Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

December 23 rd

There was a knock on the door the next morning and Shay rushed to answer it. Bones, Fern and Fletcher’s giant Bernese, burst into the house first, tail wagging excitedly, big smile on his face. He greeted Shay and then bounded over to greet Orla who also gave him all the fuss and attention he needed. Ivy launched herself at him, wrapping her paws round his neck and nibbling at his ears.

Fletcher walked in carrying a sleeping Ocean on his hip and Fern brought up the rear carrying a bag which was presumably Orla’s clothes, which made him smile. He knew it was early days for them and he didn’t want to rush her, but it felt so right having her here. It should have felt weird having someone living in his house, sharing his bed, but she was meant to be here.

‘Hey, how are you two feeling?’ Fern said, handing Orla her clothes.

‘Better, not so tired anymore, still a bit achy but we did get jolted around in the accident,’ Orla said.

‘Yeah same, just a bit stiff,’ Shay said.

‘Well, take it easy, don’t feel the need to charge around with Ocean, I’m sure she will be happy to just sit down and do some craft activities,’ Fletcher said.

‘Well, that’s what I’d planned, at least to start with. And maybe if we have time, we can make a snowman too,’ Shay said.

‘Oh, she’ll love that,’ Fern said. ‘Here’s Bones’s phone.’

Shay smiled at that. Bones was diabetic and his blood glucose levels were transmitted to his phone which Fern carried around everywhere so she could see what his levels were doing. It was all very clever, but it did make Shay laugh that Bones had his own phone. He checked the level to see Bones was at a very healthy ten and slid the phone into his back pocket. The alarm would go off if Bones went below a certain level, so he didn’t need to worry too much.

Fletcher handed Ocean to Shay and his niece stirred. She looked at Shay for a moment in confusion then her eyes lit up, a big smile filling her face.

‘Say,’ Ocean said in delight.

‘Hello princess.’

She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a big hug.

‘Thanks for doing this, we should be back in two hours,’ Fern said.

‘It’s no bother.’

They waved goodbye and left.

He turned round to face Orla and she came over to greet his niece.

‘Hello Ocean.’

‘Ola.’ She held out her grabby hands for Orla and Orla took her from his arms and gave her a hug.

‘We thought we could make some Christmas cookies first, do you want to do that?’ Orla asked, carrying her through to the dining room.

‘Cookies,’ Ocean squealed in delight.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Shay said as he followed them. Cookies had been received far more favourably than he or Orla. Bones and Ivy came trotting into the dining room too.

The table had been covered in an attempt to protect it, but Shay knew, based on previous cooking attempts with Ocean, that flour and other ingredients ended up everywhere.

Orla placed her down so she was standing on a chair and put an apron on her before putting one on herself. Shay quickly put one on too, though he knew it would do very little to stop the mess. After one particular cooking adventure with Ocean, he’d found icing sugar inside his boxer shorts.

Orla, being a baking queen, had already premeasured out all the ingredients into separate bowls. Shay was more one to chuck everything in and roughly guess how much was needed, especially when cooking with his niece.

‘So first we are going to mix the butter and sugar together. Do you want to add these two ingredients to the big bowl?’

He loved the way she talked to Ocean – there was no cutesy baby talk, she just explained everything clearly and Ocean seemed to understand, even if she couldn’t communicate it. She probably had around fifty words in her repertoire, and was starting to join some words together, like ‘no sprouts’ or spats as she called them, or ‘more juice’, ‘more cake’, and ‘more coclot’ were some of her favourite phrases.

‘That’s it, use the spoon to scrape the butter out… or your hand works just as well,’ Orla said, suppressing a laugh as Ocean got butter smeared all over her hands in seconds. Not wanting the sugar to feel left out, Ocean also used her greasy hands to swipe the sugar out of the bowl too, coating her hands in sugar that stuck to the butter. Ocean clapped her hands excitedly, then rubbed them together, obviously enjoying the texture and the friction rubbing her hands was causing.

‘Mummy and Daddy are going to be delighted when we hand you back,’ Shay said.

Ocean let out a squeal of laughter as if she agreed.

‘Now we’re going to mix the sugar and butter together,’ Orla said, handing Ocean a wooden spoon which she used to bang on the table.

