"Go on, fuck off and do what old soldiers do when they get together, go and make a bleeding pest of yourself somewhere, but if you come 'ome plastered, don't wake Parsnip up cos he needs 'is beauty sleep"
"Oi, you, not so much of the old" He stroked her hair back and tucked it behind her ears "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
"Course I am, I'm a big girl now"
"Yeah, I'd noticed" Charles put his hand on Molly's stomach and laughed.
"That ain't funny, sod off"
Charles had very mixed feelings about going to his first reunion for years, actually the last one he'd been to had been when he'd first got involved with Rebecca. He'd all but lost touch with the lads who'd played such a significant role in his life before he'd been injured and before his life had gone to shit, and he remembered now that the last time he'd seen them he'd been deeply 'in love' with the girl who'd become his wife. He'd cut his evening short and stayed stone cold sober, swapping to soft drinks and water very early on, knowing that she didn't approve of him being there and had done everything in her power to persuade him not to go, so that, to his eternal shame, he'd started to see them through her eyes. Oil and water didn't begin to describe it.
The invitation to attend this one had come in the form of a 'round robin' note inside a re-directed Christmas card from Derek Kinders which Molly had opened and had then promptly started hassling him into accepting. She kept saying that it would do him good to stop being such a miserable anti-social kill-joy, or bleeding wet blanket pain in the arse as she called it, which he knew was more to do with the on-going discussions they'd been having about his reluctance to go to Doreen's Christmas party than anything else. He couldn't forget what Molly had said about Doreen having the hot's for him, so he was deeply uncomfortable around her and didn't want to go anywhere where he might find himself having to kiss her, even on the cheek, but admitting that to Molly meant she would have taken the piss endlessly.
She'd got her own way in the end and Boxing Day had seen them at Doreen's, and he'd almost enjoyed himself when he managed to forget that he had to avoid his hostess at all costs, something that would have been much easier if they'd got a taxi rather than him driving, several very large drinks would have helped considerably. They hadn't stayed late, neither of them could drink and everyone else was merrily plastered so that when he'd whispered that she was his gorgeous little womble as she'd sat on his lap, knowing how much the nickname annoyed her, and that he wanted to go home, that he loved her and wanted her to himself and that he was tired of sharing her with other people, Molly had shushed him, worried that people would hear and start taking the piss. He'd shouted with laughter saying that he didn't think they were a secret and then patted her bump and said that he was sure most people knew about them already.
The certainty that Molly and the lads would get on, that they'd adore her almost as much as they would have hated Rebecca, meant that he had this germ of an idea that he could re-establish the friendship they'd always shared under the umbrella of the officer and section relationship they'd had. But only time would tell whether anything like that was even remotely possible, after the last time they might well have written him off as that arrogant bloody Rupert who'd forgotten all about shared troubles, fears and fun, the upshot of which was that he was actually filled with some trepidation about the evening ahead.
-OG-
"Boss man, how the fuck are you?"
"Fine thanks, how are you? You look well"
"We heard you'd got married, let you off the lead for a couple of hours, has she?"
"Yeah, well, something like that, actually this was her idea, personally I couldn't think of anything worse than going out and getting pissed with you load of massive cockwombles"
"That's nice, innit?"
Charles slapped Dangles on the back as he and Nude-Nut pretended to be deeply offended at what he'd just said. The evening was progressing very much as he'd expected, or rather hoped for, they'd eaten in an Indian, Kinders insisting that they had to eat before they started drinking otherwise he wouldn't be responsible for anything that followed, and were now happily embedded in a bar and looking as if they were there for the duration as Mansfield and some of the others tried to drink themselves into oblivion. The one thing he hadn't expected was the ease with which he'd slipped back into his previous sense of belonging, the friendship and camaraderie that he'd missed over the intervening years had just effortlessly reappeared.
"So, how's the wife, Rebecca isn't it?"
Kinders obviously had a good memory which impressed Charles, but he was considerably more sober than the rest of them, including Charles, who was trying to pace himself because he hadn't been out on the sauce for a long time and had no intention of getting totally plastered.
"Yes well, that is my wife's name, or rather it was, but we're not together any more, we're actually divorced, things got a bit complicated"
"I'm sorry"
"I'm not, things couldn't be better right now" Charles wondered why people kept expressing sympathy when he told them that he and Rebecca had split up, they didn't know why they'd split or whose idea it had been, and even Molly had said she was sorry, so that he had to keep explaining that he'd never been happier.
"I'm with someone else" He knew that he was grinning all over his face "Been with her for a while actually, we're going to have a baby in just over a month, a little girl, so everything's pretty good right now, what with Molly and the business"
Charles got his mobile phone out of his pocket to show Kinders his screensaver picture of Molly laughing as she cuddled Parsnip, knowing just how incredibly pretty she looked and how proud he was of her. He had a suspicion that when his daughter was born he was going to be one of those sad fuckers who flashed photographs of their kids at every opportunity whether people were interested or not. The discussion with Kinders moved onto the business as Charles resisted the temptation to ring her and check that she was okay, he knew she'd be fine on her own with the dog and she'd already told him more than once that he was driving her nuts checking up on her all the time, and if he was like this now, what the hell was he going to be like once Lexie was born?
"What the fuck do you want?"
"Just checking you're okay"
"Course I'm okay. Shit, you ain't been arrested or nothing 'ave you?"
