"I feel sick"
"No you don't" He smiled in an attempt at encouragement "Come on, it'll be okay, trust me, it's going to be fine"
"You don't know 'em" Molly knew that she'd reverted to being six years old and sulky "You've forgotten what I told you, 'aven't you? You don't listen, why don't you ever listen to me? Or 'ave you got that amnesia shit"
"Nope, I haven't forgotten and I do listen to you, but I'll never know them if we sit out here all day will I?" He opened his door to get out of the car and walk round to her side "Come on, be a brave soldier and let's get in there it's unbelievably fucking out here for a start and hey, where's the girl who crawled through a minefield and frightened the shit out of me? The one with the medal"
"She's having a day off …. Can we go home instead, to yours I mean" Molly whimpered and looked at him beseechingly "Oh god, must I?"
As she undid her seatbelt and swung her legs round to get out of the car, Molly had a deep scowl on her face and began to mutter loudly, fully intending for him to hear every word, that she didn't give a shit about it being Christmas Day, that she didn't feel any goodwill towards anyone, not even him so that he put his arms round her and hugged her hard before he put his head back and roared with laughter. He assumed, wrongly, that she was pretending to throw a tantrum; anyone would think that she was younger than Sam.
But in fact, now that they were outside the flat and the reality of the situation had hit her she was far too busy wondering what the fuck had possessed her to even think for a single solitary second that this was a good idea when it so obviously wasn't that she was having great difficulty in seeing the funny side of any of it. She should have listened to that little voice in her head, the one that had told her this was a shite idea, but oh no, not her, she'd just closed her ears and gone on blindly ignoring the voice of reason and common sense. Fuck it … it was far too late now to feign injury or serious illness.
The early morning snow hadn't lasted for more than a few hours before it had turned back to sleety rain and although that had now stopped as well, the sky was grey and overcast and the air was full of an icy chill so that the pavement where he was standing holding the door open for her was all slippery and filthy with this greyish brown slush, which matched Molly's mood perfectly.
"Come on, cheer up, it's Christmas and you look as if you're going to the dentist ….. now have you got everything?"
"Yeah, and I know its Christmas, don't have to keep on telling me, but let's leave the engine running so we can make a quick getaway"
"Good idea, why didn't I think of that?" He was still laughing at the truculent expression on her face "Come on, Dawesy, it's one day and there are another 364 to go before we have to do it again, and I'll make it up to you later on, I promise we can have our own celebration when we get home"
"What again? No thanks, already did that, and why do you always have to be so … bloody sensible and reasonable?" Molly was still muttering and grumbling under her breath and pulling faces like a thwarted child as she resisted the temptation to giggle or stamp her foot at the horror of what was about come. She collected up the carrier bags of brightly wrapped parcels out of the boot "I know what it is, it's cos you're bleeding old, innit? Got that memory thing, that demented thingy"
"Thanks and no, I bloody haven't" He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently changing the mood as he stopped laughing and pasted on his best puppy dog eyes expression on his face instead "Look at me, would you be happier, would you prefer it if I just drop you off here and come back later on to pick you up?"
"What? …. nah … what? No … course not …. Why would I want you to do that, what would you do?"
What she wanted to say was 'Would you mind? Thanks very much' but obviously couldn't, it would be a horrible thing to do to him and would hurt him and she didn't ever want to do that and anyway she wanted to be with him, it was just that the thought of spending a whole day with the family and him in the same room was a bleeding nightmare come true and she hadn't been lying, she could quite easily be sick if she thought about it for too long or too hard.
"I don't know, I could sit out here in the cold and wait for you" He put the most martyred and hard-done by look he could on his face "Or I could get back in the car and go to Bath where my dad will be timing everything my mum does and making notes, he'll be doing a sort of time and motion study and driving her fucking insane"
"Really? don't remember him being that bad"
"Oh yep, and that's when he's not re-laying the table because the cutlery isn't in exactly the right place so that she has to go and get herself another drink, a large one"
"Oh shit …. Really?"
