Not Passing Go! Ch. 06

Polly turned out to be a poor sailor during the first couple of days, but a pharmacie in the next port supplied the tablets which pulled her round within half a day and after then she was able to adjust. It was quite funny seeing Freddie make such a fuss of her, and it gave me a warm feeling seeing how their relationship developed and how PJ began to regard him as a second Dad. Even more wonderful was feeling PJ react to me as a Dad, and wanted cuddles all the time at first, until she got the idea that, like the twins, she was a permanent fixture in my heart.

Polly-Jo was wonderful. Those first few days after finding out I was her biological father was initially a shock but, as she kept telling me, it was a dream come true as she had already formed a firm bond with the teacher that I had pretended for nine long weeks to be.

We sat down, Polly, PJ, Freddie and Agnes in the main cabin after the twins were in their bunks and I ran through from the beginning, my short life as a criminal, the time I spent in prison and the battles we had to fight to secure my family in this paradise. The only thing I left out was that the twins were not my children, or that Agnes and I still had unresolved issues between us. I gave PJ a quick estimate of the family's financial worth, which was millions and assured them all that the money was the family's and if anything happened to me, I had left instructions with my lawyers in London who would automatically ensure that everything was taken care of regarding the financial support of any of my family. In the meantime, we had enough income from investments to more than cover our monthly outgoings. Benny Kollikov was a monster, but he had been well advised and that money wise, we adults and the children would never have to worry about money, especially as we were actually quite modest in our spending within the comfortable lifestyle that we were living. I had included Polly and PJ in my Will during the morning before we flew out to paradise. Freddie had already been aware of the position, but the scale of the value of our holdings was a surprise even to Agnes, a shock to Polly but of very little interest to PJ, which to me was the perfect balance.

"So," Polly asked, "I don't have to clean your house to pay my way, even if I really want to?"

We had a couple of women from the local village come in together a couple of hours every morning to keep the place tidy, even when we weren't in residence. There were lots of rich people living in this and similar tax haven islands who valued their privacy and so staff who were onto a good thing with regular employment and treated well, were guaranteed loyal. Agnes liked to cook and keep the place spick and span, and she ensured the twins kept their room and wherever they were active as tidy as they found it.

Since we moved to England during the 34 or so weeks for the children's schooling, we had taken on a gardener from the village to look after the outside and one of my old corporals and his wife had moved to the local town after helping us with the clean-up of the old Bahamas villa, because he loved the look of the place, and we employed him to look after the maintenance of the yacht, take it out regularly and keep it in good running order when we were not around. It all helped the place look lived in and cared for. Freddie tended to look after all the surveillance equipment, so we could keep an eye on the place in real time, from anywhere in the world we happened to be.

"No, Polly, you don't have to do anything like that," I said, "but we all try and pull together in this family and you are part of this family. Just get together with Agnes, she's in charge of the house, and agree between you where you can help. Agnes suggested, if you remember when we were at your old rented cottage, that although we have room in the main house, you and Freddie might want your own place in the grounds eventually. As you can see, money is no barrier to doing that if you want."

"No," she said shyly, "I am happy where I am and Freddie's happy in the main house."

Freddie nodded and grinned.

"OK, so we also keep a low profile when we are in England, although we keep vigilant and we should be all right."

"Who would be after us, Danny?" Agnes asked.

"The Kollikovs should be all right with us, but I don't want too high a profile in case they think I am rubbing their noses in it. I don't know if they had any idea quite how staggering an amount Benny was putting away for a rainy day. There's Wrongturn and Simon, my old bank robbing buddies still in the background, but Freddie and I are still looking for them. I have given up the idea of looking them up to visit, and have dropped any thought of revenge, which was a negative that was chewing me up that I can well live without. I just don't want either of them creeping up on me."

"Would you like me to help look for them?"

I had to do a double take. That was Agnes, my cute but dumb wife, speaking. The one that Freddie coached to use the Internet.