"No, of course not, I'll probably get a taxi in a bit and come home"
"Only if you've had enough, and I ain't talking about the booze, just don't come home early for me, I'm good"
"I love you"
"Course you do"
An hour after his conversation with Kinders the temptation to check on her had got too much for him and two hours after that he began to think it would be a very good idea to do what he'd promised, get a taxi and make his way home. It was now very late and apart from anything else he definitely didn't want another drink, he'd already offered all of 2 section a job each at Parker James, jobs which Eddie would be amazed to know existed, so it would be just his luck if they all decided to take him up on his outstandingly generous offers.
-OG-
"What do you want now?"
"Molly?"
"Oh sorry Mr. James, I thought you was Charles again"
"He's not there then I take it? And Molly, it's Bill or Dad, not Mr. James"
"No, he's at a reunion thingy with 'is army mates, can I 'elp?"
"Not really, can you just tell him I wanted a word and perhaps he could ring me tomorrow or I can ring him"
"I'll ask 'im to ring you but it won't be that early, this might be a bit of a late one"
"What you mean is he'll have a sore head in the morning"
Molly still had a somewhat strained relationship with Charles' parents, his dad was okay, even if she couldn't possibly bring herself to call him Bill, and she already had a dad of her own, even if he was a compete tosser, so she usually tried to avoid calling him anything at all. "Oi you" or "mate" didn't seem appropriate somehow. Elizabeth James, or Betsy as Bill called her, was the fly in the ointment. For some reason she was firmly convinced that Molly was responsible for the breakdown of Charles' marriage and his ultimate divorce and her conviction that this was the case was completely unshakeable. Not even the news that she was about to become a grandmother had changed her attitude towards Molly, she was implacable in her dislike and disapproval so that Charles had ended up distancing himself from his parents once again, actually even more than he had when he hadn't wanted to tell them that Rebecca had waltzed off with Mr Muscles.
Charles couldn't help feeling that Molly was missing out on the family anticipation and excitement that she deserved for the impending arrival of Lexie, her Nan was knitting rather misshapen woollen things and had given them a couple of very expensive looking baby dresses, which had made Molly giggle when she told him that they were more than likely moody, or shoplifted from somewhere, much to his horror. She hadn't, however, heard a single word from her mother or her sisters and he was very angry and disappointed that apparently neither of Lexie's grandmothers seemed to give a shit, and that not even Molly's sisters seemed to care. Doreen was the one who was much more excited than they were.
-OG-
" 'ave a good time did we?"
"How the hell would I know? And what the fuck am I doing down here sleeping on the sofa with Parsnip?"
"You couldn't make the stairs, maybe?"
"Oh shit, never again, and I've got a horrible feeling I might have done some stupid stuff last night" Charles sat on the edge of the sofa with his head in his hands and pulled up Parsnip's dog blanket that he'd been sleeping under and wrapped it round his shoulders; he felt like grim death "And I think I've got the flu"
"Yeah, course you 'ave" Molly couldn't stop giggling unsympathetically at his plight "And what sort of stupid, anything I need to worry about?"
"I think I might have offered them all jobs and I bet they know fuck all about printing and I bet it'll be Mansfield who'll be the first to take me up on it, its bloody well bound to be, and what the fuck is so funny?"
"You are, and what's wrong with Mansfield?"
"Don't ask"
"Your dad rang last night"
"Lovely. What the hell did he want?"
"I dunno, 'e didn't say, well 'e wasn't gonna tell me was 'e? 'e's wants you to ring 'im"
"Shit, must I?"
"Yup, and go and 'ave a shower first, you're minging"
"Will you make me a coffee? pretty please, because you love me and because I'm dying here"
"Uuuummmmm"
Despite all their months together and the impending arrival of Lexie, Molly had never put her commitment to him, to their being together, to their home, to their baby or to anything else into words, and she still talked about them as if they were temporary; she hadn't ever told him that she loved him, something he now craved because he didn't understand why not. The only people she ever talked about loving were Eddie and Doreen, sometimes her Nan, and she adored Parsnip, but she never mentioned her mother, her father or her siblings, he wasn't even sure that she'd given them her new address, and they were always the ones to visit her Nan, never the other way round.
-OG-
The conversation seemed to go on a very long time, much, much longer than any other conversation Molly could remember him having with his father, although his previous conversations, when he hadn't been giving them the distant treatment, had always been with his mother; either she'd rung him or if he'd rung them his father had immediately passed the phone to Betsy. And this seemed to be an almost totally one-sided conversation, Charles was saying very little, just drinking black coffee and listening, then throwing in the occasional question as a prompt; a 'why' or a 'what happened', but Molly knew that he was worried because of the number of times he rubbed the back of his neck and bit his bottom lip.
"He's worried about Mum, apparently she's a bit upset because she hasn't seen me, us, for a while and she's not too well, so he wants us to go down next weekend"
"Us?" Molly laughed "You, you mean"
"I'm not going without you"
"Nah, you go, I'll stop 'ome and look after Parsnip"
"We'll take Parsnip with us or he can go to the Kennels, I'm not going without you"
-OG-
Author's notes: Yes it's me, I'm back, can't get away from me for too long. This is a sequel to 'A Matter of Luck' so please read and review, it's always difficult to pick up the threads without spoiling the original feel-good ending, but things may be about to get a little bit tricky ….