Good Year For The Roses

I went to lift my head from the pillow and suddenly realised that it wasn't a particularly good idea. I suppose I must have moaned in pain.

"Here drink this!" I heard Andorra's voice say from behind me.

"What is it?" I asked, shielding my eyes from the sunlight as best I could when I rolled over to look in her direction.

"Well it's not liable to be poison until you've married me, is it? I've got to make sure that I can get my hands on your life insurance before I bump you off."

"How do you know I won't turn the tables and bump you off first?" I quipped back.

If Andorra wanted to play the comedian, then I figured I'd try and be witty as well.

"No you couldn't do that. You've got two daughters that you'd need someone to look after."

"One of them's yours!"

"That isn't the way they see it, Peter. They like to think of themselves as sisters and they both think of you as their father."

"Oh, and you?"

I think I'm considered to be Otterley's mother as well now. Haven't you noticed the Aunt Andorra bit has gone lately? Several times she's called me mummy in the last week or so."

"She has? I haven't noticed."

"I know, and you didn't bat an eyelid when Rachel started calling you dad a few weeks back either."

"Oh, I'm not very observant am I? Has she really been calling me her father?

"Daddy to be precise, Peter. She's been calling you daddy for a month or so now. Even Carol and Frank noticed it."

"Ah, and did you discuss it with Carol on Boxing Day?"

"I discussed a lot of things with Carol on Boxing Day, Peter."

"Ah then, that explains it."

"What?"

"Why she's already planning her wedding outfit." I replied with as best a smile as I could muster, considering I had this little guy crashing around with Thor's hammer, in my head somewhere.

Andorra sat there starring at me, still holding whatever concoction she'd made for me in her hand.

"Well?" I asked after she apparently hadn't reacted for an absolute age.

Andorra was sitting there with a confused expression n her face. I'd expected a question from her in reply to my comment, but it hadn't come as I'd hoped it would.

"Well what?" she replied.

"Well, are you going to marry me or not?"

"You haven't asked me to."

"I know, I'm a coward; I was trying to get your answer out of you before I asked. It's far better not to look a prize prune when I get turned down."

"Hmm, well let's see... I reckon you're not going to look like a fruit cake if you ask. But!" Andorra replied.

"But what?"

"I've got an admission to make to you before you commit yourself to anything."

"Ooh that sounds serious, should I be worried?"

"No, but I am! I'm not a widow Peter; Tony isn't dead. Actually, legally I've never been married to him. Well I was married, but I wasn't."

"I think I'm losing something in the translation here Andorra."

"Tony was a bigamist Pete. He was already married when he married me, so legally my marriage to him is kind of null and void."

"Oops."

"You could say that? Tony actually married three of us at different times and he fled the country during his trial. That's why I told Rachel he was dead; if they ever track him down he'll be inside for years. Not that I ever think they will, the bastards probably conned some other silly cow in to marrying him by now."

"So you're not a widow and you were never married." I said.

"No, I suppose technically I'm an unmarried mother. It's just a lot less complicated to tell everyone that I'm a widow."

"In that case will you do me the honour..?"

I never did get to ask the rest of the question and Andorra never did get to answer it. I'm not even sure where that damned drink she made me went. But we spent the next hour or so rolling around the bed - and the floor - like a couple of teenagers; my headache almost forgotten.

No we didn't, we were just kissing, cuddling and whispering silly sweet nothings to each other. It was fun, even if my head was still giving me some gyp. With a head like that I really don't think I could have performed anyway.

By the time Frank brought the girls home about three in the afternoon. Andorra and I were sat in the kitchen making plans and wondering how we were going to break the news to the girls.

But we really didn't have to tell them, the little minx's seemed to know immediately; mind that might have something to do with the fact that Andorra was almost sitting on my lap when they charged in the door. Anyway they stopped dead in their tracks stared at us for a few seconds then high five'd each other again; before coming around the table and cuddling both of us.

