In that moment when she saw her standing there my heart melted like butter in the hot sun she had left behind. Delia. Oh God had she always been so, so beautiful. She stood in the cold under the bridge watching Delia walk around the rather oddly placed carousel. Her thoughts didn't stay long on the carousel. Delia looked so alone, her shoulders slumped. She looked the way I had felt, as though half her heart had gone to Hong Kong, just as half of mine had stayed in Poplar. I didn't want to move forwards, it had been so long and I wasn't quite ready to talk to everyone yet. The final days had been hard, my father was living on a feeding tube and a tracheotomy by the end. He fought on, he fought for a week with me being left to be a nurse and a secretary in that time. His lungs simply gave out in the end, he was gone. I wasn't with him, but he wouldn't have known if I had been.
Now, I had witnessed the death of both her parents. My mother and father, both slowly and painfully- my sister too. At only 29 years old I was totally alone in the world. Except I wasn't, because over there was the person I had left half my heart with for safe keeping.
At that moment Delia chose too look up. She spotted patsy, their eyes met and I could have sworn there were tears in Delia's blue eyes.
Delia walked straight over and patsy felt her heart buzz with electricity. The moment Delia got close enough I recognised her perfume. The smell was glorious and made her chest tighten. The scent was comfort- I knew it was a perfume which was named and owned by someone famous- but it was the one Delia wore for occasions. The one I associated with late drunken giggling. With our first kiss.
Delia grabbed me by the hand, dragging her down to the far end of the tunnel like a naughty toddler before I finally stepped forwards to stop her.
Her girlfriend's face was stony and emotionless. I felt my chest tighten further, as though it was being strapped into a corset. This time the tightening also made my stomach drop. This was the face of a Delia that needed an explanation.
I spoke as soon as I could bare to meet Delia's eyes- eyes full of sorrow- and the words spilled out. As they were strewn into the open the ribbons of the corset released on my chest. I watched the expression on Delia's face changing. It too became melting butter softening in the sun.
As I uttered my last words, I felt as though they had bypassed my brain, as though they had spilled straight from my heart into the icy cold air.
" and wherever I go next, your coming with me."
I felt my heart reaching out, taking control from my brain and grabbing Delia by the collar of her jacket, pulling her in towards me.
She followed my example and soon her lips pressed to mine. My heart soared, her smell, the feeling of her soft, lipstick covered lips on my own, it was beyond all other feelings. Oh I had needed her, craved her for so long, suppressed the desire to simply hold her. Eventually I became aware of her hand in the back of my hair, her thumb stroking me cheek. Of her lips opening slightly to better capture mine. The slight taste of her that I captured was ambrosial! My hand wrapped across her shoulders, the other slipping up to hold her ribs. To touch her curvy figure, hidden under the jacket she wore. I felt better than I had remembered I could. She loved me, and if anything nine months apart had shown me how much that love was real and true and everything I could ever need. She was mine, and I hers. Slowly our lips parted with a muted pop brought on by two coats of lipstick. I didn't want to let her go, I never had, but now I knew I never would again.
Glancing behind me it hit, a sinking feeling.
Had anyone seen? No one, not even a blind man going by Delia's tiny noises of appreciation, could have taken that as a friendly kiss. No one stood watching, everyone was involved in the carousel or the snow. And then, I realised- to my extreme surprise- that I didn't care. I loved Delia, and it shouldn't matter if others new, if others discovered us. Times were changing and our time was coming.
Delia slipped her hand slowly from mine, picking up my suitcase and looking up at the sky,
"Eira," she muttered. I must have looked questioning because she instantly replied.
"Snow. It is always the snow." She smiled and headed on, allowing me to follow, back to Nonatus, back to midwifery and back home.