Shay laughed. He was used to this, but he didn’t think Orla had done any baking with Ocean before, although she had babysat for her a few times, so maybe she had. Orla seemed unfazed as she grabbed another wooden spoon. She banged it a few times on the table to join in with Ocean, and then started mixing the butter and sugar together, redirecting Ocean to the task without saying a word. After a few seconds, Ocean started helping with the mixing, even if a lot of the sugar ended up on the table as a result of her helping.

‘That’s great, Ocean,’ Shay said. ‘You need to make sure all the sugar is mixed in so it’s nice and creamy.’

Although it was quite clear that Ocean was having more fun flicking the sugar everywhere than actually mixing it.

‘I’m not sure how good these cookies will taste when half the ingredients are going to end up on the table,’ Shay said.

‘In true Blue Peter fashion, I have a batch of cookies I made earlier so we can decorate and eat those,’ Orla said. Ocean sneezed in the bowl. ‘My cookies might be more hygienic too.’

Shay laughed.

‘Now we need to add this egg,’ Orla said, passing Ocean the beaten egg.

Ocean poured the mixture in and it splatted into the bowl, which made her giggle. Abandoning the spoon, Ocean decided to mix the ingredients together with her hands, mulching the egg and buttery mixture through her fingers, and as she did, the bowl tipped up and half the mixture fell onto the table, and splatted over Ocean, Orla and Shay, which Ocean thought was hilarious.

‘Looks like we’ll both need a shower after this,’ Shay said, picking some eggy butter out of his hair.

‘Oh, that’s your game, is it?’ Orla laughed, wiping her face.

‘Any excuse to get you in the shower.’

She smiled and shook her head. She scooped as much mixture as she could back into the bowl and helped Ocean to mix it together, although throwing it on the table had already partly done that. Once it was mixed, Orla moved two smaller bowls towards Ocean.

‘Now we add the flour and the baking powder. Do you want to add these two bowls to the big bowl?’ Orla said.

He smiled as he watched Ocean tip the flour and baking powder into the bowl from a great height. Predictably, quite a bit landed on the table.

‘Good job,’ Shay said, and Ocean let out a giggle as she rubbed her eggy, buttery hands in the floury, eggy mess on the table, making some kind of slime.

Orla carried on mixing the ingredients together, but Ocean was far too busy enjoying spreading the ingredients out all over the table.

‘Want to scoop out the cookie dough, like this,’ Orla showed Ocean, using an ice cream scoop to spoon up the dough and put them on the baking tray where she flattened it slightly. She handed Ocean the ice cream scoop and she banged it on the table a few times as if testing it out and then copied what Orla had done scooping up the dough and sticking her tongue out as she tried to get the dough on to the baking tray.

‘Perfect,’ Orla said. ‘Right, I’ll go and put these in the oven and when they are done, we can decorate them.’ Orla picked up the baking tray and carried it off to the kitchen.

‘And me and you can wash up all these bowls,’ Shay said to Ocean. Her eyes lit up. She loved washing up possibly more than she loved making cookies – anything to do with water and she was there. Shay stacked all the bowls and utensils together, scooped Ocean up with one arm and the bowls in the other and followed Orla through to the kitchen.

She was already filling the bowl up with warm soapy water with possibly a bit too much soap, which he knew Ocean would get a big kick out of. She loved playing with all the bubbles. He placed the bowls down, grabbed a stool and dragged it over to the sink and stood Ocean on it. She plunged her hands straight into the water and squealed with laughter when the bubbles flew everywhere. Water sloshed over the side and onto the floor and Orla quickly grabbed a few tea towels and lay them down on the floor in an attempt to catch some of the water. Ocean clearly thought the whole thing was hilarious. She slapped the water, splashing it everywhere as the bubbles floated around the room.

Shay stood behind her and with his hands round her, started washing up the dishes. There was next to no help from Ocean as she just kept on playing with the water. Intermittently, between each bowl, he joined Ocean with splashing the water and she squealed in delight. He started singing, Splish Splash, which he’d sung to her many times before and he laughed when she started joining in, obviously not singing the lyrics, but humming along as she splashed.

He realised Orla was watching him and he looked at her and saw she was smiling.

‘You’re so good with her. Have you thought about whether you want children of your own?’ Orla asked.

