"I can't believe this is it" Trixie uttered sadly, feeling the six year olds arms around her legs, his head resting on the protrusion that was to become in a few short weeks time, Miss Lucy Beatrix Hereward and honorary Noakes cousin.
Chummy smiled weakly, taking a step past her. "I can't believe we are going. For good this time".
"Freddie, do be careful" Chummy said quietly, now seeing where her son's head was against Trixie's abdomen and concerned he was causing discomfort. Her son tended to give out hugs like sweets and although she was more than pleased he was such an affectionate little chap, she had once been as pregnant as her friend and knew how uncomfortable the most gentle of cuddles could be.
"It's quite alright" Trixie replied, brushing a hand over his hair as he grinned up at her. "He's not hurting either of us are you handsome?"
"In twelve hours", Chummy said as she continued to walk around, straightening a corner of lace tablecloth across the Nonnatus dining table that was stuffed for their joint farewell tea, "we will be on a boat, probably close to Spain". She breathed for a moment.
"And as of tonight I will be confined to the Vicarage to wait for this little one and in two months time I will be on the train to Swansea. You must write!" Trixie insisted, far too close to tears.
"An' send photographs!" Freddie piped up. "I wan' to see my cousin!"
"We'll send plenty of photographs" Chummy assured taking up what was once, long before Peter and their children, her usual seat at the table. "Make sure you do too!"
Trixie nodded as Freddie stepped away to allow her to sit down too, happy with the photographic arrangements. "I was hoping you could stay long enough to deliver me" she said sadly, having been somewhat reluctant to take leave with so much to do at Nonnatus. "You're the only one that knows what it's like. You can sympathise!"
Chummy laughed seeing Freddie wander out, probably towards the garden where Sister Julienne and the rest of their guests had gathered.
"One caesarean and barely half an hours' notice before you give birth on the sitting room floor is not exactly experiencing things old girl!" she whispered, not wanting Freddie to hear so it did not induce some awkward discussions, thankful that had not witnessed his brother's birth almost four years ago now.
"I remember that" Trixie said with a smile, adjusting her mustard coloured cardigan. That late afternoon she had received the frantic telephone call, hearing the lusty cries of a new born in the background. "The look of shock on Peter's face when we got there was spectacular. He was white as a sheet!"
"All I remember is Sister Evangelina's face when he opened the front door in his vest and her cursing at him to get out of the room whilst she examined me!" Chummy smiled, Peter's police shirt acting as their newborn son's blanket as he nestled in her arms, eyes adjusting to the light to stare at his mother, who once again was totally and utterly in love in seconds.
"I never understood why she did that you know. He'd just practically delivered you himself so he'd seen the gruesome side of it already!" Trixie recalled, remembering the rushed explanation as to what had happened from the new father pushed out into the dining room as Sister Evangelina examined mother and son.
Chummy smiled. "Well I do suppose where I am going; I will be delivering babies again in worse conditions than that. For good" she repeated.
"Yes but", Trixie started, having been visibly upset when the news had been announced that once again the Noakes' would be saying goodbye. This time though it was different. "Baby is due in three weeks, is there no way you could stay?"
Chummy shook her head. "Sorry, old girl. Duty called and Peter is going into an immediate promotion when we get there, so we would have been foolish to say no".
"No, that's true" Trixie sighed. "You will comeback though? For visits? Tom and I will be".
"You know we will and we will come to Swansea to see you. I'll never be able to leave Poplar, or any of you, behind. Not properly" Chummy said, stating the absolute truth. Poplar would be there forever. It had brought her life and to life to boot.
"I think last time" Trixie started, remembering one other tearful farewell. "We knew you were coming back, so it was so much easier".
"I knew we were coming back" Chummy replied. "I was so upset, but I think that was fear of the unknown more than anything. We were coming back and we had to come back then".
"Had to?" Trixie inquired, only knowing it was a six month temporary post and all had made the assumption they were come back so had not been too concerned that it may change into anything else.
"I had visions of perhaps staying" Chummy confessed, the missions of Africa having been her dream. "Peter was all for it too, even after a fortnight there, he wanted to stay!"
"Really?" Trixie was quite shocked.
"Except I had every suspicion I was pregnant before we left". Chummy shrugged her shoulders,
"You did?!" Trixie said, leaning forward. "Why didn't you tell us?!"
"I hadn't even told Peter!" she explained seeing Trixie's eyes wide. "I had only skipped the curse by ten days or so when we left, so I wanted to wait few weeks so I could be sure and not disappoint him but within the first month I saw Peter getting more and more attached to the place as we went along so I had to tell him and pray I didn't get it so very wrong" she noted. "And I wanted Freddie to be born in the East End". She had been adamant about that one particularly when they had discussed coming back; the boy would know his roots and it was no more complicated than that.
"And you lot guessed before I even knew about this one!" Trixie replied, remembering being cornered in the treatment room by Patsy and Chummy one afternoon with questions that they required be answered forthwith.
