A Whole Year On

With apologies to The Bill and anyone else I have liberated from their cosy cocoon.

I have taken a number of liberties with characters from The Bill. I apologise if they are offended. (Although the way TB is going it may be difficult to offend any of the characters!) Anyone else in the story is a fragment of my imagination.

Any brand names or trademarks remain the property of their owners.

Your maiden aunt should not be offended by anything written here, so a rating of NF probably applies. I don’t have a maiden aunt, so I can’t confirm that. I don’t have a funnel web spider either.

I can’t handle criticism, so please don’t send any to tankloco@DelphiForums.com Anything else is OK.

For those who haven’t followed this series from the beginning, perhaps I should put things in order for you to catch up.

A challenge of sorts arose when it was pointed out that a few letters of the alphabet lacked story titles (see post 419.1472 back in August 2005), so I rose to the bait. I had already written When You Wish Upon a Star. Next in order of events were the three unrepresented letters, Q, Z and X:

Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday that we were with Craig, Luke and Luke’s mother Jenny at the Rock Pool for Christmas lunch/dinner. But that was Christmas 2008!!

Since then, Jenny had joined her tour group for their Australian adventure which included the Great Barrier Reef and Townsville, The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, a train trip from east to west on the Indian Pacific with brief stopovers in Broken Hill, Adelaide and Kalgoorlie, the sights of Perth and Rottnest Island, Uluru and Alice Springs, and finally Darwin and Kakadu. From there to Singapore, Dubai and home to London.

Craig and Luke, meantime, had both been working hard, consolidating their positions at work and enjoying their leisure time. The beachfront apartment was used regularly and with Luke’s high-speed broadband internet connection, he could even ‘work from home’ overlooking the Pacific Ocean when Craig had a few mid-week days off. The train service was good enough for him to be able to attend meetings without too much hassle when he couldn’t reschedule them, so life was really going well.

Craig was also doing well as Inspector Gilmore. The whole relief had given him the respect he had earned and his superiors noted how efficiently the station seemed to be operating with Craig at the helm.

It seemed that life had finally settled for these two men. The only disadvantage that either could see was that their families were so far away. Ten hours by the clock face and diametrically opposed seasons were always good for a laugh when one or other phoned home without thinking about the differences.

It was one particularly cool winter morning when Craig was starting a week of early shifts, that he remarked to Luke, “I’m going to have to get a warm coat if these ten degree mornings keep up. It’s far too cold to be going out to work.”

Luke, who had never felt the cold nearly as much as Craig, jumped out of bed and flung the windows wide open. “Good clean fresh air, nothing better first thing in the morning.”

“Idiot,” said Craig as he lunged towards the windows to shut out the cold. Luke stayed in front of the window, intent on choosing just the right moment to launch himself back onto the bed and trap Craig for an extra cuddle before he had to get ready for work. Craig noticed the calculating look on Luke’s face and recoiled back over the bed.

“No way, Ashton. I have to get ready for work and you look like your calculating the correct moment to jump on me and trap me here. Well, you miss out today. And close that bloody window before things shrivel up completely in the cold.”

“Aww, Craig, let me massage some heat back into things, we can’t have them shrivelling up, can we?”

“Thank you very much for the offer, Luke, but I think that a warm shower will unshrivel things quite well, and there is nowhere near as much risk of having to miss breakfast because I’m running late. If you really want to help warm me up, you could warm up some milk for my cornflakes and make some of your really good hot coffee. Now I’m going for a shower,” said Craig, and as he noticed Luke’s face change from rejection to hope, he added, “ALONE!!”

“Spoilsport, I’m going back to bed,” said Luke, turning to the open window and pulling it closed. “It’s freezing in here, and the kitchen will be cold too.”

“Idiot,” said Craig again as he selected fresh underwear from his drawer. “I guess an extra couple of minutes in the shower, warming each other up won’t make too much difference. Come on!”

Luke dived over the bed, out the door and into the bathroom while Craig was still laying out clothes.

“Hey Craig, where are you. This water is so warm I’m sure it will unshrivel things in no time.”

Craig quickly made his way into the shower and he and Luke spent several minutes with soap and warm water making sure they were both clean-scrubbed and unshrivelled. After a suitable amount of activity under the shower, both men emerged to dry off on the fresh towels which Luke had grabbed on his way to the bathroom.

As Craig headed off to the bedroom to get dressed, Luke wrapped his towel around his waist and headed for the kitchen. In very short time he had coffee brewing, toast toasting and milk warming in the microwave. When Craig appeared at the kitchen door a couple of minutes later, the milk was warm in a small jug on the table, fresh coffee was dripping into the pot and the first slices of toast had just popped up in the toaster. Both Craig and Luke liked their toast buttered while still hot so Luke had the butter ready to spread. Each would add their own toppings later.