‘I have. For a long while I never wanted that because I thought I would ruin any child’s life that would be unlucky enough to have me as a dad. Plus, I had terrible parenting role models, and I always worried I might end up like my dad and I definitely didn’t want my children to go through what I did. But the counselling made me realise that I had a lot to offer a child of my own and I realised that my crappy upbringing would actually ensure that my children would never go through that, I’d make damned sure of it. I could be a better man because I knew I deserved more than what I got and my children deserve better too. And when Ocean came along, it was really easy to be there for her, to look after her and love her and spoil her rotten, and yeah, it made me want kids too. One day, when the time is right.’

Orla smiled at that.

‘What about you?’ Shay asked as he continued to splash in the water. ‘You didn’t have the greatest childhood either with your parents arguing all the time, does it put you off marriage and children?’

‘No not at all, I’ve always wanted children. As an only child, I’ve always wanted brothers and sisters, so I’d like to have a few kids so they can be there for each other like the relationship you have with Fern and Theo. And no, my parents fighting hasn’t put me off marriage. Like you said, I know I can do better. Choose the right man to start with, someone I can trust to be loyal and love me forever. Someone I can talk to honestly if there are problems in the relationship and who will talk to me too so we can grow to be better together.’

‘Yeah, you saw the worst of a marriage and I think it gives you a better idea of what not to do,’ Shay said.

She smiled. ‘When I was younger, I always used to dream about what it would be like to be married to you. It’s funny, in my fantasies, we were always living here, sitting on the beach every night or in our garden overlooking the sea, putting the world to rights, just like we did back then. I never thought it would come true, but it was a nice dream.’

He focused his attention on washing up a bowl. They had missed out on so much, so much wasted time and lost opportunities, but they were here now.

‘Maybe one day, I can make that come true for you,’ Shay said.

He glanced at her and she smiled. ‘Maybe. One day. And for what it’s worth, I think you’ll make an excellent dad whenever you do have children.’

He smiled at that as he turned his attention back to the washing up, but he couldn’t help hoping it would be with her.

Orla watched Shay dress Ocean in what seemed like a hundred layers to go outside. She had two scarves and two hats on as well as gloves and wellies. Anyone would think they were dressing to go for a walk at the North Pole. Fresh snow had fallen again overnight, and the garden lay untouched, glittering in the early morning sunshine.

Orla pulled on her own hat as they stepped outside. Both Bones, being a Bernese Mountain dog and Ivy, a Newfoundland, were born for the snow and they charged out to enjoy it, seemingly determined to leave their pawprints on every inch of the garden. She smiled as Shay took Ocean’s hand as they walked over the snow. It gave her a lump in the throat. It was weird to think about all those dreams she had about her future when she was a teenager; getting married to Shay, living here, having children with him, and until that glorious weekend she never thought they ever stood a chance of happening. Then he’d made love to her, and with the way he’d held her and adored her, for the first time she’d suddenly believed it could all actually come true until the weekend ended so badly. And here they were all these years later, together, here, happily in love, and it was hard to believe it wasn’t all just a dream. But it was now hers for the taking if she was only brave enough to do so.

‘We’re going to make a snowman,’ Shay said, kneeling down to Ocean’s height. ‘You might have seen pictures of snowmen before.’

‘Olaf,’ Ocean said, excitedly.

‘Yes, exactly. We’re going to make an Olaf. Only ours won’t talk and walk.’

Ocean didn’t seem to care or understand that as she started flicking her hands to make the snowman just like Elsa did in Frozen .

‘No, we have to make ours with our hands,’ Orla said. ‘We don’t have magic like Elsa.’

Orla bent and scooped some snow together to make a large ball and then started rolling it around the garden to collect more snow, packing it tight as she rolled so it didn’t come apart. She noticed Shay doing the same and Ocean eventually gave up flicking her hands in the hope of magic coming out of them and joined Shay by adding tiny handfuls of snow to his ever-increasing snowball. He rolled it up so it was standing just outside the patio doors and then came over to lift Orla’s large snowball on top of it.

Bones came over to inspect the strange creature before bounding off to enjoy the snowy garden again with Ivy.

‘Shall we make a smaller one for the head?’ Orla suggested.

‘Good idea, your ball is way too big for a head.’

Orla laughed. ‘I got carried away.’

‘Carried away? He’ll look like some kind of ogre if we make this the head. It’s also not particularly round, more like a flat oversized rugby ball, definitely not head-shaped. Are you trying to scar my niece for life?’