I think we both felt like we had flashing neon signs on our heads when Frank - as he entered the kitchen - did a quick double take and simply said, "Congratulations! When?" Which both Andorra and I translated as "What date had we set for the wedding?"

That called for some further discussion, which included Carol, who Frank called on the telephone. The date was eventually set -- pretty arbitrarily really - for the middle of February.

Andorra and I wanted a fairly low-key affair, but our girls wanted something far more extravagant; I think we settled on somewhere in between. We decided on having the wedding itself at the registry office and a rather luxurious but small - neither Andorra nor I had much in the way of living relatives -- reception afterwards.

The registry office was chosen because... well there were no banns to be read and no entry in the parish newspaper to worry about. Notices like "Spinster of this parish" and "attended by her daughter," might have confused some folks. Andorra was supposed to be a widow!

After Frank had gone home, Andorra had to perform the delicate task of handing her notice in to her boss at the cab company. There's was no way that a wife of mine would be doing night shifts anywhere, for reasons too numerous to mention; and personal pride or mistrust doesn't come into that equation. It's more a kind of personal preference kind of thing; I'd got pissed off with sleeping - or rather the not sleeping - alone.

Andorra and I had another big decision to make when it was time for us to go to bed that night. Eventually we decided on separate bedrooms until after the wedding. We both realised we'd have problems justifying any position we took about sex outside marriage with the girls when they got older, if they had seen us sharing a room before we were married.

But that doesn't mean that I didn't develop the habit of nipping home for "lunch" most days once the girls got back to school. Okay, so I took a few long lunches no one at the office seemed to object, most probably because of the further improvement of my general demeanour.

Andorra did her last shifts at the cab company the following weekend. It took several taxis to transport all the flowers and boxes of chocolates home on the Sunday morning; we had to ration the girls for weeks afterwards. Andorra didn't do the Sunday night; some of the drivers -- and their wives - took us out for a meal and a bit of a party at a local pub. Taxis were in short supply in town that night.

The wedding itself was upon us almost before we realised. Everything went off extremely well considering and our girls made impeccable bridesmaids. I do believe Andorra and Carol spent more time getting them looking perfect that they did on my bride. But then as I think I've said before Andorra would look good in just about anything.

Andorra and I didn't have a honeymoon as such. One night in the honeymoon suite of the plush hotel we'd held the reception in; the girls going home with Frank and Carol's brood for the night.

Our master plan was to get away for most of the school summer holiday that year, with the girls. That first year, we spent five weeks kicking around Florida, the Caribbean and Southern California. Never staying anywhere for more than a few days and taking in just about everything we could see and experience in the time available.

It was only a week or two after the wedding I got home from work one evening and immediately knew something wasn't quite right. The girls seemed happy enough but Andorra was edgy about something. It was after the girls had gone to bed that she told me what was bothering her.

"Rachel knows that Tony isn't dead?" She informed me as soon as I came down from tucking both girls in and reading them a chapter of their book.

"Christ how did she find out?" I asked in surprise. I was sure we'd never discussed him whilst the girls were even in the house.

"I have no idea. Although I've suspected something was up ever since we moved in here. You know those pictures by the girls' beds? Well..."

The beds in the girls' room are parallel to each other. There's three small cabinets, one each side of them and a third in the middle. The centre one had two pictures on it, one of Andorra and one of me. The outside ones have pictures of Margery and Tony respectively on them. Andorra went on to explain that latterly she'd found the girls had been putting the pictures of Margery and Tony in the drawers most nights.

It suddenly struck me that I'd seen neither picture that evening.

Eventually Andorra had challenged the girls on why they were hiding the pictures away. The reply she'd got from Rachel had been "They don't want us, we don't want to look at their pictures!" Further discussion proved to Andorra that Rachel was well aware that her father had not been killed in a road accident but had run away, although she didn't appear to know why.

Andorra -- out of embarrassment - had chosen to leave Rachel in ignorance of the details; she didn't want to have to explain to the child that she was technically illegitimate. Although Andorra worried for a while about Rachel's reaction to the knowledge that her father was out there somewhere, the child didn't seem to give two hoots. Personally I thought the information made the girls feel closer to each other.

