"Camilla?" he whispered, standing behind her as she sat on the floor, cross legged and breathing in the warmth of the electric fire. It was gone midnight and Nonnatus was quiet; all except the mouse he had found in the sitting room as he wandered past trying to be as silent as possible in heavy work boots.
Peter had only been back on the streets of Poplar for two days but he still couldn't shake that ethereal displaced feeling that hung around his shoulders of how Sierra Leone felt a million miles away, yet this place – his home - felt so far away - distanced - too. That feeling of not belonging, coupled with the excitement to come as her belly proudly told him, exhausted his bones so wishing to not feel so disjointed and unsettled. They were back home for goodness sake but Peter still couldn't shake the ghost that followed every step. Perhaps things would settle down soon, when they were back in their old routine.
He'd thought she might have been long in bed and he'd intended to fetch a glass of water, go up, slide in beside her and wait for dawn. Instead he found her there; catching a glance of the back of her head as he crept past, stopping and turning back.
"Hello" she whispered quietly; not looking at him, but engrossed in what looked like a shoe box and its contents. Peter couldn't see her face and he would first admit that he was worried. It was an adjustment in itself being back but with everything to come and she shouldn't be awake at this time….
"Are you alright?" he asked, still hesitating beside her wondering what on earth it was she had found to scatter across the floor and all over the carpet. Whatever it was seemed to be it was the content of the bruised and battered shoe box; something he had never seen before and, as much as bed was calling him, he was also a little intrigued.
"Yes, perfectly" Chummy replied, still not looking up, but turning over a piece of paper and carefully studying the writing upon it. Peter frowned and decided to sit down, parallel to the pile she had been creating, seeing finally it looked like a birth certificate. Hers to be exact as he saw her rather convoluted name that she had, he might add, gleefully abandoned, written in perfect script.
He cast his eye over the rest of the ephemera and leant across placing a hand on hers to gain her attention. It took a few seconds for her to realise and Chummy slowly raised her head to him and he could not easily be convinced she had not been crying after all.
"What's all this?" he asked quietly, picking up a small silver box.
"Thinks I need to think about" she responded cryptically, taking the little silver pot back off him. "Things I wonder if this baby will want to know about". He saw her place her hand gently on her stomach as she continued to read what was on the paper. Peter looked carefully. Tucked behind it he could now see the green of their marriage certificate too. Now he was altogether unnerved at why she was sifting through all of this in the dead of the night.
"Might there be things I want to know about too?" Peter asked tentatively, having taken in more of the objects scattered over the rug and wondering what she had been doing and perhaps more importantly doing it when she knew she would not be particularly disturbed.
Chummy blinked quickly, not sure whether there were things in that box that she felt she could trust anyone with. He was the closest person to her heart but sometimes she felt he might laugh or think her silly for keeping all the things that she did. Peter watched her as she folded the two pieces of paper in half; leaning across to pick up two blue ticket stubs, running a nail over the edge of one, passing one to him and keeping the other for herself. "These are from the pictures" he began, wondering why she had kept them. Then he realised, his brain purging itself of the memory of where these scraps came from.
"Our first date" she said, seeing him turn one of the tickets over where they had been clipped at the cinema. Good memories were a place to start.
"I remember" he smiled, thinking for a second. "You kept these?"
She nodded carefully. "Remember I asked you for them when you walked back to Nonnatus with me?"
"I do…I think" Peter replied, having the ticket taken back off him and tucked back into the box. To be truthful, he hadn't recalled being asked for them but that may just have been down to the fact that he just didn't want to take his eyes off her, nor see the door to Nonnatus close so her wanting to keep the tickets could easily have passed him by.
"Is that a menu from….?" Peter asked, seeing a piece of card that had lined the side of the box.
"Yes" she replied. Their second date in fact at their now favourite dining rooms where they had been too many times to recall and where they were planning on going for supper tomorrow night.
"You stole it from under a policeman's nose?" he laughed.
She smiled and looked up. "You were too busy being twitchy and nervous to notice" she began, turning the menu the right way up so she could read it. Chummy could even remember what they both ate, or in Peter's case, nearly ate. "I remember you barely touched your supper and nearly tripped over the door mat on the way in".
Peter laughed again quickly. How true that was and even if he was relatively sure he had only just about not made a fool of himself, every recollection was precious. "Yes, I was wasn't I?" It was a rhetorical question and he leant across and brushed a lock of hair that had fallen forward, seeing her shoulders drop as she leant into his warmth. "I don't know what I would have done if Sister Evangelina hadn't said anything. Gone around wondering why I never had the guts to just ask you…gone around seeing you every single day but you were so far out of reach".
"I was never out of reach to you Peter" she replied, quietly, resting, relaxing as she felt his thumb brush her cheekbone. "You never knew how much I wanted you to ask, but I just thought….I think I just thought you could have any girl you liked…." She shook her head, dismissing the negativity that had begun to interfere.
"I liked you" he responded, shifting closer, wanting to find out what else she had, at worst, misappropriated; not thinking the box contained any more than old tickets or scraps that his wife had collected on her way.
"I kept – keep - all our tickets" she started, picking up an envelope and he could see cinema stubs, those theatre tickets that Mum had given him and the ones from the handful of dances they went to with the girls. They were going to be joined by the boat and train tickets from the journey home too as they were all precious. "It's our path. It's the road we've walked on. I thought one day they would give me good memories. Perhaps when I'm senile I'll see these and know me again. Think of all the wonderful things we got up to. Even if we never….if nothing ever came of you and I, I'd still have these to remind me of you".
