Chapter 54
FOUR MONTHS LATER . . .
Holly gazed down at the pair of swaddled bundles in her arms in awe and amazement. No matter how many babies you delivered, or indeed gave birth to yourself, the arrival of these tiny humans still seemed like some kind of mystical magic.
Taffy dozed fitfully beside her. It had been a long night; their beautifully planned arrangements for her scheduled Caesarean the following week thrown into complete disarray by two babies intent on making an appearance sooner rather than later. Thank goodness Cormack had been on call to facilitate their arrival and Lizzie had swept in, ever supportive, to take care of the boys.
Holly smiled as the smaller of the two babies startled in her sleep, throwing out her tiny hands like a starfish and her deep navy-blue eyes flying open. The heavy dark lashes that framed them were almost Disneyesque in proportion.
‘Hello, you,’ whispered Holly quietly. ‘What was that all about? You’re safe, quite safe, with me, my darling.’ She offered a finger and the baby grasped hold of it immediately, tightly, and without once breaking eye contact. It was a moment of intimacy and wonder. ‘We need a name for you, don’t we, poppet?’ Holly said, watching the absolute determination of the baby as she tried to pull Holly’s finger into her mouth.
‘Mmmhhhmmwah,’ yawned Taffy abruptly, startling all three of them.
For all that the smaller baby was calm and serene, the larger of the two was noisy and demanding. It was like a slice of history repeating itself, for it had been the exact same dynamic with Ben and Tom from the very beginning.
Holly managed to juggle both babies until their cries subsided and they were feeding happily, even as Taffy hovered, as though with a catcher’s mitt, just in case. ‘It doesn’t seem quite real, does it?’ he said after a moment, so fixated had they been on their allocated date that the entire night had thrown both of them completely. For Holly, post-op and sore, with two babies feeding simultaneously, it felt very real indeed, momentous even.
Taffy couldn’t resist stroking their hair, marvelling all over again at the miniature size of all four little feet. ‘We did it,’ he said in wonder.
‘We did,’ said Holly with a laugh, trying incredibly hard not to mention that Taffy’s contribution had very much been of the standing-there-fidgeting variety. ‘How are you feeling, Daddy?’
Taffy looked up, his eyes welling with emotion. ‘I’m good.’
‘You know you’re going to be amazing at this, don’t you?’ she said, glancing down to check that all was well, as the twins settled into a dream feed.
‘We’re going to be amazing at this,’ he corrected her. ‘Team Taffy all the way.’
Holly shook her head; it had been one thing when he started calling them that, quite another when the printed t-shirts began to arrive. One for him, one each for the boys, Eric and Nineteen, babygrows in anticipation, and two for Holly, in ‘before’ and ‘after’ sizing.
She glanced over at the photo stuck up haphazardly beside the bed by Taffy when the emotion of the night had overcome her earlier and she’d been missing her boys with a startling intensity. Ben and Tom, in their team t-shirts, cradling a most amenable piglet, who seemed to have quite the knack when it came to ‘working’ the camera.
‘You know we need to come up with their names before the boys come to visit,’ Holly said. ‘God knows what they’ll end up as, if we leave it up to them.’
Taffy stroked the babies’ heads gently, making sure that his attention was equally divided between the two. All the names on their shortlist somehow felt hackneyed and uninspired, compared to the fresh and innocent beauty of these two baby girls. The fact that their wristbands held the unfortunate monikers of ‘Big Baby Girl Jones (1 of 2)’ and ‘Small Baby Girl Jones (2 of 2)’ was something that needed their urgent attention before the troops arrived and either of these nicknames followed them for their entire childhood!
‘And we’re still dead set against something Welsh and traditional, are we?’ Taffy checked, more in hope than expectation of a reversal on that position.
Holly shook her head. ‘It’s not a blanket ban, Taffs. I just want to be able to pronounce them.’
‘Fair point,’ he conceded, having spent most of his time at medical school in England correcting the pronunciation of Meirion. Hence the change to Taffy upon graduation; sometimes it was just easier to admit defeat. On the other hand, they both knew how happy it would make Patty to have a Dilwen or an Angharad in the family.
Holly shifted slightly, the weight of the babies pressing on her scar. She’d quietly joked with Cormack as they’d wheeled her at alarming speed down the corridors towards the operating room about whether he could give her a nice tummy tuck ‘while he was there’.
‘Don’t worry, Holls,’ he’d replied. ‘I’ve been practising my embroidery all summer. You won’t be disappointed. You’ll have an interesting few months, with four kids and Taffy in the house while you recuperate, but I’ll take care of my part with precision.’ Good as his word, he’d spent an age putting her back together; eventually Taffy had been ushered next door with their two babies to have a little quality time.
Apparently that quality time had resulted in one very emotional, somewhat tearful husband, with a whole new list of names to run past his ever tolerant wife.
‘What about Luna?’ he suggested, as the light of said moon emerged from behind a cloud and lit up the city skyline of Bath. ‘Or Jane, you know, like Jane Austen?’
Holly shook her head. These two girls were virtually identical in every way but size, their features still delicate and their hair downy and brunette. ‘What about Katie?’
‘Or Tabitha?’ Taffy countered.
Just as they spoke, both girls stopped feeding and stretched languorously, their tiny fingers reaching out and tangling in Holly’s hair.
‘They do look like happy little cats,’ Holly said. ‘Katie? Tabby?’