"Sure, honey," I said, "knock yourself out. As I say, I no longer have no issues with them but, if you can, monitor them from distance without them being aware of being watched."

"I can do that, honey," she replied, smiling sweetly, "it'll keep me occupied while you are going back to school and assist the sports master training the girls."

Things had definitely changed. Agnes has been calling me "honey" and was more relaxed around me than at any time in the last few months. I responded, partly, but there was still something in the way that was stopping me opening up completely and letting her back in, like we were before I went to prison for half a decade. She sensed that and, although prepared to cuddle up to me in the evenings, and insisted we sleep together for more than appearances' sake, there was nothing even remotely sexual between us. I could see that we were both frustrated by that curb on our intimacy, but we were only relaxed up to a certain level before backing off.

We returned to England with a couple of days spare before school restarted, so we could acclimatise to the cool nights and chilly, dew-drenched mornings. Agnes and me had started running together in the mornings at home, around the grounds, and this continued in our English house, using the country lanes and the housing estate and village green that were our nearest neighbours. Over that two weeks, seeing more of Agnes, touching her tentatively through our clothes, cuddling and kissing, I was increasingly finding out why we had attracted each other in the first place.

Firstly, she's a tall and elegant woman and very slim waisted, but pleasingly hippy to the eye, with a nice rack and bum. Her hair darkens to a fair blond during the winter, but a couple of weeks in the sun lightens her hair overall to a corn-coloured blond. Shoulder length, she puts up her hair in a pony tail when we go running. She has a strong face and can stick her chin out when she is determined to get her way, but it's also an open face that lights up when she smiles.

Being ten years younger than me, she was only 21 when we met, in a small fishing village high up in the Arctic Circle of Norway. She had told me that her father was an Icelandic fisherman who had drowned when she was a baby, her mother was born in the mid 1940s, a mixture of Norwegian and possibly a German or Polish soldier, Agnes wasn't sure as she never met him. Her mother was in her mid-30s when she fell pregnant and wasn't married to Agnes' father.

I met her at a crowded dance full of students in a university town. I was 30, fit and rugged rather than handsome and, being a sergeant and there with my company who were warned to be on their best behaviour, I must've stood out as both commanding and nurturing. I had watched this beautiful girl for half the evening as she nursed a soft drink. She was out with a large and mixed bunch of students, about ten of them at a table. Some friends were couples but most were single and looking for action outside their group. She had lots of offers to dance, but turned them all down. I fancied she glanced my way once or twice, so eventually I went over and asked her to dance in my poor Norwegian which I had picked up. She hesitated as if weighing me up. I asked again in English. She smiled this time and accepted. Perhaps my Norwegian was worse than I thought. I couldn't even work out what her name was, the music was so noisy.

I approached her between dances and the first dance was a disco beat, which I hated, but she stood facing me and gyrated to the rhythm smoothly and without too many exaggerated moves, so I tried to mirror her and not make myself look too much like a dork. The next one was a slow dance and she melted into my arms. The third and fourth dances were disco sounds, so we danced apart again. When the last dance started turned out to be a disco song again, we must've both looked disappointed, and we mutually went back to her table. I asked in English if she wanted a drink, having to put my lips next to her ear for her to hear me, but she shook her head and suggested we walk outside so we could at least talk. She said goodbye to her friends, and disappeared to the Ladies, then we collected our hats and coats (it was midwinter outside), and walked a while, to get away from the crowd of smokers. The town was at such a latitude that it was light until quite late. She had a very little English, spoken with an American accent, probably from hearing TV or Movies, but in the quiet streets we understood what we were saying. She was less shy away from her friends, and suggested we go to my room to relax and stay warm, but she told me quite seriously that we wouldn't have sex on a first date. I was sharing a room with three of my blokes on that furlough, so I couldn't bring her back for that. I told her anyway, that I would prefer to get to know her better. I only had a 2-day pass, but I was here in Norway for six weeks for training with weekend passes virtually expected during our stay, so we could get to know each other quite well in that time.

