Ch 1- The Lone Egg
"Oh shit, shit, shit." Patsy spat, her cigarette hanging precariously from her pursed lips as she dug through a mound of paper, searching desperately for a datebook she wasn't sure she even kept.
It'd been an odd gift from Eddy at Christmas, just a few months before and at first she'd tried very hard to actually use it. But then after the holidays the realities of life, being what they were for Patsy Stone, settled in and like every year, she found keeping a datebook too arduous a task.
Instead she would live from moment to wild moment, spending her time with Eddy and taking people up on whatever offer they had that was a boon to her lavish, almost debauched lifestyle, only keeping commitments because someone at the office (the one she barely went to) reminded her of them, or that insufferable Saffy forced her to.
"Shit, shit." She muttered; her cigarette still poised on the edge of her lips.
She took the pile from her desk and tossed it on the floor, the landline phone making a 'ding!' sound that called out more like a low 'thud!' when it hit the hardwood floor. And there it was, the red leather daybook. Nervous, she took a puff of her cigarette and dove in, grabbing the book and violently pulling open the pages like a pack of rabid dogs gone to hunt. The bile rising in her throat she flipped the pages back, back, back.
"Tuesday, Wednesday, Two weeks from…" Patsy stopped, her heart rate spiking when she got to the page she'd been looking for. She'd been afraid of this but hadn't seriously considered it. "No, no Pats it isn't that." She told herself, turning to the front and looking at the year embossed in gold on the cover.
'Do you know how old you are?' A voice asked. Patsy jumped, looking around, not familiar with hearing her conscious voice truth to her.
"Well I suppose I do…" She considered.
At once a somber feeling settled in and a mood of dread encroached. Patsy swallowed hard, the almost eerie feeling pervading every bit of her. She took another long puff of her cigarette, a spiking heart rate accompanying her mounting fear. She looked down at the book once more, double, then triple checking her facts, trying to ensure that she had just been being herself. Patsy laughed nervously, deciding that of course she'd found keeping a datebook too arduous a task. That had been it.
'I'd forgotten all about it that month that's what I did.' She almost smirked, reading back through the book just a bit further.
But that wasn't it.
Patsy's eyes grew wide and a flood of memories came washing back when she saw that lone February day.
"Oh shit, shit, shit, shit!"
Patsy threw down the book and at once leaned over, beginning to heave in the office's wastebasket.
….
2 Hours Later
She hadn't thought much of it before then. She'd been throwing up on and off for several weeks. For a while she'd thought it was the occasional hangover, but her bouts of illness had become far too frequent for that: occurring up to several times a day. Then, she'd blamed it on a flu Saffy had had (she could always blame children, even grown ones for something like that, the little buggers). Following that, Patsy had mistakenly thought that it was a miracle: that her body was offering her the privilege of being able to become bulimic once more, something she'd been forced to give up several years earlier. But it wasn't until yesterday she'd considered this. Oh how could she have ever expected this?
Patsy lay in the surgery waiting. Staring straight up and wondering how on earth she'd even gotten there without Eddy's shoulder to cry on.
'Your capable of a lot more than you know.' Came the voice.
Patsy bristled. She wasn't sure. She didn't have as much self-confidence as you might think for a woman who'd garnered a position like hers, for someone who lived in the limelight of the London nightlife, who partied and gabbed with the elite of the elite…. In truth, Patsy was scared inside and oh so very lonely: she always had been. The world saw her as powerful, callous and wild. But on the inside, she wasn't much different from the girl she'd once been, the one whose mother had neglected and abused her.
The subject of mother hit a sore spot right then.
Patsy's breath caught in her throat. She felt like she was going to be ill as she snuck a glance at the tiny blip on the screen next to her. She couldn't believe they'd left her alone like that: that they'd agreed to give her a moment before going on with it. Patsy jumped when the imaged moved, almost as if it were waiving, or at the very least, rocking back and forth. She didn't turn away this time, but stared speechless, studying the black and grey little bean.
"It's better this way." She assured, putting her head down. "Life's…too much when your mother is awful I know…" She said to herself. "No one deserves that."
Inside, Patsy knew she could never be anything but that.
Before she was ready the technician came back. A skinny woman who, to her alarm, looked and sounded just like Bubble. Patsy's mind swam and she found herself not listening as the woman began to explain how it would work. She found herself instead, transfixed on the dot on the screen. Frustrated and confused, Patsy took a cigarette out of her handbag stopping mid light when Bubble's apparent twin barked:
"Ya can't have that in here woman!"
The tech left her alone again telling her it would be time when she returned.
"It's not personal." Patsy said, staring catatonic at the screen.
But it was.
Shaking, Patsy turned to light the cigarette anyway. She inhaled sharply, needing something to steady her. The dot on the screen shook, almost as if it were coughing in reply.
'You're the same age you know…' Her conscious reminded.
"Yeah, yeah…"
But Patsy considered it deeply in those moments. She was the same age her mother had been when she had her (and mistook the pregnancy for menopause). The whole thing was uncanny, and something of a trigger for Patsy that reminded her too much of her own rough beginning.
"It's the right thing." She said, determined. Patsy took another long puff of her cigarette, ignoring the tears that welled up in her eyes.
Patsy was not the deepest person on earth by any means, or all that philosophical. But she understood the principle that a lot of people follow after a parent whether they want to or not. They repeat their patterns and they right their wrongs. This news made Patsy feel connected to something in a way she was neither comfortable nor familiar with. It made her desperate to flee, to not repeat certain abusive patterns and most of all to right some egregious wrongs.