The girls slept on in disinterest.
‘Bert? Ernie?’ Taffy tried, just to test. Nothing.
Holly laughed, wincing for a moment as she did so. ‘You silly arse, what would you have done if they’d responded?’
‘I can think of worse names. Meirion, anybody?’
‘Lottie?’ Holly tried, and to her absolute amazement, the larger baby opened her eyes in an instant. ‘Lottie? Is that who you are, gorgeous? Are you my Lottie?’ The small hand that suddenly clasped hers made it perfectly clear that she was.
Holly looked up at Taffy. ‘Well, she certainly seems to know her own mind.’ She smiled down at the baby, whose lashes were fluttering sleepily again. ‘Night-night, Lottie,’ she whispered and the tiny mewling noise in response made it official in her mind.
‘Livia?’ tried Taffy, following her lead. ‘O-livia?’
In an uncanny mirroring of her older sister, the second baby opened her eyes. It couldn’t be a true smile, Holly knew that, but nevertheless the response was there.
‘Olivia,’ cooed Holly and the baby snuggled into her more deeply, utterly sated and serene.
‘Lottie and Olivia,’ said Taffy after a moment. ‘Well then, I think you’re nearly ready to meet your big brothers.’
As the clock ticked around to nine a.m. Holly jolted awake. Some sixth sense had alerted her, because only moments later she heard her sons’ voices and the sound of their pattering feet as they ran down the corridor. ‘Mummy? Mummy? We’re here!’
Pausing only for a second in the doorway, they were both on the bed in moments, throwing their little arms around Holly’s neck and covering her face in butterfly kisses. ‘I missed you,’ said Ben solemnly. ‘So did Nineteen, so he slept on my bed.’
Lizzie appeared behind them with Dan on her heels, both of them out of breath. ‘Crikey, they’ve got a turn of speed. Sorry about the pig in the bed thing.’
‘Pigs in blankets?’ snorted Dan. ‘Oh come on . . . we were all thinking it!’
The room fell silent for a moment, as they all turned to watch Ben and Tom being introduced to their sisters. ‘This one’s Olivia,’ said Holly. Ben reached into the basinet gently, managing only a breathy ‘wow’ as Olivia opened her eyes and grasped his finger.
‘Can I call dibs on this one, Mummy?’ Ben said after a second. ‘I think she likes me.’
‘What’s mine called?’ asked Tom, automatically assuming that the other, larger, baby was to be his.
‘This is Lottie,’ said Taffy. ‘And Lottie and Olivia are joining our family. We’ll all have to share a little, okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Tom easily. ‘You can have her when she poops.’ He shot a look over at Holly to see if she’d heard, nervously laughing at his brave use of a ‘swear word’.
‘Coo-ee! Is it alright if we all come in?’ Elsie said, giving Dan no choice but to step aside.
Suddenly their tiny side room was filled with their nearest and dearest. Elsie, Lizzie, Alice and Grace all clustered around the babies and the boys, oohing and aahing their delight. Dan held back a little, shaking Taffy’s hand repeatedly and occasionally slapping him on the shoulder for good measure. Jamie was the absolute surprise, though, as he sat down on the bed beside Holly and asked her how she was feeling.
Obviously that prompted everyone else in the room to remember they had a new mother amongst them and to ply her with enquiries as to her health and recovery. It was some measure of the excitement in the room, though, that nobody really listened to the answers, all too busy waiting their turn to cradle these beautiful babies in their arms.
It was so wonderfully, typically Larkford that Holly could only sit back against her wall of pillows and smile – no boundaries, no pretence, just one large family for her children to join.
Holly looked down as a small chocolate-coloured nose nudged her hand and Coco curled in tightly beside her on the bed, the little dog’s empathy and compassion growing daily as she took on each and every new challenge she was presented with. She yawned widely and rested her head on Holly’s legs, her eyes full of affection.
‘Tilly sends her love,’ said Alice. ‘We’ve left her holding the fort until we get back.’
And no doubt she would do a formidable job of it, thought Holly. Hiring Tilly had been the best hormonally-driven choice she could possibly have made. At a time when personal relationships meant so much more than professional posturing, Tilly had proven to be exactly the kind of team player they needed, especially as the new Rural Affairs Committee was taking up more and more of the partners’ time with success after success at the negotiating table. The Panorama special had been the icing on the cake, bringing their message to millions of viewers and yet more weight to their cause.
They certainly had a lot to feel proud of this year, Holly thought. On every level. And all these successes gave her permission to take this time now, to enjoy her maternity leave with a clear conscience and a full heart.
‘Have you considered any middle names?’ asked Elsie. ‘I’m sure you could borrow mine if you asked nicely.’
‘Lottie Elsie Graham-Jones,’ experimented Holly.
‘Olivia Ava Graham-Jones,’ said Elsie, offering her own middle name for good measure.
‘Fine by me,’ said Taffy easily. He glanced up to find Holly watching him.
‘I love you,’ she mouthed across the crowded room, across their four children and their very best friends. She honestly had never dreamed she could feel this contentedly happy.
‘I love you,’ he said in reply, loudly, unapologetically and with absolutely no hesitation, despite his audience.
‘Aw, mate,’ said Dan, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘It’s a mutual thing, Taffs. I love you too.’ He took Taffy’s face in both hands and kissed him loudly on the forehead. ‘Now, which one of these gorgeous girls is going to be my goddaughter?’