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

Andorra proved to be a perfect wife, better than a perfect wife she was a sensational mother to both of our girls. Not only was she great with the children, she was extremely patient with me when things got hectic at the office. Yeah, no matter what Otterley claims, I do have my shortcomings, but Andorra seems to overlook them, without ever mentioning them.

She's had the most wonderful sense of humour and has worked out plenty of ways to turn me on during the evening and tease me until the children have gone to bed, or we do. Sometimes my nights can be very tiring.

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

By the beginning of summer Margery's telephone calls to Otterley had almost dwindled to zero. Mind I'm not surprised, Otterley had changed tack, gone on the offensive and become very vocal when Margery did call.

I know that she had been angry with her mother, but both Andorra and I had to step in and chastise Otterley for referring to Andorra as her "New Mummy" when talking to Margery.

Otterley dropped that trick and instead kept talking about how much fun we all had when we went out together as a family, "Daddy's wife" and "My Sister Rachel," being mentioned at regular intervals.

Andorra and I discussed Otterley's attitude towards Margery a few times and how she spoke to her on the telephone. But we came to the eventual conclusion that we couldn't lay down a never-ending list of words and phrases that Otterley was forbidden to use to her. Otterley - with Rachel's connivance - was bound to be able to come up with some new ones, whatever we banned. We decided that Margery had made her own bed that day in the kitchen; now she'd have to get used to lying in the damned thing.

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

We hadn't been back from that holiday all that long when Otterley and Rachel started on the mummy and daddy thing again. For a time Andorra and I had trouble understanding what the minx's were hinting at, then we realised they were asking whether we were really their mummy and daddy, and here I blame the Internet.

Suddenly Andorra and I started to find printouts concerning adoption procedures lying around the house, with -- we assumed -- the intention of prompting Andorra to adopt Otterley and me Rachel. Also the girls had researched the legal technicalities of getting Rachel's name changed to Thomas and even gone so far as to print out the relevant forms.

As far as the adoption idea went, after some discussion Andorra and I decided it would have to be neither or both. Rachel's father, although he'd deserted her and Andorra, still retained his legal rights concerning her. Eventually we placed the problem in the hands of the same solicitor who'd handled my divorce.

It took over a year but eventually we succeeded in getting Tony's parental rights revoked and both adoptions went through. Whether by coincidence or design on our solicitor's part, the same judge who handled my divorce presided over the removal of Tony's parental rights, and I very much suspect that might have had some influence over his decision.

Legally our family now consisted of Mr and Mrs Thomas and our daughter's Otterley and Rachel. We did discuss additions, but eventually chose not to add to the family, well that was the intension.

Not very long after our marriage I'd received a promotion at work and with promotion had come a larger salary and the opportunity to delegate more of my workload. Our summer jaunts became a regular thing, I really do think Andorra planned them as a kind-of compensation for me for missing out on my travels when I was young.

The second year of our marriage we spent five weeks touring around Europe. The third we hit India - a surprisingly large country -- and Sri Lanka. The fourth we did Australia and New Zealand and yeah we had made the miscalculation that we arrived down there in the middle of their winter; but hey, we're British we had some of trouble noticing the difference.

By the time our fifth summer came along we were old hands at travelling. Otterley and Rachel - by then both fourteen-year-olds - had their own Video cameras and were getting pretty good at documenting our travels.

Canada, the Northern USA and Alaska were on the itinerary for that year and for most of the winter and spring all three of my girls had been making detailed plans. By then I left them to it, just dropping the name - of some out of the way place I'd heard of years before -- now and again and knowing that we'd be calling in there sometime during the trip.

There was one thing I don't think any of us had taken into account. About two years after our wedding, Andorra and I had started to receive Christmas cards from Margery. Otterley had always received Christmas and birthday cards from her. But we had no idea why she'd suddenly decided to send Christmas cards to us. We couldn't reciprocate, because none of the cards ever contained a return address.