"No" He was laughing and dodged out of her reach as she went to hit him "No violence it's Christmas …. Or I could go and find your mate with the mistletoe and see if she'll give me Christmas dinner"
"It weren't real mistletoe, I think it come off of a cracker" Molly giggled at the expression on his face and at the way he was shuddering at the memory.
"She was real …. that was enough"
Their post Carol concert visit to the pub had ended with Lisa having the one more drink that had sent her over the edge into the realms of the catastrophically pissed so that she'd untangled the sprig of plastic mistletoe from her hair and decided it would be a wonderful idea to have a Christmas kiss with every bloke in the bar, well those she considered worthy or those under thirty anyway. To say it hadn't gone down well with the other patrons was an understatement, the female ones anyway who hadn't taken kindly to a totally plastered blonde who was wearing a very low cut top and had tinsel round her neck waving a bit of plastic over their partner's head for a snog, or worse still, loudly dismissing their partner as too old or too fugly, their shorthand for fucking ugly. She'd gone for Charles several times before Molly had pushed her away from him and reminded her somewhat forcibly to keep her fucking hands to herself and to get off and leave him alone, that he was hers and was too old anyway, but Lisa had just kept on insisting that he was the exception to her age rule, and had seemed totally oblivious to his complete lack of enthusiasm and the way he was trying to fend her off him. Adam had eventually taken her home, well he had after she'd had a bit of a ding dong slanging match with the publican and he'd thrown her out, telling her she was barred from coming back until she'd sobered up, so that meant the rest of the evening at least.
As Molly had watched Lisa behaving like someone's worst nightmare she'd had this horrible feeling that once upon a time, like this time last year probably, she'd have thought it was just a bit of fun and would most probably have joined in. It seemed that in the space of a few short weeks she'd changed, a lot, something that would have made her laugh and deny it loudly if anyone had told her that that was what was going to happen.
"It weren't you she was after, was it? You was just like … dunno, bit of camouflage or some'ing, whatdymcallit collateral damage, it was Adam she was after"
"And a lovely couple they make too, I hope that they'll be very happy together" He snorted "They deserve each other, but can we get inside now before we freeze out here"
-OG-
"Well, well, well, so you made it then?"
"Yeah, course we did, hello Nan, Merry Christmas, you alright?"
Molly felt a huge surge of affection, all her doubts forgotten, as her grandmother opened the front door and stood there looking over Molly's shoulder at Charles as he was standing outside on the walkway, a polite smile on his face as, loaded with the carrier bags, he waited to be invited in, before she smiled and kissed her granddaughter soundly.
"Will be now you're here and your mum can stop all her fussing about everythin' being like all those bleedin' cooking shows on the tele ….. or them celebrity shit-sheets she reads"
"Oh god, is she in a state?"
"You know what she can get like" Nan shrugged at Molly in answer to her question about Belinda and turned to look again at Charles, then gestured, motioning at him with her head to come in before taking her first proper look at him "Come on, hurry up and get yourself in young man and get that bleedin' wood in the hole, it's perishing out there" She looked him up and down and then smiled broadly as she put out a hand to shake his and Molly saw the familiar twinkle appear in her eyes, the one that her Nan always had at the sight of a "looker" as she would almost certainly describe him. She was now hanging onto his hand for far longer than was necessary and had that inappropriate look on her face, the one that said she was considering what her chances were of running off with her granddaughter's boyfriend as Molly introduced the pair of them with her giggle bubbling up. She'd known all along that Nan would think he was lovely to look at, it wasn't that that she was worrying about.