Patsy swallowed hard and almost jumped, taken out of deep thought when Bubble's twin came back with the real doctor.
'This.' She thought, staring back at the screen. 'Is a way to right my mother's wrongs. She should've simply ended it.'
Patsy didn't think she deserved a chance, either way.
'You're not your mother.' The voice came again.
'Oh shut up!' Some other part of her brain hissed.
Again, Patsy found herself not listening as they explained everything that was about to happen. Her eyes were focused solely on the tiny thirteen-week-old dot. Patsy almost gasped surprised when the cigarette was removed from her hand and extinguished leaving her to focus only on the happy little bean she was about to part with for good.
Her mind rushed and she found herself almost in a panic when they were about to start. She squeezed her eyes tight, feeling them start to touch her. Much to her shock, she found she wanted to hold the little dot and tell him it would be all right, that it would be quick. She'd always wanted someone to tell her it would be all right. She'd always wished it all would've been quick.
'You're righting wrongs Pats. You're not going down that road.' She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, turning away from the dot that almost seemed to urge her to keep contact with it. 'You're being gracious, you're doing the right thing, you're…'
'But what if the courage to care is the right thing.' The voice deep inside offered.
Patsy's eyes flashed open, catching one last glimpse of the dot on the screen before she jumped.
"No!" She swallowed hard. "No. I can't."
…..
When it was over, she made her way to Holland Park where Eddy very much played the part of the understanding friend.
"Oh how modern, thinking we're going to keep it!" Eddy almost teased, a hint of anger in her voice.
Patsy gulped, feeling karma creep up on her, knowing the friend on whom she depended was angry. Her heart sank as she squeezed the arms of her chair, upset that Eddy made her feel like a burden, or an unruly teenager. But she supposed that was how she'd treated her the two times she'd delivered the same news.
"You've got this house Eds, and your daughter… and your mother and what have I got?" In that moment, Patsy realized she knew how to reason. Perhaps she could trust herself. Eddy or not.
"You've got me Pats!"
The blonde paused a beat, feeling venerable about opening up even in the depth of her own heart. Maybe this had been a mistake. Isolation, self-reliance and neglect had been the very fiber she'd been formed out of, and turned her into the harsh, irresponsible soul she was. It was no wonder she could barely fathom the idea of braving a new kind of life that required her to rise above and be what her mother wasn't.
But Patsy had had a lot of realizations since she'd left the clinic, and despite being afraid and unsure, she knew what she wanted.
"But it's lonely. It's always been very lonely." She said softly, reflecting more on the long painful period before the Monsoons came into her life.
It'd been her whole life. She thought years of drugs, lavish parties and a happy life with a good friend had successfully snuffed out the memory of those early years. But something about this new possibility brought them back to the forefront and left her staring wide-eyed in its wake.
Eddy stopped, watching her friend intently, surprised by the seriousness in her eyes. Normally, Patsy sloughed things off if they were emotional or required a serious commitment on her part. Eddy wasn't sure what to say, knowing that for once, her friend needed her to be serious.
"I know I begrudged you yours but… I never said I didn't want a child."
"It's a serious commitment Pats."
"You don't think I can do it." She voiced sadly.
"It's just…"
"I helped you with yours! I, I've been thinking and I want my child Eds. Someone to hold at night. Someone to buy cute little things for."
"That's how I was with Saffy!" It wasn't at all.
"Someone who wont judge me."
"Oh they judge you darling!" Edina warned.
"Someone I can see my eyes in. Someone who I can always tell I love."
Eddy stopped, biting her lip, understanding that last idea. She had no idea Patsy had any of that on her heart.
"Someone." Patsy swallowed. "To who I won't ask for anyone to take away, so they can bring me another lover."
"Alright Pats. Let's give it a go." Eddy sighed. She wasn't happy, but she would help out of love… "We'll do better this time."
"Better this time at what?" Saffy asked, knitting her eyebrows as she came down the kitchen stairs.
"Oh Saffy darling, Patsy's going to have a baby!" Eddy said, pouring two glasses of champagne.
"WHAT?!" The girl cried. "You can't do that! No one deserves a mother like you, I should know!"
"Well who deserves a daughter like you!" Patsy barked. "Oh good God Eds… you don't think…"
"No, no darling." She said, looking back at Saffy.
"You're right. That kind of genetic malformation isn't likely to occur for another millennia…"
"What kind of a baby? A baby fossil? What happened to the knitting needle?!" Saffy cried. "You're playing a joke on me… You can't be serious about getting pregnant you old tart!"
Patsy and Eddy gasped.
"And keeping it! What happened to your eggs I thought you used to be a man!"
"It was the lone egg sweetheart." Eddy rolled her eyes.
"Yeah well so did I!"
"No, no darling, look, look. See. Baby, baby." Eddy baby talked, handing her daughter the sonogram photo with her friend's approval. Patsy nodded. "Baby, baby we're going to have a baby darling." Eddy said, warming to the idea.
"Isn't it wonderful Eds, I've been so happy since I found out." Patsy faked, mindlessly sipping her champagne.
Saffy scrutinized the photo, knitting her brow. "It says from Hampstead Abortion Clinic!" She looked up aghast.
Patsy and Eddy exchanged glances, neither wanting to say what had really happened: that she'd gone, with every intent to terminate, changed her mind just as they were starting, then gotten kicked out of the clinic and asked never to return after of course lighting up two more fags while laying in the surgery.
Patsy paused, almost nibbling on her cigarette. "I hear they've modernized the knitting needle…"