I told her that I was probably much too old for her, but she said no, I was refreshingly mature compared to the students who surrounded her. She seemed attracted to me and happily accepted meeting for breakfast and spending a day together before meeting up again the next evening for a meal. I took her back to her friends at the disco, who were waiting outside, all wrapped up from head to toe, and said good night. She left me with a searing goodbye kiss that made me think of her all night. I found her beautiful and wanted desperately to know her better. I didn't care then about the age gap. I think I fell in love with her that night.

Well, the shy girl I first met, soon disappeared and we were having sex all weekend every weekend for the next six weeks before I had to say goodbye to Norway, but we kept in touch, writing every day. Her written English was vastly better than speaking and we were soon making future plans together.

My unit returned to a different part of Norway, and deeper into their winter, for further training on keeping motorised vehicles going in Arctic conditions and living off the land on gruelling exercises for up to two weeks at a time, so Agnes managed to rent an apartment in a nearby village, although I had to help her with the rent. When I asked about her studies, she shrugged them off, she said she wanted to commit herself to studying me. We made love every chance we had and, during that six month secondment, I proposed and married her in the local registry office. She said she didn't need her mother or maids of honour, the only person she wanted there was me. I asked Freddie and another corporal to stand as witnesses to the wedding. So Agnes became my wife and I took her home to live with my mother in London, while I went off to fight in the desert for a couple of tours until my time was up, three years down the line and the Army were laying off its top NCOs. By then I was a Staff Sergeant, which was as far as I could go in my specialised unit, so I was let go.

When I relieved the local villains of their attaché case, Agnes and I leased a flat, but work was still hard to find and I turned to organised crime for the first and last time and had to do my bird to pay for my slip from the straight and narrow. Now we were in clover and I was about to find work again as a specialist swimming coach.

***

The kids were going back to Slocombe's school, with PJ no longer a boarder, she and her mother will live with us. Slocombe gave me access to their sports facilities to keep on coaching on a part-time, now that their sports master was back from his exile. I was studying every text I could find to keep up the momentum on PJ's swimming training, which had continued during our holiday, either in our pool or the sea. The twins showed a lot of promise in that area too, they loved the water.

At home, things were great, we were all comfortable together. Polly and Freddie were like lovebirds and they made Agnes and I almost as horny as hell. But I still had hurdles to jump over and no amount of soul searching could get my leading leg over that first barrier. I hadn't had sex in nearly six years. I didn't count as sex the half-dozen rapes in prison that I had to endure, especially as I was unconscious for most of it. I had no way of knowing how long Agnes had gone without since having the twins. Damn! I loved the bitch but didn't know if I had it in me to unbend enough to forgive her and forget.

She sat me down the night after we were back in England. It was the first time we were actually alone, as Freddie and Polly were having a night out at a West End show in London, preceded by a day seeing the sights. Agnes and I were cuddling alone on the settee, the twins and Polly-Jo were in bed early, still exhausted from the long journey, and we had the place to ourselves.

I guess great minds think alike, so while I had been musing about our relationship, so Agnes brought up that she had been thinking along the same lines.

"You know, Danny, that I fell in love with you the first night you asked me to dance?"

"I didn't know, honey, but I think that I did." I squeezed her and we kissed the usual soft kiss that we had been exchanging regularly for a fortnight now. Sweet, but tentative on both sides, neither of us anxious to take the lead onto another level. "You were shy, but interesting, and I thought you were so lovely. It was as if you didn't really know how beautiful you were and turned down all those boys because you were waiting for me to ask you, but even then you weren't confident you were doing the right thing."

She coloured up and dipped her head. "I had been watching you all evening, ever since you came in with your friends, but didn't want you to know how interested I was. I never danced with anyone anyway, so it was only strangers that approached, not my friends, as they knew I always watched people. And you didn't dance either, although all your friends did. I saw you with just your one small beer, while the others wanted to do shots and you calmed them all down to behave."

