After they had said their hellos and introductions, Peter found himself sitting in the steaming hot front room of his mother's friend's house catapulted in there as Ernie seemed to want to speak to Chummy and Chummy alone.
He'd sat on the settee, the air so warm and stifling he was relatively sure his eyeballs were drying out, blinking repeatedly as a wall littered with family photographs stared down back at him. He also didn't initially notice the ginger cat that had crept out from behind another chair although now it seemed particularly interested in sitting on his knee.
"Oh go on then, if you must" he sighed, the sleek creature jumping up immediately and settling down. Through the wall, on the other side of which stood the dining room, he could not hear anyone talking. Not that he was trying to listen, well he was as things went, but he'd been in this room before with his brother waiting for his mother to appear all brimming with proclamations. None of them ever came true mind so he became a very young skeptic.
However long it was later with the cat having decided that Peter was not comfortable enough, he heard the door go in the back room.
"So what did she say then?" he asked as they walked hand in hand away down the path from the aging terraced house. The cynicism in his voice obvious, even to a wife who occasionally had trouble in determining whether he was teasing her or not, the tone of his voice was even upon her radar.
"She said that you'll be promoted soon" she offered as they wandered along, the sky a touch on the greying side.
"Mum or Aunty May probably told her about my exams" he noted. A perfectly logical explanation it was after all. He had every intention of getting there somehow.
"That we'll move house" Chummy noted as they turned onto the main road.
"Well we are going to move into the married quarters soon, but again…..Anything else?" he asked.
"And that we'll have a little boy by Christmas next year". Now that was the bit that she had been petrified of raising with him and it all came out in an unintentional rush.
"There won't be that many married couples that won't and it's a 50 50 chance after all" Peter reasoned, mindset still fixed into a healthy dose of doubt. Besides which he knew it was a sensitive subject.
"She might be right though", Chummy replied as they walked on. The thought of it quite terrified her but he seemed to be quite casual about it. Maybe he was quite a bit more of a non-believer than she thought and them having a child someday was almost an eventuality that she only had minimal control over.
"But if she is" he replied, turning to her stopping her from walking any more, confident that they were not going to be interrupted as they slipped up an alleyway between the shops, heading to a café for lunch, "Life will be alls the better won't it?"
Chummy nodded carefully. "But like you said, most of its hooey" she said, as they began to walk on again. "I mean peoples jobs change all the time, people get married, have little ones, move house…If she told me something so unique about me, or you, then I might believe it a bit more". That was the best, pretend that it really hadn't bothered her too much and adopt his way of thinking. Whatever she did say though, where was the tangible proof? Some place or time in the future?
"But at least we can tell Mum we have been" Peter noted.
"We can" she smiled, taking up his hand as they continued to walk seeing the café ahead. "So shall we go and have lunch?"
Chummy was laid out the bath and Peter was equally if not more so laid out on the settee, still not moved back to its original place. He was just watching the world go by, full stomach after dinner and entirely and utterly relaxed. He'd heard her run the water and the splashes as she bathed mind going off on a rather imaginative folly of its own as he closed his eyes, not intending to sleep; just to wait for her and think about her for a while.
However long the time had passed he opened his eyes to see her sitting on the settee, next to where he was still laid out, head on one arm and feet up on the other.
"I fell asleep didn't I?" he confessed.
"I think so" she smiled, hand resting gently on his stomach, "and you'll be complaining about your shoulder if you keep lying like that for much longer". True enough he was lying slightly twisted and she was probably right.
Chummy got up, hearing the rain start to patter on the open window, deciding to leave it there though as she liked the breeze. He had had plans to grab her so she could lie down with him but she was too fast for his half awake state, so instead he got up and went over to the bed, crawling on so he was parallel to the pillows and lying on his back.
"Comfortable?" she asked, making sure she had put her glasses on the bedside table after taking them off before she went into the bathroom.
"Yes thank you" he replied.
Chummy regarded him, eyes closed, stretched out with his arms behind his head. Have I made you happy? You look like you are happy.
