I had to admit that I was not really looking forward to this visit, as Suzanne’s parents had, to my mind, already decided that I was not good enough for their precious daughter, presumably preferring somebody without any physical or mental defects as a marriage partner for their daughter.
Christine and Peter Clover, at first meeting, appeared to be a pleasant, friendly couple. Even so, I was cautious as I remembered what they had called Suzanne on discovering that she had spent the night with me.
It did not take long for Suzanne’s mother to ask about our engagement. “Let me see your ring, Suzanne.”
Christine Clover made the right sort of comments after inspecting the ring. “It all seems to have happened so very quickly, Suzanne.”
“I agree that it seems very soon, but you can not imagine how happy it makes me.” Suzanne squeezed my hand, encouragingly. “We have known each other for over two years, while we have been working together.”
“Any idea when you two plan to marry?” It was her father who asked this question.
I felt that I should answer. “We haven’t fixed any date, yet. We need time to discuss our future plans and decide on just when to get married.” I hoped that this would satisfy them.
Suzanne’s mother surprised us both with her next statement. “We just hope that you are serious about Suzanne, Tonie. We would hate to find that you had just been using our daughter, without any proper commitment.”
“Mum! How can you think that of Tonie? You really know absolutely nothing about him.” Suzanne sounded quite hurt and unusually angry. “He is the nicest person I have ever met and I am madly in love with him.”
“I can assure both of you that I would do nothing to upset or harm Suzanne. She means everything to me and I am also deeply in love with her and want us to be together for the rest of our lives.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Thankfully, Suzanne’s father accepted my words.
Still her Mum was not yet satisfied. “How will you manage to bring up children if you are unable to see them? Believe me, it is difficult enough even when you can see.”
I tried to retain my composure, even though this was a question I wish she had not asked, as it angered me intensely. “I have absolutely no doubt that I can, as a blind person, bring up our children. It won’t be easy, but, with my determination and Suzanne’s assistance, we will do everything possible for our future children.”
Suzanne came to my defence. “Tonie’s very capable, even though he can’t see. Together, we can do whatever is necessary to have a happy, peaceful marriage and, if we have children, we will do our very best for them. Remember, Tonie is the one who will never see the smiles on the faces of our children.”
This last statement seemed to do the trick, as her father said, “Okay. All we ask is that you keep us fully informed. If there is anything we can do to help, please let us know.”
I was pleased with Suzanne’s father’s acceptance of our relationship and I felt certain that he would do his best to convince his wife to let us get on with our future without any interference.
With the easing of their initial caution, Suzanne’s parents accepted a drink of coffee, even enjoying some of mum’s date and walnut cake.
As they were preparing to leave, Suzanne’s Dad spotted the Cuneo print on the wall. “Oh, isn’t that by that artist, er… Cuneo?”
“Yes, that’s the Evening Star”, I answered.
“Doesn’t he put a mouse in his paintings? I wonder if I can spot it.”
I realised that he was walking over to the picture and a cold chill ran through my body, as I thought about the disappearing mouse. “I’m not certain just where the mouse is”, I mumbled, hoping that he would believe me and let it pass.
After what seemed an eternity, he said, “Ah! I spotted it on the telegraph pole! I had a feeling that it was somewhere like that.”
I was stunned. How long had the mouse been back in the picture? “You are very observant. I had forgotten just where it was on the picture”, I lied.
“Fantastic painting. I really love to see the old, powerful steam engines. Great to meet you, Tonie and many congratulations to both of you.” He took hold of my hand and shook it warmly.
“Thanks. Your acceptance means so much to me. I promise that I will take every care of your amazing daughter.”
The hug from Suzanne’s mother did not convey the same degree of acceptance as her husband’s handshake, but I felt that the meeting had gone better than I had expected.
“I’ll call, tomorrow and pick up some of my clothes, if that’s alright, mum?”
“Okay, Suzanne. No problem.”
After the door had closed behind them, Suzanne breathed a noticeable sigh of relief, reached up and gave me a tender kiss. “I think they like you, my love.”
Suzanne put her arms around me and we pulled each other close. “I think your Dad is happy, but I think that your mother is not as convinced about us.”
“Give her time, Tonie. She’ll be okay when she gets to know you better. As you must realise by now, Mum is a person of quite strong character and principles.” After a moment’s thought, she said, “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what they think about you. I really love you and you are going to be my husband, no matter what.”
“And I love you more than you can ever imagine, Suzanne Clover!”
Coyly, she asked, “and I suppose that you would like to be ‘in clover’, again, tonight?”
I smiled. “The thought had never even crossed my mind”, I lied. “What a great idea! I’m all for that, if you are?”
After being celibate for twenty-seven years, our nightly romp between the sheets was truly wonderful and I felt like a new man.
As Suzanne had suggested, my weights were more manageable during the day. I had moved them into the small bedroom in an attempt to prevent the nightly, ghostly presence from harming us by removing all items which could be used as projectiles against us. Ivanko still made his presence known, either by a loud, house-shaking clap of thunder or by rattling the doors and windows or even by using his voice on the bedside radio to disturb us.
The strange thing was that we had actually become quite accustomed to disturbance of some kind, yet felt that no actual harm would come to either of us. The question of why this ghostly presence of a man felt it necessary to scare the pants off us was still prominent in my mind.
When we returned from work on Thursday, Diane from next door called us as we left the car. “There was a delivery for you, today, so I said that I would take care of it until you came home.” She handed us a quite big, rectangular parcel.
“Thanks, Diane. I hope you don’t mind taking our post while we are at work? It shouldn’t happen very often.”
“It’s really no problem.” I had a feeling that she was going to say something else, but she seemed to think better of it and returned to her house.
Once we were inside, we just had to open the parcel without delay. It was, as expected, the Ouija board. “I wonder if we will be able to communicate with Ivanko, using this.”
“I hope so, but I think we should wait until tomorrow night before we try to use it.”
I thought Suzanne’s suggestion was a good one, but hoped we could read through the instructions, that night.
After we had finished dinner and Suzanne had returned after driving home to collect her clothes, the two of us sat together and looked at our purchase. The board was like that of many board games such as Monopoly, although this was made of thin, polished wood with a flat, smooth surface. Around the edge of the board were all the letters of the alphabet, numbers zero to nine and the words “Yes”, “No”, “Go” and “Goodbye”.