"It's what midwives are for" Chummy smiled, seeing her son out of the corner of her eye as he walked down the hallway past the dining room where they were still sitting. "Freddie? Where are you going?" she asked, looking across to where he was.
"Daddy asked me to go and get Philip's cardigan. He's cold again" Freddie protested as he walked to where it had been left hanging over one of the sitting room chairs, unhooking the aran garment before skipping out again.
"He sounds about thirteen already!" Trixie whispered quietly, leaning as best as she was able towards her friend.
"I know" Chummy replied. "Lord help us when he actually is!"
Trixie laughed, feeling the baby shift and elbow her in the ribs, drawing in a quick breath.
"Are you alright?" Chummy asked. "One doesn't hope one will have to deliver in the middle of our tea party!"
"No" Trixie replied, shaking her head. "Baby doesn't seem to like me laughing very much these days. I do suppose there is no space left".
Her companion smiled, remembering those elbows and heels and that strangest feeling in the world of her son moving his head from side to side as though he was looking for something and it almost made her have to sit down it was so unnerving.
Trixie looked at the spread on the dining table wistfully seeing how everybody's lives were now so divergent. "I suppose it will be a long time before we will all be together again. It's only you and me left of the old girls now and we are off on our separate ways".
"I know" Chummy replied. "I did see Shelagh the other day with Angela and little Pamela but she was in a rush to collect Timothy from the train station". She had seen them quite by accident and their conversation had been all too brief.
"Did I tell you I had a letter from Cynthia last week too?" Trixie added, seeing Chummy nod. "She sounded so much clearer in mind than last time. I suppose the treatment is doing her good. She said Jenny visited a few weeks ago as well".
"Sister Julienne did tell us it was all for the best for her to be there" Chummy said, knowing it was the truth, however hard it had been to see the emotional deterioration in their friend as the months passed and her subsequent incarceration. "I just wish the Hospital would let us visit more often".
Trixie nodded too. "We will all be so many miles apart. You so many more".
"Then we make the best of today to have some wonderful memories to take with us" Chummy replied, feeling she had to look on the bright side. There was so much excitement to be had after all.
Trixie reached across and took up her tea cup. "To Swansea and Sierra Leone" she announced in a toast.
"Swansea and Sierra Leone" Chummy repeated, leaning across the table with her own half drunk cup as the china clinked.
To their side they heard a cough. Turning they saw Peter, with his sons at his feet, and Tom to their side.
"Sister Julienne requests our presence in the garden" Tom started. "I think she expects farewell speeches!"
"Well we will leave that to our husbands do you not think?" Chummy suggested seeing Trixie ease herself from the chair. "That is very much a man's role, do you not say? To speak in public?" she offered, seeing Trixie smile conspiring with her. Chummy had no plans whatsoever to be making speeches. She knew that if she opened her mouth to the wider audience, the finality would become all too real and for all of her bravado, she was not able to address that quite yet.
"Since when were you two subservient to your husbands?" Peter asked as he felt his wife link her arm in his and the six turned, Peter pushing his sons to run ahead.
"When it comes to having to say goodbye!" Trixie observed, feeling tears prick her eyes, as she walked with Tom, hand in hand, feeling heavy and awkward and on the verge of breaking down.
"Peter" Chummy whispered to her husband seeing the eyes glaze over. "You and Tom take the boys into the garden. Tell Sister Julienne we will be there in two shakes". She took her friends hand and let the men walk ahead.
"Trixie, old girl", Chummy said, enveloping her friend into a hug as they stood in the middle of the hallway. "Its all too terrifying to contemplate" she started, feeling her friend nod, "but once that babba is here you will be busy and when you are settled in that divine cottage of yours in Swansea, everything will be so much easier. Everything is planned for us the way God wants it". It was something that Chummy had to believe.
"It is such a terrible wrench" Trixie spluttered. "You've had so much practice with Freddie and Philip. All I've done is deliver babies and let someone else take care of them and now I am going to be stuck out somewhere in the wild as a Vicar's wife! I don't think that was in God's plan. It certainly wasn't in mine!"
"One rather thinks Sierra Leone will be far wilder!"
"Yes" Trixie replied. "Yes Swansea is hardly Sierra Leone is it?"
"But it is still miles between us isn't it?" Chummy mused, breaking the hug and they walked arm in arm towards the garden Freddie and Philip having reappeared at the end of the hallway, immediately sent back by Sister Julienne to hurry them along.
"We will have wonderful memories to keep us going won't we?" Trixie asked, wanting to be reassured.
"Of course we will. Plenty of letters, photographs and memories".
"Promise?" Trixie asked, holding up her little finger in a gesture familiar to her friend from as long ago as Roedean.
"Pinky, pinky bow-bell" Chummy started, linking her finger herself. "Whoever tells a lie, will sink down to the bad place, and never rise up again". The missive was known all to well by Trixie too.
"And we don't want that do we?"