"Camilla" he started, eyes still firmly shut. "Sit down". Another command so why on earth was she so easily acquiescing? Nevertheless she sat, hands clasped between her knees in anticipation for something or other that she could not put her finger on. By the time she had made herself comfortable though he had sat up behind her and his lips were on her neck. Chummy shut her eyes quickly learning that he rather seemed to like that spot and well, frankly, thought she would be hard pushed to admit it openly, so did she.
"Peter" she sighed, him feeling her hand go to the back of his head. He took the gesture as 'stop' and withdrew.
"What?"
"Sorry" she whispered. "I didn't mean you to stop. I just can't get used to….this…" she wavered, flapping her hand in front of them both.
"Well you'd best get used to it", Peter replied, one hand sliding across resting on the tie of her dressing gown belt as he dotted a kiss to her cheek. How one person could make her feel like her bones had turned to jelly and her blood was lava, she would never know but she didn't really have time to think about it as he pulled her back so they were both lying down. All she could concentrate on was the fact his fingers were neatening her dressing gown belt that she would freely admit was far too twisted to be decent as she had dressed hurriedly from the steaming hot bath into the cold air.
"Peter?" she asked, one question burning away at her that she needed to ask in private, not whilst they were walking around the streets of Ramsgate. "What did you really think of what Ernie said?"
"It's rubbish" he replied. "Like you said she told you nothing out of the ordinary. If she had said anything about….Oh I don't know….a wealthy military bloke who'd been to Eton and Oxford that you had nearly married and it had been true…." Peter at this point was joking but she had taken him seriously.
"Peter don't" she frowned. "I've never wanted some Oxbridge elitist who can speak six different languages" she said, very fervent in that view. "Live somewhere where I have to organise dinner parties and soirees and try and impress people that I know would otherwise never give me time of day". She paused, eyes scouring his face, hoping she could express in her eyes what her mind was thinking of.
"That's the very reason I wanted to go away, out of London away from the possibility of having to marry somebody like that. Be trapped in a life like that ". Chummy sighed, settling down more comfortably. "You just happened to halt me in my tracks before I had the occasion to go".
"And you were going to go?" he asked. Now she recognised that hint of fear in his face easily. Perhaps her fear that he would somehow just up and away was purely her imagination.
"Yes, absolutely" she replied, wanting to reassure him that now she was here, she had no intention of going anywhere without him. "But I have this life now and its wonderful".
"And it will be wonderful" he said turning on his side propping his head up, fingers still absently messing with belt of her dressing gown. "Camilla, I know what she said about next Christmas is worrying you. I can tell".
She frowned and bit her lip; her mind had been at war with her body over children from the moment she realised that they may just end up man and wife and she wanted to desperately believe that she might just be a good mother if she tried and listened and learned.
It was perfectly possible that he might just not know what to do with a squalling helpless newborn either. At least Camilla might have, no she would have, that thing that was meant to be called 'mother's instinct' even if she didn't realise it until she had said newborn in her arms. He saw her enough with the babies in clinic to know it was there and it would not take much to dig it up.
"I might be a terrible dad" he offered.
"Yes, but at least you know what a good dad could be to his child. You've got good examples. You get on with yours" she pleaded.
"That I do" he admitted. "But is there any point worrying now it right this moment?"
She shook her head, still feeling him what she thought was adjusting her belt although it suddenly registered that he was taking an awful long time about it.
"No not at the moment no" she responded, smiling up at him.
"Camilla?" he asked.
"Hmmm?" Peter could tell she was distracted still.
"This knot?! It's like trying to break into Fort Knox…Help me here."
"Oh!" she replied, realising now all along he wasn't being obsessively neat about her appearance he was trying to divest her of her dressing gown. "Sorry!" Chummy continued, using her nails to loosen the rather healthily tied knot.
"Better. Thank you" Peter replied, sliding the belt free.
"Peter...she did tell me something else too" Chummy said, resting her hand on his to stop it creeping underneath the satin material. He'd only find the cotton slip she had on underneath it anyway. He nodded his head quickly for her response.
"She told me that nothing and no-ones ever going to separate us. I'd like to think she's right about that".
"Me too" he replied, slipping his hand underneath her dressing gown, quite happy to believe that bit of the prediction could come true.