However, the point was - and this was something that I and I assume the rest of the family overlooked, - they all bore Canadian stamps. Which would lead anyone - who was actually thinking about it -- to believe that Margery and Ronald had settled in the country somewhere.

Regretfully Margery was rarely mentioned in our house anymore, and I don't think she'd called Otterley on the telephone for several years, so no one raised the point.

Anyway as always the master plan for our extended summer vacation that year got changed as time went along. When the girls informed me that we had no chance of visiting every place we wanted in the time available, and that was after we'd done some very heavy clipping of the list. Eventually we decided to draw an arbitrary line down the continent in a similar way as we'd drawn one across it a few years before. That summer we'd visit the west; the east would be left for another year.

We flew Into Winnipeg on an air Canada flight in late June and after a day or two looking around some historic sites near the city - this isn't a travelogue so I won't go into details and then set off on our tour proper in a hire car. Travelling west from Manitoba into Saskatchewan then turning south and almost back on ourselves through the Dakotas, Nebraska and down as far as Kansas before we swung west and then north again passing through Colorado and Wyoming where we spent a few days on what I think is called a Dude Ranch.

The horses were pleasant to ride, but I think I'll stick to English saddles in future. Comfortable as western type saddles are, I found that I got the feeling that it wouldn't be as easy to bailout should anything go awry; not that I got the slightest inclination that it would. Neck raining was also an interesting experience.

There are two theories about ridding horses or motorcycles; when the doo-doo hits the fan that is. Stay with it and hope you can recover control; or bailout and hopefully hit the ground, on your feet and running. The prospect of getting on for anything up a ton of horse or a bike with its engine still screaming and rear wheel spinning, landing on to of me, had never been my idea of a good time.

Anyway I've digressed a little, eventually we rolled into Montana and stopped at a town I'd heard of somewhere and I'd always wanted to visit. I'd probably read about the place in a western novel or something. After checking into our hotel, motel or whatever you like to call it, we headed for a restaurant; a diner I suppose, that we'd seen near by.

The restaurant was busy and somewhat noisy as well, what with all the patrons chatting to each other. But then suddenly there was an almighty crash followed by absolute silence; everyone stopped speaking, - as it always happens in the circumstance - one of the waitresses dropped a tray loaded with some poor buggers' meals.

It's one of those reflex actions that you can't control isn't it; like everyone else in the establishment Andorra and I found ourselves looking to see exactly who had been so clumsy and disturbed our meals by dropping the tray. A pretty thoughtless thing to do really because surely the culprit would be embarrassed enough about making the noise; they sure didn't want every bugger in the place staring at them.

I spotted the culprit very quickly and somewhat to my surprise found that I recognised her. What's more it was fairly obvious that she'd spotted me as well, - on reflection I realised that it was possibly her recognising me that had been the cause of her dropping that damned tray in the first place - the poor woman was standing there with her mouth open and wide-eyed, staring right back at me.

From Andorra's reaction I gathered she recognised the woman as well. Whatever, both Andorra and I were to react by saying 'almost' exactly the same thing in unison to our girls.

"Eat your dinner Rachel/Otterley, it's nothing for you to worry about." Andorra had addressed Rachel, and I Otterley.

Sometimes old habits die-hard; although they were "our girls" now - we'd both legally adopted each other's daughters - even after five years there was still the tendency for us to chastise our own child first.

Not that it made any difference; both children were twisted around in their seats to see or who had been responsible for the disturbance.

Otterley turning back almost instantly on recognising the woman and I believe uttering the words "Serves her right!" under her breath, then she returned to eating her meal as if nothing had happened.

Rachel stared a little longer until after the waitress had turned and fled the public area of the restaurant. Then she looked at me smiled sweetly, then moved her gaze to her mother's eyes, before she returned to eating her meal, as Otterley had.

The waitress's departure had lead to quite a few of the other patrons looking in our direction. Maybe some had looked our way before the waitress fled but I hadn't noticed. Whatever it was obvious they all realised that it had been my families and/or my presence that had prompted the incident.