"Yeah, that's what I did," I chuckled, "keeping them out of trouble."

"Yes, I saw that, honey, and then I was frightened when you walked over to me. And everyone was up dancing so I had no one who I could pretend to hold a conversation with. I only agreed to dance with you because I was intrigued. I thought you might be dangerous but you turned out to be a gentleman, who seemed to respect me and didn't try to touch me up on the dance floor. And I loved the slow dance we had, when you held me as though you cared and wanted to protect me. Then I wanted so much to talk to you but it was too noisy in that place to even think."

"Well, you weren't so shy outside that club."

"No?" she said, "no, I suppose I wasn't, I can't really remember. Did I do anything to embarrass us, Daniel?"

"No, of course not. At least you didn't put out on the first couple of dates, but after we continued seeing each other, and relaxed in each other's company, it was like you were a different woman!"

"I-I guess so," she muttered, "we really need to talk, Daniel, get some way to clear the air and start again, as if it was our first dance in that disco all over again."

"Yes, honey, you are right." I had been thinking how we could get around this mental block in the way. Maybe all we needed was to talk about it together, but moments alone are rare in our enlarged household.

Just then one of the twins had a nightmare which woke all three girls. They had moved in together in their own bedroom at the mansion. By the time they were cuddled and settled, Freddie and Josie were back from the show and we retired for the night.

"I don't want to talk in bed about our ... problem, but can we set our alarm an hour early and talk things over before we go for our morning run?"

"Sure," I said calmly, but it took me a long while to sleep.

***

We sat at the kitchen table, very early in the morning, both of us dressed for jogging.

"I know you love our twins," she said, sitting fidgeting and playing with a large envelope on the table.

'Ah,' I thought, 'is this where she presents me with divorce papers and takes half of the money she's entitled to and takes the twins off me as well, as I have no title to them at all?'

"You took the twins to your heart as soon as you met them," she smiled, reaching out and taking both my hands.

I may be a tough guy, but I was putty in those hands as usual.

She continued while I swallowed my apprehensions, "You raised them and continue to raise them, you teach them, and play with them ... you love them unconditionally. No one observing you would be in any doubt that they are not your twins, your babies. Anyone can tell that you would never let anyone take them away from you, not even me ... maybe even, especially me."

'What is she doing?' I think to myself, 'Is she saying she's leaving me but that I can have the kids? I know that I demonstrate my love for the girls every day, has she given up on me that I will never grow to love her again?'

"What are you getting at, Agnes?" I say, "you know I have been saying these last few weeks that you are part of my life and I am trying my hardest to come to terms with that and finally become your husband again. I will not give you up, I just need time—"

"Please bear with me, Danny, this is difficult enough for me too, but we have to face exactly where we stand, so we can make this adjustment in our lives. OK?"

"All right, go on, I'll keep schtumb."

"In this envelope are DNA samples of you, the twins and myself. I organised them so that should you get samples of the suspects, you had ours all ready to compare."

"How did you—?"

"How did I get yours?" Agnes smiled, "you love my chocolate cake and I gave you a spoon of the cake mixture to lick like you were a big kid? I sent off the spoon. I never did get it back."

"No, how did you get the results, Freddie and I monitor the PO Boxes and we'd have noticed these."

"Your Mum," she said, "she was very helpful when the twins were born, and we still talk every week on the phone for an hour. What has she said to you?"

"Only that she turned down my offer to retire and join us. I didn't even realise she knew the twins or spoke to you."

"Well, she tells me that she will join us when we are a proper family and not before."

"Oh."

"Anyway, it appears that you cannot be the twins' biological father, but at the same time it seems like you don't want to ask me who that person is. And you could find out, through DNA, if you really wanted to. Even when you dealt out a fatal beating for Motormouth Mickey, you must've believed him when he told you that he wasn't the father—"