Here is my modern AU! I hope you all like it, I've taken a day off revising for my A levels to write this- not that I took much persuading! Also, I hope none of you think I'm rude because I didn't follow any of the suggestions I was given; they were perfectly good but by the time they arrived my mind had quite run away with itself! I don't know if you'll like it or want more of this or not, but here goes.
"Mum. I've got to tell you something."
Her daughter's tone was somehow different from a moment ago; it was not ominous exactly, but it was markedly more serious. Julie looked up from her pasta.
"What is it, darling?" she asked, "You aren't in any sort of trouble, are you?"
Across the table from her, Shelagh smiled broadly at her instant concern and for a moment all of her worries were assuaged. Her daughter had always had an expressive face, and she could tell now that nothing was seriously wrong.
"No, Mum," she told her, then, her voice still light, "Unless you murder me for not telling you sooner."
"Why couldn't you tell me?" she asked, frowning slightly and leaning forwards. They had always been good at telling each other things- more often than not there had been nobody else to tell- and it worried her a little that Shelagh hadn't felt able to share it with her.
"I couldn't tell anybody," Shelagh told her, taking a sip of her wine, raising her eyebrows a little,"Don't you want to know what it is first?"
"Yes, of course I do," Julie replied.
Shelagh took a deep breath.
"I'm seeing somebody," she told her.
Julie waited for more, but nothing more came; Shelagh seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
"Well, that's wonderful, darling," she replied earnestly, and then, when Shelagh said nothing, "It is wonderful, isn't it?" growing slightly anxious again, "You're not unhappy with him, are you?"
"No, Mum," Shelagh replied, smiling and rolling her eyes, "We're very happy. We want," she took a pause, "We want to get married."
It took Julie a moment to digest that.
"How long has this been going on?" she asked, not accusingly, but her curiosity bordering on the extreme now, "And why couldn't you tell me, sweetheart?" A thought suddenly occurred to her, "You're not having to get married are you?" She gave her a significant look to make sure she understood and to cover up her concern.
Shelagh actually burst out laughing.
"Heaven knows I'm not going to judge you," Julie pressed on, "I'm the last person on earth who could. In fact I'd quite applaud you for having the sense to make sure the man in question was responsible enough to know where his duty lay-..."
"Mother, I'm drinking wine," Shelagh pointed out, "You were a midwife for over twenty years. Do you really think that I'd be drinking it if I knew I was pregnant? Furthermore, I'm possibly one of the most over-qualified medical professionals in the South of England. I'm more than familiar with the workings of various methods of contraception."
Julie took all of this in, saw that it was all entirely reasonable and blinked rather apologetically at her daughter.
"Sorry, darling," she told her.
"We've been together for a few months now," Shelagh replied quite calmly. She was used to it by now that, though not a hysterical woman, her mother was quite given to worrying about her. She smiled at her to show that she was not cross and went on, "Oh, but... it's been going on forever, really. Since I've known him. I couldn't tell you because he's someone from work and we didn't want anyone to know in case they thought it was going to interfere with our work. I couldn't tell anyone, but I wanted to tell you, Mum. Can you understand that?"
"Of course I do," Julie told her, her hand reaching briefly across the table to clasp her daughter's, "But I still don't know who he is. I know he'll probably be too young for me to remember who he is, but-..."
"No, Mum, I think you'll know him," Shelagh corrected her quickly, "In fact I know you do. It's Dr. Patrick Turner."
There was a pause for a few seconds.
"Isn't he the hospital director by now?" Julie asked, caught between being palpably surprised, impressed and slightly confused all at the same time.
Shelagh shook her head, taking another sip of wine.
"He's been offered the job twice," she told her, "But he keeps turning it down. He says it would bore him, it's paper-pushing. And anyway, he sees little enough of his son as it is."
"Yes, I remember, he had a little boy," Julie recollected, "His wife died just before I left. It was so sad. He's not-..." she broke off, reconsidering.
"What?" Shelagh asked her.
"I was going to say, he's not marrying you just for someone to look after his little boy, is he? But it doesn't seem likely, knowing him-..."
Shelagh gave her mother a quick but expressive glance.
"No, Mum, that's not why he's marrying me."
Julie surveyed the contented little smile on her daughter's face.
"You really love him?" she supplied.
"Yes," Shelagh nodded, "I do. He wants to ask your permission," she informed her.
"Good Lord, you have done well my girl," Julie told her, laughing a little, "A real gentleman."
Shelagh giggled a little too.
"I thought I'd better give you a word of warning before he gave you rather too much of a surprise."
