With possible redundancy, or at least a shore-based role removed from the old challenges, came the fear that the urges might overwhelm.
Those urges had gone, so the drive had gone with them. I was still a marine and still well-able to do my job, but I no longer had to prove it to myself.
One of the greatest joys was having someone with whom I could talk about it. Gilly claimed that since she lost the ‘urges’ she’d been walking on air. Not that she was a terribly feminine woman, even though she could look fantastic when she put her mind to it, but most of the time she flopped about in jeans and tee shirts. There was no getting away from being the farmer’s daughter, well used to riding her motorcycle on the farm and more at home in her wellies than in high heels.
She agreed with me; not having to prove anything to oneself was the most satisfying factor.
Not constantly having a little voice in one’s head telling you that you were the wrong gender was just such a relief.
I attempted to drown out that voice through being a marine. Gilly did the same with her work. She engrossed herself in her studies and work, so much that she had no social life whatsoever. Whenever she was forced to socialise, she felt she was being pushed into conforming to everyone else’s view of what she should be, and she resented it.
She enjoyed her teaching role, despite her initial misgivings about teaching that age of kids. They responded to her sarcastic and dry sense of humour, even when most of the faculty failed to understand her. She quickly became the most popular teacher, without trying.
Andrew Simpson, unable to cope with her completely different approach to languages, tried to bluff the principal by handing his resignation with an ‘Either she goes or I do!’ threat.
The principal accepted the resignation without hesitation and wished him well with his new job. Pride prevented the windbag from backing down, so he left at the end of that semester.
I was in my office when the call came. Not a telephone call, as Gilly and I had risen above them.
‘It’s started!’ she said to me.
‘Okay, I‘m leaving now, can you hang in there?’
‘Karen from next door is with me, she’s called the paramedics. My waters broke in the kitchen. Sorry, but there’s a bit of a mess.’
‘No problem, as long as you’re doing okay?’
‘Fine, but the contractions are getting stronger.’
I was now getting into my car.
‘I’m in the car, so I’ll be with you in ten at the most.’
‘Don’t kill yourself, as I really need you now!’
‘Okay, hang in there.’
They made me put on sterile scrubs, as I was wearing my military fatigues. I felt a real idiot, but then everyone else looked the same.
Three hours, sixteen minutes and eight seconds after my arrival at the base hospital, the first of our daughters was born. Jane was seven pounds exactly, and looked like a miniature version of her mother. I was present throughout, and it was an amazing experience to actually watch it for a change.
Ten minutes later, Layla arrived, and she was identical in every way to Jane, but two ounces lighter than her big sister. Gilly looked completely shattered, radiant, but shattered. As the two little bundles fought over their first feed, she looked up at me with weary eyes and smiled.
“You okay?” I asked, holding her hand.
“Just,” she said, with her usual Scottish grit.
“You did well,” I said.
“Fuck, it bloody hurt, Ed!”
The nurse looked at her and smiled.
“Yes, hon, it surely does. All those who say it doesn’t haven’t had twins!” she said.
“So,” I said. “Ready for the next one?”
“In your dreams, you bastard. I have no intention of going through that again. Next time, it might be triplets. God gave me two hands for a reason – one hand per child, so, next opportunity you get, it’s vasectomy time!”
The nurse chuckled and shook her head.
I smiled and sat next to my wife as she fed her girls. She was smiling as she looked down at their little heads.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked.
“Like their mother; you look simply gorgeous,”
“I’m a fucking wreck!” she said, chuckling.
“A beautiful wreck. Did you think they’d be identical?” I asked.
“It’s in the family. My grandfather on my mum’s side was an identical twin. His brother died in the war.”
I was content to sit and be with her, conscious that our lives had just changed forever. Not in a bad way, in a lovely way, but with all the other changes that we’d recently experienced, I actually yearned for a period of stability for a while.
‘You’ve been through it too, haven’t you?’
‘Yup, three times as Jane. Layla wasn’t ever that kind of a girl.’
‘It’s funny having a husband who can wholly empathise with me. There are not many girls who can say that.’
‘To be honest, they asked me if I wanted the memories blocked. I thought about it, but decided not to. While you were going through it, I experienced a vivid flashback.’
‘You miss them, don’t you?’
‘Of course, but then they were Jane’s kids, not mine. That might sound odd, but I can cope with it that way. Besides, they’re all dead now.’
‘How about the kids you had with your wife; the ones you never see?’
‘Don’t go there; it’s an area of shame and sorrow for me. They call another man ‘dad’ now, so I have had to let them go. If I met them today, I doubt I’d know them.’
‘I’d like to hope we could build some bridges before too long; you are their dad, after all.’
‘Let’s see,’ I thought, hoping to close the subject.
After a couple of days, she was allowed to bring the girls home. So started a period in which sleep was at a premium, as two hungry girls never got enough without some assistance from dad.
We settled into a routine. I was fortunate to be given some time off to help, which Gilly claimed was invaluable. This time around I shared the load equally, finding that those maternal instincts of Jane were still with me, if a little blunted.
Needless to say Gilly’s mom, Jeanette, was as good as her word and was over within a few weeks to help. She had never been to America before, but kept saying, “Gosh, it’s just like on the telly!” She was a no-nonsense person who said things as she saw them, so we got on great.
After being with us for a week, I was able to go back to work. Jeanette adored the girls and even got up in the night to help with the feeds, allowing us one third more sleep than we would have got.
I don’t remember what my children with my first wife were like, as I was never there. It was a matter of great guilt for me, so made sure I put in extra time with these little smashers. They were actually very good, by any standards, but would set each other off if we were not careful.
Jeanette stayed for four weeks, and left, promising to come back whenever we needed her. By that time, we had the routine down pat, so life began to return to a state of reasonable normality once more.
My training role was more to make sure the training instructors were doing what they were supposed to be doing, so actually, there wasn’t a great deal for me to do, unless things went wrong. They had a habit of occasionally going wrong; usually stupidity or someone wanting to cut corners, but in the main, things ran smooth enough.
The colonel in charge was an old friend of Rick Masterson from way back. His name was Colin Coxeter, and he was a good man. I’d served with him briefly a couple of times, and he was up front from the start.