Charles breathed out properly for the first time for what felt like weeks as he watched Betsy sitting in the rocking chair in the kitchen, the baby cradled up against her shoulder sucking her little fist and Parsnip leaning his body weight against her left leg, and knew that she had been worrying at his peace of mind since the last time he'd been in this kitchen, that he'd needed to see for himself that she was okay. Lexie had slept peacefully all the way in the car, and had then started screaming the second he'd lifted the car seat out as he'd rushed to get her out of the bitter cold wind and into the warmth of the kitchen. She was announcing her presence to the residents of Royal Crescent, not only her grandparents but their immediate neighbours, by protesting very loudly at her hunger, her wet bum and the cessation of the motion which had kept her so comfortably snoozing for the last few hours.
Molly had followed with the dog on his lead, a dog that wasn't too sure he liked the feel of the slippery tiles under his feet so that he kept sitting down on a 'doing as he was told' strike until Molly told him to please 'his bloody self' and unclipped his lead and walked away, leaving him sitting there so that eventually he'd got up and followed her.
"She's 'ungry, can you 'old 'er for a bit while I get sorted? I need to find the nappies 'n that" Molly had immediately released Lexie from her seat harness and passed her to her grandmother who sat down and instinctively cradled the crying baby up to her face with one hand under her bum and one holding her head and quite literally beamed at Charles, so that he'd realised how long it had been since he'd last seen that sort of expression of sheer joy on her face, and mouthed a silent 'thank you' at Molly who shrugged and mouthed 'What?' as if she didn't know what he was thanking her for. Lexie stopped crying as her grandmother jiggled her gently and Charles asked where his father was, wanting to get the issue of the dog sorted as soon as possible hoping that his father would be swayed by the look of pleasure on his mum's face as Parsnip put his head on her knee and nudged her with his nose, asking to be petted.
"Give it a bloody rest Parsnip" Molly took Lexie from her grandmother to change her bum and feed her as the baby started to fuss again, then gave up on the idea of the pre-feed nappy change as Lexie roared her disapproval of the delay in the provision of lunch, and Betsy started to slowly stroke Parsnip's head, gently playing with his ears which he loved.
An hour later and they were sitting in the huge lounge in front of a roaring log fire, a clean, dry and replete Lexie sleeping peacefully in her grandmother's arms with Parsnip asleep across Betsy's feet as Molly curled up in a chair dozing slightly and Charles listened out for his father's return from the golf course. He knew he couldn't possibly be much longer, it was getting dark and it was bitterly cold outside, and Charles wondered just how much time Betsy spent here on her own, and what the bloody hell he could do about it.
-OG-
"You are taking her to this memory clinic thing that the consultant told me about, aren't you?"
"Well, no, it's a bit tricky …."
"No Dad, it's not, it's bloody important that she goes and you need to talk to her GP about all the other things that are out there that might help"
"What did you bring that flaming dog for?"
"Don't change the subject, and we bought Parsnip because Mum likes dogs and it's too expensive to keep putting him in kennels when we come down, and he hates it"
"She's getting worse, you know"
"Well, how much time does she spend here on her own? She's probably lonely, needs someone to talk to, you might gonna need to change your social life a bit"
"Might gonna need to" Bill raised his eyebrows as he repeated the phrase "What sort of grammar is that?"
"That's Molly speak" Charles snorted a laugh down his nose "I hadn't realised that I'd caught it"
"She's a nice girl, Charles, you're very lucky; you want to hold onto this one"
"I know, and I'm going to" Charles shrugged, knowing that his father had successfully changed the subject away from Charles' mother and his wife of forty one years, yet again.
-OG-
Their monthly visits to Bath went mostly without incident so that they were somewhat lulled into a false sense of security, Betsy had good days and bad days, although most of the days that they were there and she had her beloved Lexie and her, almost more beloved, Parsnip in the house were really good ones. She loved nothing more than going out for long walks with Charles and the dog; when, without speaking, she appeared to be almost back to her old self. Charles would have loved to suggest that his mum and dad got a dog of their own for his mother, but knew that his father wouldn't co-operate with that idea and he couldn't leave it to chance that the dog would be properly looked after and he certainly didn't want to argue over inessential stuff; there were going to be more important issues to address, probably sooner rather than later.
