“Gwyliwch rhag rhai o’r ochr arall…”
“Beware those from the other side…”
Old Welsh Saying.
London, 7th of July, 2005
“Come on girls, quickly now,” Lucy told the twins, almost dragging them onto the double-decker bus in her haste to get a seat. She let go of Emma’s small and dainty hand to fish the money for the fare out of her pocket, the coins eluding her fingers as the bus driver waited indifferently. Meanwhile, Emma took the opportunity to move to the steps to the upper deck, while Liz tapped her mother’s hip.
“Mummy, look, Emma’s going upstairs…” Lucy handed over the fare and quickly thanked the unresponsive driver. Then she turned to her escapee daughter, who had that pouty ‘Please mummy’ look on her face that she’d learnt to use so well in her arsenal of ‘getting my own way’ weapons. Lucy couldn’t help but smile.
She knew what her daughter wanted.
“All right, we’ll go upstairs this time,” she said almost resignedly, and both girls laughed and clapped their hands in delight. “Quickly now,” she told them, sparing a glance at the large number of people behind who had queued for the bus, one of whom was standing directly behind her giving her a glare of impatience.
She frowned, shaking her head softly.
The number 30 bus wasn’t normally this crowded. Maybe there was something to the rumour about an explosion on the tube trains – she’d heard some of the people in the queue talking about it. She shrugged mentally. No doubt she’d hear more about it shortly.
The girls had already run up the steps, and Lucy quickly followed them, her shoes clattering on the spiral metal steps to the upper deck.
She paused at the top and checked her wristwatch.
It was 09:30am.
The girls stood close to the top of the steps, and Lucy had to herd them further into the aisle to allow other people to follow up the stairs. She suppressed a smile at the look of disappointment plain on their faces. The front seats were already occupied, and that was their favourite place to sit. She checked behind her, and then tapped the girls on their shoulders.
“Hey you two, the back seats are empty. They’re nearly as good as the front, aren’t they?” The girls shrugged their unenthusiastic response. “Come on, you’ll be able to see everything from back there just as well as you could at the front.”
She made her way to the back, and the girls followed, blonde pony tails bouncing as they jostled each other to get first choice of seats. Lucy grinned. It was impossible to be anything except cheerful around the two girls, and when she sat down she looked at them, maternal pride swelling her chest as she did.
Born just over four years ago after a difficult labour, Emma and Elisabeth had changed her life, making her incredibly happy, and reinforcing the already close bond between her and her husband like nothing had before. The arrival of the blonde and blue eyed waifs into their lives had enhanced their relationship beyond what it had been, the resulting feelings deepening, but the focus shifting slightly to include the girls.
She thought back to the bemused but happy look on Blake’s face as he held a baby in each arm while he grinned madly, just after they’d arrived. He had grinned for so long his face muscles seemed to have locked in place for days afterwards.
They had decided they didn’t want to know what gender their children would be during their scanning sessions. They knew that they would be having twins, and Blake kept saying that he would love to have one of each. Lucy had always agreed, but coming from a family of four brothers, secretly hoped that they would have girls. She wanted to do all the things that she’d been unable to do herself as a child; after all, her brothers hadn’t really had much interest in dolls, unless you included new and inventive ways of destroying them, and saw their little sister as a kind of punishment to them from their mother. Although, if she ever had any issues with other boys, her brothers always joined forces to ‘take care of it,’ as they put it.