Peter let her carry on, discretely withdrawing his hand as she raised her head again. It was as though she was trying to process in her mind all these steps she had taken these past two years, wondering how they all fitted together. "Remind me that someone never wanted me to be different from who I really am".
"And never will" Peter responded. To him it was as simple as that. He'd fallen in love with Camilla Fortescue-Cholmondley-Browne with all her quirks and foibles and anxieties that he seemed to be slowly chipping away at. "This didn't come with us to Sierra Leone" Peter said suddenly. He'd have seen it if it had.
"No" Chummy replied, shifting the box an inch closer to her so it was lined neatly against a stripe on the rug. "When we moved out of the married quarters I asked Sister Julienne to look after it for me until we came back. It's travelled with me for miles. School….India…but if it was here one knew one was coming back here to collect it someday; that one had to come back and get it. She gave it me this afternoon after you went to work".
She had become engrossed and had not noticed the time. Nonnatus had been quiet tonight and after the flurry of excitement was over at her return and the rather unexpected delivery in the hallway, they were all going about their daily business once again and she needed something to do although she was not quite sure what it was exactly that led her to ask Sister Julienne precisely at that moment for it back.
"So what else is there?" he asked, curious if this shoebox had travelled with her since school, maybe, what else it might hold; what other memories she was keeping locked away unshared for years. "Can I?" he inquired, wanting to encourage her, picking up a piece of bedraggled navy blue ribbon that was fraying at the edges where it had been cut into a once perfect 'v' shape.
"We used to have to wear navy ribbons in our hair at Roedean". Chummy frowned, taking the ribbon off him and wrapping it around her fingers. "I don't know why I kept that". The ribbon went back into the box again as she picked up a piece of silver, carefully caressing it with the pads of her fingers.
"A tie pin?" he asked, seeing a minute change in her face and a tear escape, knowing all too readily how easy they came these days. "When my grandfather died, Pa said I could take one thing that belonged to him. The boys took books and Bob took an ink pen that used to sit on Grandfather's desk". She turned the pin over with a frown on her face. "He used to wear it all the time". Chummy had been particularly close to her father's father – her Trust Fund said it all really – and she knew it had been precious to him. In fact, she never remembered him not wearing it.
"I never knew my Dad's dad" Peter replied, resisting leaning forward to take up the tie pin so he could look more. "He died in 1917. Dad barely knew him".
"Well at least your Pa will see this one" she smiled, thinking of the tiny life inside here that it seemed was now resting for the night and how much she was absolutely sure that is little one's grandfather would be ever present in his or her life.
"So what else is in there?" he asked. They were still getting to know each properly and he was sure, determinedly sure, that he wanted to know every aspect of her that he could. It was questionable though if she would let him as speedily as he might wish, but everything was always worth a try. Peter saw her consider what was in front of her carefully and pick up a small red velvet pouch with a thin gold cord that she pulled away to produce a crucifix.
"It's ivory", she began. "When we were in Somerset, my uncle – well he was a brother in law of one of my father's sisters – was the Vicar of the parish. They'd been vicars and parish clerks for generations. He gave me that for my 10th birthday. Said he had brought it back from South Africa and I was to take the very best care of it. It always seemed too precious so I never wore it". She didn't have the shoe box at the age of 10; but as she determinedly squirreled away her memories it seemed the perfect home for it.
Peter saw a grave change in her face. "He couldn't bare Mater. He said she sorely tested his faith. Said it in front of her too…I didn't understand it at the time".
He didn't want to say anything about her mother. The three times he had been in close proximity to her were difficult to say the least and sometimes some subjects were simply best left to one side. Still, he couldn't imagine that there was anything in that box that had once belonged to his mother in law or indeed anything that she had furnished her only daughter with so it may, for now, be safe ground to walk upon. She placed the crucifix carefully back into the pouch and it went back into the shoe box.
Her husband wasn't really a religious man and would be the first to admit that a little while ago he had only upped his visits to Church on a Sunday morning should he so happen to fall into her company; even if it was only the walk from the church door to the gate or to Nonnatus if he was lucky. "I have to believe Peter" she continued. "I have to think there is good in the world and the path I am on is truly the right one".
"I hope it is" Peter responded.
Two photographs were pulled out next as she dived away from the subject. One was one he recognised immediately of them standing on the bottom step of Nonnatus, surrounded by the Sisters and the girls. "The most perfect day of my life….." she whispered, passing him one of the only two photographs they had of their wedding day. The other had been framed and would find itself onto the wall at some point in the non too distant future.
"And mine".
The other was of another wedding, taken a good decade or more before theirs if the clothes were anything to go by. Gently she pointed out every single person on the photograph. From her brothers - her brother Will being the groom - to her sisters in law, aunts, uncles, multiple cousins, yet not Chummy herself. Peter took the photograph wondering why she had not pointed out the dark haired teenager seated at the end of the front row in a long dress and a crown of flowers adorning her head. "This is you" he said simply, gently brushing the figure of the person indelibly in black and white before him.
"Yes, that's me" Chummy replied casually, picking up another trinket and dropping it back into the box.
"You are so pretty" he smiled.
"Don't try to sweet-talk me Peter" she responded flatly, refusing to look point blank at the photograph any more and regretting immediately the tone of her voice.
"I'm not" he responded, quite hurt, face crumpling in that element of frustration he always felt when she put herself down. "I said it because it's the truth. Even if you don't like to believe me, I was commenting on what I see Camilla and I see how pretty you are and were".
The photograph was whipped out of his hand back into the box far too speedily and for a moment he admitted defeat; wondering why. There must be a reason she could barely look at herself in photographs but that one had particularly touched a nerve, but he really wondered whether he should press it for fear of upsetting her.
Perhaps he wouldn't for now.