The wake-up call for his father came on one hot and sunny afternoon in June when Charles was sweating at Parker James and Molly was sitting under an umbrella in the garden with Lexie, who was wearing just a nappy, as she kicked and gurgled on a blanket and Parsnip stretched out in the shade of the large tree at the end of the lawn. Quite what the tree was neither of them had a clue; they kept meaning to look it up and kept forgetting.
"What, what happened?"
Charles had come home early and had thrown his jacket on the blanket as he sat down next to Lexie and checked to see who had been calling him repeatedly while he was driving home.
"Shit"
Molly had been on her way into the house to get him a drink but stopped at his tone of voice and stood still, waiting to see what was happening.
"I'll call later; see how she is, okay? But, Dad, we're going to have to think about this, you can't pretend and hope it'll all go away"
-OG-
"What's 'appened?"
Charles rubbed the back of his neck and accepted the hand up which Molly was offering him as he bent down and picked up Lexie and blew raspberries on her tummy, making her gurgle and giggle, and bringing a smile to his face.
"She went to the local shop after lunch and then couldn't remember where she lived or how to get home, she got really upset apparently, she was probably scared, poor mum, and because they know her a bit they looked in her phone and tried to call dad, but they couldn't find him, the bugger wasn't answering, probably because he thought it was her calling. Two hours she was there before they called the police who managed to get hold of him straight away so that he went and got her, he says he was on council business and had turned his phone off, but I'm not so sure."
"Poor Betsy, she must 'ave been so scared"
"Yep. He's going to have to face facts; she needs much more help than he's giving her"
"Well that wouldn't be 'ard would it?"
"Nope"
The wake-up call brought a silver lining in the shape of Karolina, a Polish woman who was almost the same age as Betsy and who'd worked for years in a care home which meant that she had extensive experience of being with people with the same sort of condition and who'd been looking for a live-in position as a companion and carer. Bill had been very resistant at first, even though she'd been outstandingly better than anyone else they'd interviewed, arguing that Betsy didn't need full time care and that Karolina was far too expensive as well as needing to live-in and that she was a lot older than he'd had in mind for a glorified au pair. Charles had found interviewing potential carers difficult enough without his father's negative attitude to everyone and everything and had eventually lost his temper and pointed out that it wasn't up to his Dad who they chose, that Betsy had chosen Karolina and that his dad could well afford her if he didn't want to substantially increase the amount of time he spent at home, and it appeared that he didn't, and that she wasn't going to be there as an au pair for him to ogle.
Knowing that Karolina was with Betsy made Charles relax in a way he'd forgotten, and his father eventually stopped ignoring him or disappearing out when they visited Bath, the heart melting power of Lexie's smiles and Parsnip together beginning to win him over. The timing of Bill's about-turn coincided with Molly's private amusement at the way Karolina responded to Charles' presence, how flustered she got and how deeply she blushed whenever he spoke to her. Charles seemed oblivious to it and Molly's prior experience with him and Doreen made her decide to keep it to herself, to keep her mouth shut to stop Charles running scared of yet another middle aged woman who'd apparently developed a crush on him, he'd already got two with Doreen and her Nan.
Molly couldn't help being aware of how much difference a bit of cash made to the options for Betsy's care, although all the money in the world wouldn't or couldn't make her better. She didn't want to tell Charles that his mum was lucky, because she wasn't, but Molly knew that if it had been her mum or Nan who were ill, they would have had to rely on family and anything the local authority offered, not getting any sort of carer in to help. Mind you at least they had some family, Betsy just had Charles and her and a totally selfish twat for a husband.
-OG-
"Your mum asked me today when we was getting married, said you told 'er we was going to after Lexie was born"
"Did I?"
"I dunno do I? It's what she said, but we don't 'ave to if you don't want to"
"Of course I want to, but I didn't think you wanted to"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"So that's a 'yes' then, is it?"
"Yes what?"
The way Betsy's memory worked never ceased to amaze Charles, he was pretty sure he'd mentioned getting married in a one line throw away comment nearly a year ago when they'd been in the car coming home from the hospital, and yet his mum seemed to remember that when she often had difficulty remembering a conversation she'd had an hour before. She no longer had difficulty remembering Molly's name or Lexie, but he wasn't sure whether that was because they had, at Karolina's suggestion, made a memory book with enlarged photographs of all the family mounted with the captions written in his "posh boy's writing" as Molly called it, so that Betsy could remind herself of who they were and their names, especially if she was having a bad day.
