Look Back at Me (Fleckney Fields Series, Book 1)

Lovely Clementine

Rhys rang her up on Friday evening, and told her something had come up at work, and he had to postpone their dinner. As upset as she was, she felt a tinge of relief as well. She was still processing his visit during her flu and what had happened after the pub. Instead, she visited Nana on Saturday and spent the day with Clementine Popplewell, John's wife, and their four children. They had two sets of twin girls. After lunch, which in Viola's opinion was a pandemonium, but didn't seem to bother Clem or Nana in any way, the children were loaded in two prams, and Viola and Clem headed out for a walk. The younger twins fell asleep right away, while the four years old continued a mysterious conversation they'd been leading between themselves. Viola, who'd gotten the lighter pram, kept throwing looks at the freckled faces of John's younger daughters. Once they got to the park, the four years old were released into the wild, and Clem and Viola sat down on a bench, watching the girls climb a play structure and a slide.

"I admire you," Viola said and pointed at the two sleeping children. "How do you manage four of them, I can't imagine."

"I'm a twin too," Clem said, stretching her legs in front of her. "I don't think I ever expected to have to deal with one at a time."

She was one of the prettiest women Viola had ever seen in her life. There was some sort of a jovial relish in everything Clementine did: in her wide smiles, her quick light movements. She had large hazel eyes, and her short ginger hair stood around her head in charming semi-curls. One couldn't but laugh when she laughed, and listen when she spoke. She was wickedly talented, intelligent, and had a sharp, often sarcastic sense of humour. Viola, always being the quiet one, enjoyed the company of such people immensely.

"I also got lucky with John, I think," Clem said, her eyes on her older children. "He does half of all the work."

"He's a Holyoake," Viola said with a soft laugh. "They make good parents."

"It's all because of the generations of happy childhoods and supportive family relationships," Clem said. "Have you known their parents?"

Viola nodded. "They all passed away two years after we'd gotten married," she said quietly. "First, there was the car accident, with John's mother and Rhys' parents. And then their Father just... faded away. Then there was only their Aunt Cecilia left, and cancer took her too. All in two and a half years."

Clem shook her head. "That's terrible."

Viola suddenly felt a knot in her throat. It had been years, but suddenly the ache was back.

"They were lovely," she said in a scratchy voice. "So warm, so... full of life. Patrick and Ted were such Holyoakes," she said with a joyless laugh. "Dashing, with so much character, and so much presence. John looks a lot like them. There was so much love between all of them, between spouses, and towards the children and siblings. Both Pat and Ted wrote, and there were always books scattered in all their homes. They had the most fascinating debates, and there was always so much fun! All the board games, and charades, and quiz nights in The Oak and Shield! During family dinners, everyone cooked, argued, listened to music, danced. It was always so loud around them," she said, lost in her memories. "John's mother, May, was a translator from Japanese. So intelligent, so sophisticated! They had these books in silk covers, some sort of murder mysteries, and she could talk about them for hours, and you wouldn't even notice how time passed. Pat was the funny one, Rhys got his dry sense of humour from him."

"Does Rhys have a sense of humour?" Clem drew out, and they both laughed.

"Well, he used to," Viola said. "The version of him I'm familiar with is ten years old. They've all changed so much," she added. "We actually talked about it with John the other day. What a positive influence you are on him." Viola hummed as if trying to remember. "I believe, the words he used to describe himself in the past were 'overbearing,' 'bitter,' and, I think, a 'prick.'"