‘I’m trying to teach her that people come in all shapes and sizes and that it’s OK to have an oversized rugby ball as a head. Besides, if you want to be accurate, there is nothing anatomically correct about snowmen: he has no legs and feet, and twigs for arms.’

‘True.’

Orla looked down at Ocean to see she was mirroring Orla’s own body language, her arms folded across her chest indignantly, even if she didn’t know what she was indignant about. ‘See, even Ocean agrees with me.’

‘OK, OK, rugby ball heads are perfectly acceptable for a snowman. But I still think this one needs a separate head, purely so he has a good height.’

‘OK, Ocean do you want to help me build a head?’

Ocean bent down and scooped up the world’s tiniest snowball in her hands and offered it out to Orla. She suppressed a smirk.

‘Maybe just a little bit bigger,’ Orla said diplomatically.

‘I thought all shapes and sizes were equally important,’ Shay said.

‘I don’t think we’ll get a carrot or button eyes in that.’

‘Fair point.’

Shay started rolling up a small snowball for the head and when he was done and lifted it into place, he carefully added Ocean’s offering on top, which Ocean seemed happy with.

‘OK, now for the accessories,’ Shay said. He rushed back inside and came out with a box. ‘This is my snowman-making kit, we have a big pink scarf, a hat, buttons and of course the carrot.’ He picked Ocean up and passed her the scarf and with a little bit of help, she wrapped it around the snowman’s neck. She took the top hat and placed it on his head at somewhat of a jaunty angle, which added to his charm.

‘Now we need two buttons for the eyes,’ Shay said, pointing out approximately where the buttons should go. Although it seemed Ocean had her own ideas where the eyes should go, placing them right in the middle of the face and at a very wonky angle.

‘Perfect,’ Shay said, and Orla smiled.

‘Now use these smaller buttons for the mouth,’ Shay said.

Ocean giggled as she placed the buttons in a diagonal line that made the snowman look very puzzled.

‘Good job Ocean,’ Orla said. ‘He looks great.’

‘Olaf,’ Ocean said and started humming, ‘Do you want to build a snowman?’

Shay put her down and she ran off to play in the snow with Bones and Ivy.

‘She’s very musical,’ Orla said.

‘Yeah, I think Fletcher and Fern sing to her all the time.’

They looked over at her and she was making handprints in the snow.

‘Hey, Ocean, want to make snow angels?’ Shay said.

She nodded, probably with no idea what she was nodding to.

‘A very wonderful woman taught me how to do this,’ Shay said, and Orla smiled.

Shay went over and lay down in the snow and started moving his arms and legs outwards and inwards. Ocean watched him for a moment and then lay down and copied him exactly, making a tiny angel compared to his giant one.

Bones and Ivy bounded over to see what was going on. Ivy rolled over on her back as if she wanted to make a snow angel too. Ocean giggled at this.

They stood up to admire their art and Ocean laughed and pointed, Orla wondered if she was laughing at the size difference too.

‘Right, Ocean, shall we go and decorate those cookies now?’ Orla said.

Ocean clapped her hands together and charged into the house.

Orla smiled as she followed her back in. Shay came back in, stamping his feet as she helped Ocean to get out of her outside clothes. Orla and Shay took off their coats, hats and boots too before chasing after Ocean who had already disappeared off to the kitchen.

Orla filled the sink with warm, soapy water and dragged the stool back to the sink, then lifted Ocean onto it. ‘We need to wash our hands first.’

Ocean didn’t seem to have a problem with this as she plunged her hands back into the warm water, splashing water everywhere. Orla gave her hands a quick wash too. Then Shay moved behind them both and put his hands in the water as well, which made Ocean laugh and made Orla lean back into him, enjoying his solid warmth behind her for a moment. He kissed the back of her neck while Ocean was busy playing with the water and Orla smiled. She turned round in his arms and with Ocean still distracted, she kissed him, stroking his face.

‘Kiss!’ Ocean shouted and Orla turned round to see that the little girl was watching them.

Shay laughed. ‘Yes, kiss. And kisses for you too,’ he scooped her up and started peppering hundreds of kisses over her face as Ocean squealed and giggled in delight. He carried her out the room and into the dining room and Orla gathered the cookies and all the paraphernalia needed to decorate them, then she followed them through to the dining room.