With a large bowl of cornflakes and milk, two slices of toast and a mug of coffee inside, Craig headed back to the bathroom for a quick buzz around his face with the electric razor, and then to finish dressing. As he headed for the door, Craig swung into the kitchen to kiss Luke goodbye, and maybe snatch another slice of toast. Luke predictably turned a goodbye kiss into something a lot more passionate, leaving Craig gasping for breath and complaining that things were getting a lot more unshrivelled than was really appropriate to be seen on a police inspector walking down the street.

With 22^nd August approaching, Craig had ensured he had a few days free and that Luke would also be able to clear his desk for a few days. Winter on the Granite Belt is known for its cold nights and cool, crisp days. There are a number of gay-friendly establishments in the area and Craig had found one which had a number of secluded cottages scattered in the bushland around a central lodge. Thus arrangements were made for a three day weekend over which they could relax with winery visits, bush walks or simply lounging around their cottage. The owners offered meals in the lodge or room service and Craig had requested a special anniversary dinner to be delivered. With a wood fire crackling in the fireplace, a delicious meal served with local wines and soft music in the background, the scene was set for a very pleasant fourth anniversary celebration.

Christmas was the next big event on the calendar and Craig and Luke were starting to make their plans. Luke knew that he would be able to get time off to suit their plans, so Craig just had to make sure that the roster was done correctly.

They were also planning to entertain guests, or more correctly family, over Christmas. Craig’s father had arranged two months leave during December and January and they planned to base their holiday in Brisbane with Craig and Luke. With all of the arrangements settled, it only remained to finalise their trip to Kirra for their Christmas meal at Santa’s Rock Pool. Luke had booked for the four of them and had tentatively booked their limo, with the times to be advised later.

David and Megan had been making some of their plans through the travel agent in Wales, but had left some considerable gaps so that Craig and/or Luke could fit in some of the local points of interest that were not really part of the tourist scene.

It therefore came as something of a shock when Craig arrived at the station on the Monday before Christmas to the news that his days off over Christmas had been cancelled. The station supported three Inspector positions, however one of these was currently filled by a Sergeant from another station acting in the position. Over the weekend, the other permanent Inspector, Geoff Parker, had been rushed to hospital for emergency surgery and would be off work for about six weeks. Since he and Craig had been covering the acting position while the temporary holder was away overseas for three weeks, it meant that Craig was now the only permanent Inspector available, so he had to be on-call or on duty over Christmas. That meant no long weekend at Miami, no boozy Christmas dinner at Kirra and a rather pissed-off Luke.

Megan immediately took charge and started making arrangements to prepare Christmas dinner at home for the four of them. As she said, there was little else they could do, certainly not going off to the coast and leaving Craig on his own over Christmas. Somewhat mollified, Luke rang around and cancelled the arrangements he had previously made.

Craig had rostered himself to work the early shift on Christmas Day, primarily so that they could have a leisurely meal for the evening, but also it would allow him to get rid of the dregs of society who partied too hard on Christmas Eve and ended up in trouble. While Craig was working, Luke, Megan and David made themselves busy placing gifts under the tree, and preparing food for their dinner. Luke had even got a couple of bottles of non-alcoholic wine so that Craig could join in without having to worry about having consumed alcohol if he was called to work. In the end, they all had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening and were not even disturbed by a phone call.

One of the concessions that Craig had wrangled in exchange for giving up his Christmas was that he would get the three-day weekend at New Year’s off. This had been agreed, so New Year’s Eve saw the family heading for Miami for three days of sun, surf and relaxation. Craig and Luke knew that they should have a good view of the midnight fireworks from their front balcony, so with champagne glasses in hand, they were ready to toast the New Year as the fireworks lit up the midnight sky.

Monday morning was the day when David and Megan were booked to fly out of Brisbane to Alice Springs (including Uluru) then on The Ghan to Darwin, a visit to Kakadu, then fly to Mt Isa, another train trip to Townsville, this time on the Inlander, and then fly back to Brisbane. They then had a few days free, before heading south to Tasmania for a week, back to Brisbane for a couple more days, then a flight to Sydney to join the Indian Pacific for the trip across the continent to Perth, before flying back to the depths of winter in Wales.

Neither Craig nor Luke had visited Tasmania and after hearing about some of the scenery David and Megan had seen, they decided that they really needed to visit. A day of washing and packing heralded the final departure from Brisbane for Craig’s parents. David had promised to take everyone out for dinner on the last night, so with all except the last few items packed, the family enjoyed a special farewell dinner.

As Craig and Luke watched the travellers exit from the boarding lounge towards their flight to Sydney, they agreed that even though Christmas had not gone as planned, it was still a great time with their family.