"Yes," Julie replied rather wryly, "I imagine it would have given me quite a turn if the man who used to be my boss turned up out of the blue and asked if he could marry my daughter."
Shelagh giggled and then looked at her mother more seriously.
"And what are you going to say to him?" she asked her earnestly.
Julie looked at her levelly.
"Will it make the slightest bit of difference to you if I said no?" she asked her in return.
Shelagh paused.
"You know I don't like to do things if they're going to make you unhappy," she replied slowly, "But in this case I would try to bear it. I want to marry him," she stated simply.
"Then how could I possibly say no?" she asked her.
Unless she was very much mistaken, she saw a tear in her daughter's eye.
"Thank you, Mum," she told her quietly.
"You don't need my permission to do anything," Julie told her softly.
"I know, but I like to have it all the same. And so would Patrick."
"I knew Dr. Turner for many years," Julie reflected, "I saw him work his way up through the ranks at the hospital. We midwives were friends with the nurses in the A and E and we always knew what was going on in the main body of the hospital. He was always mentioned with the very highest regard. If I could part with you to anyone, I think it would be to him."
"You won't have to part with me!" Shelagh told her, "Nothing will be any different to the way that it is now, I'll still come for my supper every Thursday night and we'll still be able to go out on Saturday afternoons. Nothing in the world could stop me. And I've been thinking that sometimes I will bring Timothy round on Sunday mornings after his grandma's been to church."
"His grandma!" Julie repeated, "I feel far too young for that!"
"You were young to be a mother," Shelagh reminded her, "But you were the best mum in the world."
Her daughter spoke so simply, so truthfully, without a hint of affectation or flattery. It was no wonder she'd always been wrapped around her little finger.
"I just hope," she continued, with the slightest touch of unease in her voice, "That I'll be able to as well for Timothy as you did for me. He's had a very difficult time. I don't want to make everything harder for him."
"Darling, as you remember I wasn't able to give you an easy time," Julie pointed out.
"Yes, but I was so happy with you-..." Shelagh argued back.
"Well, there you go, then," Julie concluded, "Love. That's all you need. Give him as much love as you can. Competence comes after that. And it will come. Since when was there anything that you couldn't do?"
Shelagh didn't know what to say.
"When you look at us two," Julie continued, putting her glass down and leaning forwards, "From the start, the chances we both had, it's pretty clear which of us should have done better out of life. I had all of the advantages- private girls' school, clarinet lessons, my own pony in the stables, the lot- and I messed it all up because I didn't feel like I was being paid enough attention. My parents were more than generous but they too busy and distant and had three other daughters to think of. I hated it at home, I was so bored. So, at the first opportunity I went to university as far away from home as I could- well, Aberdeen is pretty far- and decided I was going to enjoy myself for the first time in my life."
"And then I came along?" Shelagh supplied, "I must have brought a bit of a stop to all that-..."
"Well, you did," Julie agreed, "There's no denying that. But in the end I wasn't sorry."
"You've never told me all of this before," Shelagh told her, sounding almost awed, "I mean, not all of it, not like this."
"Well whenever you asked I thought you were too young to understand that I definitely didn't plan for you to come long but I never regretted anything less once you did," she told her, "And when I thought you were old enough to understand, you seemed to have decided not to ask."
Shelagh paused for a moment.
"Would you tell me now?" she asked.
"Of course, darling," Julie replied, "I've wanted to tell you for years."
"What was my father like?" Shelagh asked straight away.
Julie paused now, torn between giving her daughter a rounded picture and just speaking as she felt.
"He was beautiful," Julie finally admitted, "He was a gorgeous, gorgeous man. You know I met him at university, and he was so different from all of the boys I met in my own lectures. They all wanted to be doctors to make money out of it. Your father was an art student, but he played the guitar too and he had a beautiful singing voice- it must be where you get it from. Unfortunately, his grasp of responsibility left something to be desired," she finished levelly.
Both of them had long since forgotten about eating.
"I was alone," Julie continued, "Your dad had buggered off and found himself some other girl. I couldn't go home; my parents were very old fashioned about certain things. Either they wouldn't have seen me or they would have kept me locked away like a fallen woman. You would certainly have been put up for adoption. I was nineteen, the thought was unbearable."
"Did you ever-..." Shelagh began, and then stopped.
"What?"
"Did you ever think of getting rid of me?"
"Once," she replied honestly, "As soon as I found out. And discarded the thought as quickly as it came. I can't explain it; I knew I wanted you."
"So what did you do?" Shelagh asked her.
"Well, I had to leave university," she told her, "You know very well, darling, it would have been impossible to do a medical degree with a baby to look after. So I did, and I got a job."