‘What do you want to put on your cookie?’ Orla asked Ocean as she placed the stuff down on the table.

‘Olaf!’ Ocean said.

‘I should have seen that coming,’ Orla said.

‘I’m going to do a Christmas tree on mine,’ Shay said.

‘Kissmas tree!’

‘Do you want to help me do mine?’ Shay asked.

Ocean nodded as she sat down next to Shay. Bones came into the room and sniffed the air appreciatively.

‘No cookies for you my friend, that would send your blood glucose way too high,’ Shay said.

Bones flopped down in a corner as if he understood he wasn’t getting any. Ivy came in and cuddled up next to him.

‘So first I’m going to do a tree shape on my cookie with this green icing,’ Shay said as Orla quickly decorated a cookie with a basic snowman shape so Ocean could add the hat, scarf, nose, eyes and mouth once the snowman shape had set.

‘Now we can add the baubles and other decorations to the tree,’ Shay said. ‘Do you want to use Smarties for the baubles?’

Ocean nodded keenly. Shay grabbed the little bowl of Smarties and handed it to her. Ocean very carefully took one and placed it on top of the tree and then grabbed a large handful of Smarties and smushed them into the green gooey icing. Orla snorted with laughter.

‘Well, that’s definitely one way to decorate a tree,’ Shay said.

‘I’m not sure it even looks like a tree anymore.’

Ocean giggled loudly as if she knew it wasn’t a tree but didn’t care.

‘She’s certainly won the award for most Smarties used on one cookie,’ Orla said.

‘I don’t know, I think she could fit a few more on there,’ Shay said. Ocean obliged by adding another handful. ‘Yes, apparently she can.’

Orla laughed. ‘I dread to think how many Smartie eyes the Olaf cookie is going to have.’

‘Olaf cookie,’ Ocean held out grabby hands.

‘Please,’ Shay reminded her.

‘Peas.’

Orla passed her the cookie, which she inspected for a few moments, where Orla imagined she was planning her artistic masterpiece, but instead of decorating it, she took a massive bite.

Shay burst out laughing. ‘Maybe she thought it was already decorated beautifully enough and there was no need to improve on perfection.’

‘Maybe eating the cookies is far more exciting than decorating them.’

‘You’re probably right.’

Just then there was a knock on the door.

‘Ah that will be Mummy and Daddy come to collect their wayward child,’ Shay said.

Shay went to open the door and Bones charged off to greet them as if they’d been gone weeks not just a few hours. Orla quickly gathered a few cookies for Ocean to take home and for Fern and Fletcher to have, then she scooped up Ocean and took her back to the kitchen to clean her hands one more time, so she was semi-respectable for going home, although there was definitely some kind of food in her hair. After her hands were clean, Orla carried Ocean back through to the lounge where Shay was chatting with Fern and Fletcher.

‘Here are some cookies we made.’ Orla handed over the Tupperware container.

‘Thank you,’ Fern said.

Ocean took a few moments to show her parents Olaf in the garden before goodbyes were said, Ocean and Bones were bundled out the door and they were left in silence.

Shay took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘Thank you for your help today.’

‘It’s no bother, I enjoy spending time with Ocean.’

‘Do you think we’ll make good parents, or will our children be spoiled rotten?’

Orla didn’t know how to answer that question. It was one thing to talk earlier about whether they each wanted children and marriage in the future, but something else to talk about their own children like it was a foregone conclusion. But of course, she wanted that, she wanted this thing between them to work, she wanted marriage and kids, she’d been wanting that with him her whole life. But she was scared to trust in that future right now, she felt like she was protecting herself by not believing in it. That way if it all came to an end in a few months’ time, she could walk away unscathed. But she knew it was too late for that. She loved this man, and she was falling deeper in love with him every second she was spending with him. There was no protecting herself from getting hurt from this.

She cleared her throat. ‘I think if and when we do have children, it will probably be a bit of both. Those kids will be loved so much, so naturally that means being spoiled, but hopefully we’ll be good parents too.’

‘I think so. Having two parents who love them and love each other is the best start we can give them.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Come on, we need to leave soon if we’re going to get to the Christmas market before it closes.’

He kissed her on the forehead and walked off into the dining room to start clearing up.

Orla watched him go and she couldn’t help feeling they’d taken another step forward in their relationship with that conversation, while her heart was still holding back.