Karolina had gone home to Poland for a week for Christmas so that they were in Bath for the holiday with Betsy and Bill, and the Polish woman's absence was already showing in the amount of agitation Betsy showed because her normal calm routines were disturbed. Molly was also a bit disturbed at the idea of cooking Christmas lunch, she'd never attempted to cook anything the size of the bleeding monster that Bill had bought, least of all a turkey and had been frightening herself to death reading all the dire warnings about the dangers of eating it if it was undercooked, so much so that she'd already decided to practically cremate the bastard thing to be on the safe side.
-OG-
"Lunch was lovely"
"No it wasn't, it was bleeding 'orrible" Molly started giggling as she lay in bed propped up against the pillows watching him as he sat on his side of the bed and balled his socks up to try and throw them into the laundry bin without getting up and walking nearer to it.
"It wasn't horrible, it was fine, the vegetables were lovely"
"Your mum cooked the vegetables" Molly was almost crying with laughter as he wriggled on the hook trying to find something nice to say about the meal she'd cooked that sounded like the truth.
"Okay, well maybe the gravy could have done with being a bit …."
"More like gravy?" Molly was still giggling as she thought about the gravy they'd had to almost chip out of the gravy boat.
"Well, having a bit more, I don't know, water in it or something" He was now laughing because her giggling was very infectious.
"I do love you"
She was still giggling as though she hadn't just thrown a complete show stopper of a comment into their conversation. Charles stopped dead as he was pulling back the duvet ready to get into bed and turned to look at her incredulously.
"What did you just say?"
"I said I love you, why, is there something wrong with that?"
"No, it's just that you've never, ever said that to me before"
"Course I 'ave, I say it all the time"
"No, you don't, you know you don't, you have never said that before, not once in three years"
"Thought I 'ad" She shrugged, trying to look unconcerned "You know I love you, I wouldn't be 'ere if I didn't, would I?"
"Maybe not, it's nice to hear you say it though, say it again"
"I love you, I've always loved you, well nearly always, now get into bed you twonk"
"I love you too"
As he did as he was told and burrowed under the warmth of the duvet, Charles turned to her and began to drop tiny kisses down her cheeks and round the edges of her mouth, pulling her warm compliant body into his embrace, totally unable to switch off the huge grin that was plastered across his face. As she responded and started to kiss him back with more and more passion he was suddenly aware of her legs wrapping themselves around him and her straining towards him with an insistent unmistakeable invitation, and that he needed to try and exercise a bit of self-control.
"Oi, Oi, stop it, stop it, hang on a minute, I thought we weren't going to … that you didn't want any more in a hurry, not for another ten years at least"
"Who said that?"
"You did"
"It weren't me, I never said nothing like that" She started butterfly kissing him down his neck "I don't want Lexie to be an only"
"What like me you mean?"
"Yeah, sorry"
"Don't be, I don't want her to be one either"
-OG-
"Say it again" Charles was wreathed in a smirk as he again dropped tiny butterfly kisses on the face looking up at him with the matching smug satisfied smirk.
"No, you say it first"
"I love you"
"I love you too"
"I thought we were going to get married before we had any more kids, keep everyone happy, my mum, Eddie …."
"Your mum won't care, she'll just be 'appy if we 'ave another one, another grandchild for 'er to fuss over, and it'll be good to 'ave them while she's still ….…..… you know, and it's got sod-all to do with Eddie. Anyway we can still get married, can't we?"
"I don't know about that"
"What? What did you just say? You'd bloody better be joking"
"Of course I'm joking, I'm still in shock, say it again"
"I love you"
"I can't hear you, say it again, a bit louder this time"
"I LOVE YOU" Molly was now giggling furiously.
"Again, a bit louder" He cupped one hand round his ear.
"Piss off"
-OG-
Author's notes: Happy endings a speciality! I may very well re-visit this at a later date, but feel that this is a natural break in the story, so thank you for all your support and kind comments. I am now busy with a less 'serious' story which is demanding to be written, so I hope it won't be too long before I'm back, (you don't get rid of me easily).