At last it was all over. The guests departed, and Lilian accompanied her parents up to their room.
‘How is Pippa coping?’ Dee wanted to know. ‘I worried about her this evening. A wedding anniversary. How that must have hurt her! If her wedding had gone ahead, it would have been her own first anniversary soon.’
‘I know, but you’d never guess it, she seems so bright,’ Lilian sighed. ‘Oh, I could kill that man for what he did to her.’
Pippa’s entry silenced the topic. Together, they helped the old people to bed, kissed them goodnight and retreated to the door.
‘You’re not too tired after all the goings-on?’ Pippa asked.
‘Tired?’ Mark echoed. ‘We’re only just starting. We’re going to get revved up, then swing from the chandeliers and indulge in some mad lust. You youngsters! You don’t know how to enjoy life. Ow! No need to beat me up.’
Dee, who’d delivered the lightest tap on his shoulder, chuckled. ‘Behave yourself!’ she commanded.
‘You see how she treats me,’ Mark sighed. ‘I expect you bully your menfolk too, and they wonder where you get it from. They should see what I put up with. Ow!’
As the two old people collapsed with laughter, Lilian drew her daughter away.
‘Let’s leave them to it. Honestly, they’re like a couple of kids.’
‘Perhaps that’s their secret,’ Pippa said.
‘Yes,’ Lilian said thoughtfully. ‘They do seem to have a secret, don’t they?’
They went downstairs to get on with the clearing up.
In the darkness, Mark and Dee listened to the fading footsteps.
‘We’re very lucky,’ she mused, ‘that our family takes such care of us.’
‘True, but I hope they don’t come back,’ he admitted. ‘Right now, I want to be alone with you. What are you giggling for?’
‘I was remembering the first time you ever said that to me. I was so thrilled. Suddenly every dream I’d ever had was coming true.’
‘But it wasn’t, was it?’ he reminded her. ‘I was a dreadful character in those days. I can’t think what you saw in me.’
‘Well, if you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you,’ she teased. ‘We had our troubles, but we reached home in the end. That’s all that matters.’
‘Yes, we reached home and shut the door against the world,’ he mused. ‘And, ever since then, we’ve kept each other safe. Sixty years you’ve put up with me! I can’t imagine how!’
‘Neither can I, so stop fishing for compliments. And, by the way, what game were you playing tonight?’
‘Game? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me. All that talk about how you had to court me for years and work to impress me. You know that’s not what happened.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘It most certainly is not. Don’t you remember-?’
He stopped her with a gentle finger over her mouth. ‘Hush! I remember what I remember, and you remember what you remember, and maybe it’s not the same thing, but does that matter?’
‘No, I suppose not,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I dare say we’ll never know now which of us has remembered it right.’
‘Both of us and neither of us,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘You’re very wise tonight.’
‘I’ll swear that’s the first time you’ve ever called me wise. Now, tell me, did you like your present?’
‘I loved it, but you shouldn’t have splashed out on diamonds.’
‘One measly little diamond,’ he corrected. ‘I was determined you were going to have that on our diamond anniversary.’ Then his voice rose in horror. ‘Good grief; I almost forgot! Your other present.’
‘I’ve been wondering about that, ever since you told me this morning that the diamond was only the “official” present, and that you had something else for me that meant much more. You said you’d give it to me later, when the crowd had gone.’
‘I forgot until now,’ he groaned.
‘Never mind, darling,’ she said tenderly. ‘People of our age become forgetful.’
‘Our age?’ he echoed, affronted. ‘Are you suggesting that I’m old?’
‘Of course not. You could be a hundred and you still wouldn’t be old.’
‘Thank you, my dear.’
She couldn’t resist adding cheekily, ‘But give me my present before you forget again.’
He gave her a look, then switched on the little light by the bed and fumbled in a drawer, producing a small object that he hid behind his back. ‘Close your eyes and hold out your hands,’ he ordered.
Smiling, she did so, until she felt the soft touch of fur in her palm, and opened her eyes to find a small teddy bear. She gave an excited squeal and rubbed him against her cheek. ‘Now, that’s a real present,’ she said. ‘Much better than diamonds.’
There seemed little in the toy to explain her delight. Six inches tall, with beady eyes and nylon fur, he was like a thousand other cheap trinkets, but Dee was overwhelmed with joy.
‘Do you remember the first one I gave you?’ Mark asked fondly.
For answer, she reached under her pillow and produced another toy bear. Once, long ago, he might have been like the new one, but now all his fur had worn away, he was shabby and mended at the seams.
‘He’s still here,’ Dee said, holding him up. ‘I never let him get far away.’
‘You talk as though he was alive and trying to escape.’
‘He is alive, and he knows he can never escape me,’ she said, looking at her husband with meaning. ‘That night you said you’d given him to me so that I didn’t forget you. I loved you so much that nothing in the world could have made me forget you, but you didn’t know that.’
‘I took too long to understand,’ he agreed. ‘So many things I didn’t see until it was nearly too late.’
‘But I always had my Mad Bruin,’ she said, indicating the threadbare toy.
‘Mad Bruin,’ he said, taking the bear from her and holding him up to consider him. ‘I remember when you called me that. You were so angry. You were an impressive woman when you got really mad. Still are.’
‘You scared me, doing something so stupid,’ she recalled. ‘You were the real Mad Bruin. Mad as a hatter, always doing something no sensible man would have done.’
‘And we both got told off,’ he remembered, addressing the toy.
She held both of the tiny bears together. ‘He’ll enjoy having a companion. I’m glad you gave me this. It was a lovely thing to think of. I thought you’d forgotten all about Bruin.’
‘No, I didn’t forget, but I noticed that you keep him hidden away.’
‘Nobody else would understand.’
‘Nobody but us,’ he agreed.
She slipped both toys under her pillow. Mark turned out the lamp and they settled down together in the darkness. She felt his arms go around her, while her head found its natural place on his shoulder.
‘Bliss,’ he mused. ‘This is what I’ve been waiting for all evening. Everyone is kind to us, but they don’t understand. They just never know.’
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘Only we know, but only we need to know.’
‘Goodnight, my darling.’
‘Goodnight.’
After a moment she heard the change in his breathing that meant he was asleep. But she wasn’t ready to sleep. The evening had revived sixty years of memories and now they seemed to be there, dancing in the darkness.
The old man beside her disappeared, leaving only the dazzling young hero of long ago. How stunned she’d been by her first experience of love, blissful if he smiled at her, despairing because she knew he could never he hers.
Slowly she raised herself on one elbow to look down on him in gentle adoration. He awoke at once.
‘What is it?’ he asked quickly. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she reassured him, settling back into his arms. ‘Go to sleep.’
Content, he closed his eyes again. But she did not sleep. She lay looking into the distance, remembering