"Was it difficult?" Shelagh asked, "Because you were going to have me?"
"Oh, horrendously," Julie replied, "You have no idea how bigoted some people could be back then, no doubt they still can be, and for a while it felt like the world was made of people like my parents. But I found a job. An old lady with a corner shop and nobody to run it for her took me on and let me the room above the shop to live in. She had no children and she took pity on me. She let me keep you in your pram in the back room and she would come in to look after you if the shop was very busy. We managed very well. She died when you were four. Her name was Shelagh."
"You said I was named after a family friend," Shelagh reminded her, surprised.
"She was," Julie replied, "For those four years, she was practically the only family or friends we had. Except each other."
"I can remember her," Shelagh told her, comprehension dawning on her face, "I called her grandma."
"You did," Julie told her, smiling at her, "That made her very happy. Do you remember, she used to push you in your pram and take you to the park down the street?"
"Very vaguely," Shelagh replied, "I remember feeding the ducks at the park."
"Yes, you liked that," Julie remembered. She paused for a moment. "She left me the shop in her will."
"Really?" Shelagh asked, astonished.
"Yes," Julie replied, "She was extraordinarily kind. I had no idea she was planning to."
"So why don't we live in Aberdeen with a flourishing chain of corner shops?" Shelagh asked her, a glint in her eye, already knowing the answer.
"Can you really see me doing that?" Julie asked her, "Shelagh had told me it was alright if I wanted to sell it on, but she wanted me to have the money to look after you. So that's what I did. And all of a sudden I had more money than I knew what to do with- even if I'd continued to train as a doctor I wouldn't have had that much money at twenty-five. And I was tired of Aberdeen. I wanted to be back in London."
"So you went home?"
"London was never home exactly before then. It was near home but we hardly ever went. London was excitement, London was real life. You'd have thought I'd seen enough of that since I'd left home, but this time I had the money to be able to keep you safe from the harder edges of life. So that's where we went. It was the perfect time to. You hadn't started school yet, and I thought you shouldn't be moved once you had, so we went straight there. And with you at school all day I had time to train to do what I knew I wanted to do. I did my midwife's training when you were in the first years at primary school."
"How did you know you wanted to do that?" Shelagh asked her.
"Well, the urge to look after people hadn't passed," she replied, "It never would, but being a doctor was off the cards by then. When I was expecting you there were these charitable nuns in Aberdeen. They worked as midwives, they ran clinic in the church hall and they looked after me so well, they saved my life, really. I had to stay at the convent a few times when I didn't have a bed, if I hadn't heaven only knows what would have happened to me. I saw the work they did and wanted to do it myself, I knew that I was more than capable of it."
"The nun who delivered me was called Sister Bernadette, wasn't she?" Shelagh asked, "That's how I got my middle name, isn't it?"
"Yes," she replied, "And I have never forgotten her. She was remarkable. She was hardly older than I was but she knew so much more about life. She wasn't unkind, she made no move to judge me in the slightest, but she still managed to make me feel like a silly child. She was inspirational."
"But you never fancied becoming a nun?" Shelagh teased her.
"Darling, if I'd had the temperament to become a nun I wouldn't have needed their help in the first place."
Shelagh laughed again.
"So think of how I messed my chances of an easy, successful life up, and then look at you," Julie told her, feeling pride well in her chest as she looked at her little girl before her, "You were born in a the room above a little corner shop in Aberdeen and you've never looked back since. You did so well at school, you went to Oxford, you've done everything that I ever wanted to do."
"But that's all because of you," Shelagh told her, "Because you loved me so much and always put me first."
"There was nothing else I could have done," she replied, "The moment I held you in my arms, the moment I knew I was carrying you. I couldn't not love you. You're a part of me, the best part. I was just a stupid kid and you made me realise what I wanted to do in life and gave me a reason to do it. We always stuck together, you and I. I owe everything to you."
"I owe everything to you," Shelagh replied after a moment.
"We're even, then," Julie replied.
Shelagh looked down at her plate for a moment.
"You were the best thing that ever happened to me," Julie told her, "And don't you forget it. Don't let any man take you for granted. I know he won't," she added quickly, seeing her daughter open her mouth, "But just don't forget it, darling."
"I won't," Shelagh replied, "Thanks, Mum."
"There isn't any need to thank me, darling," she told her, "So just love the little boy. That's what motherhood is, essentially. That's what life is."
Shelagh nodded.
"Now, I'll go and put these plates in the dishwasher. I've got a tiramisu for pudding. You go and see if you can find us anything decent to watch on TV."
Please review if you have the time.