and I do miss you sometimes. When you're not on the warpath that is!" Claire was still smiling at me.

"Right, I'll take that smile off your face. Graham give me my watch case."

The smile had gone off all of their faces as Graham passed me the leather case that I kept my cuff links and watches in. I opened it slowly and stared down into it for a moment. All four of them were trying to see what I was looking at.

Then I reached in and took out a small package wrapped in Christmas paper and gave it to Claire.

For a moment Claire stared at it lying in her open hand and then she started crying.

"What is it?" Graham asked.

"Oh, just a couple of things Claire threw at me a few years ago," I told him.

"Do you mean this?" Claire finally asked through her tears.

"Well, there's not much sense in you living all that way away, when Candy is out in our stables. You didn't really think that mare's name was twenty-six, did you?"

"Oh, I get it now!" Kylie who had remained silent up until then said, "Today is the twenty-sixth."

Claire looked at me, "We were married on the twenty-sixth of April as well. You know you're a real bugger."

"Yeah, but I'm your Bugger."

Life goes on.