"Nan, this is Charles, Charles, this is me Nan"
"Hello, it's very nice to finally meet you after I've heard such a lot about you, Merry Christmas Mrs …. "
"And to you 'n all but you can call me Nan, or Marge if you like, I'm sure you've already got a Nan of yer own, haven't you? So, come on in Charles, come in …. I must say you're a big improvement on the last one"
"NAN, fuck sake"
"I'm just sayin', Molls, that's all and you know I always speak as I find, you can't go far wrong if you tell the truth" Nan shut the front door as Molly held her hand out for Charles' coat and dumped it, together with hers, on the newel post. She was quietly dying of embarrassment inside, this was what she'd been worrying about and she desperately wanted to change the subject but Nan hadn't quite finished yet "I never took to that Adam, you know that as well as I do, Molls, I mean nice enough, bit bloody boring but good looking if you like that sort of thing, but me, I couldn't see what you saw in him"
"Nan, could you please shut up about Adam" Molly shot an agonised glance at Charles who was smirking all over his face before hastily re-arranging his expression the minute he saw the dismay on hers "Where's me Mum, and where are the little bleeders anyway, bit quiet in 'ere innit?"
"Yer mum's in the kitchen having a worry if the turkey's gonna be cooked in time or something, 'n the kids are out with Dave trying out the roller skates yer mum got for 'em, Belinda wanted them out from under while she got ready for …. well … you know what she's like, Molls"
"Blimey, she trusted him?"
"Yeah, well pub's not open yet is it?" Nan shrugged, she shared Molly's scepticism on Dave's reliability as a childminder "Bella's in the front room, says she's dying cos yer mum made her get up out her bed" Nan gave another expressive shrug as she turned towards the kitchen "Out last night weren't she?"
"Mum, is that our Molls I can hear?"
"Yeah, we're just coming, she's bought that bloke from Fifty Shades with her"
"NAN" Molly heard Charles snort "He don't look anything like him"
"How do you know what he looks like?" Charles bent down and whispered in her ear as he gestured with the carrier bags, not sure now whether to put them down at the bottom of the stairs or to carry them through to the kitchen where they were now obviously heading.
"Me favourite film, innit? And you can dump that lot down there"
"Interesting"
"Forget it, I've never even seen it … seen the trailers though"
"Shame, had some good ideas in it"
"What, you've seen it?"
"Wouldn't have missed it"
"You never … stop bleeding' winding me up"
"Okay" He laughed and kissed her cheek, then bit his bottom lip as he smirked, his eyes glittering with amusement "Book was good though"
"Liar"
-OG-
The kitchen was chaotic, every single surface cluttered and covered with something and the room was filled with steam as well as mouth-watering smells that reminded Charles he was hungry as the small plump woman with the fair hair who was so obviously Molly's mother gave him a tentative smile of welcome. He couldn't get over how young she looked, especially if he compared her to his own mother who actually looked more of an age to Molly's Nan, another smallish fair haired woman but lean, without a hint of fat anywhere. It was something that brought the age gap between him and Molly back into sharp focus. The one thing that did warm him towards both of them, even though her mother was looking dubiously at him and her Nan had done her very best to embarrass the fuck out of him was that they both had Molly's incredible green eyes.
"Mum, this is Charles, Charles this is me mum"
"Hello Mrs Dawes, Merry Christmas …. and thanks for inviting me"
"You're welcome … it's nice to meet you Charles, Oh and call me Belinda"
Belinda still looked tentative as well as incredibly flustered, she felt hot and bothered and her cheeks were pink as she shook his hand somewhat limply. She was embarrassingly aware that her fingers might well be harbouring bits of sage and onion stuffing mix out the packet and that they probably stank of onions as well, as she raised her eyebrows at Nan, portraying a kind of surprised disbelief at her mother who had a matching look on her face.
"What can I do to help Mum?"
"Nothin' I've got it all under control in 'ere" Both Molly and Nan raised their eyebrows at this obviously blatant misrepresentation of the truth "I'll put the kettle on 'n we can have a cuppa, you go on through and see Bella … oh and me tree"
"You sure I can't do nothin'? I could make the tea if you wanted" Molly suddenly realised that what her mother wanted most of all was for her to take Charles out of the kitchen. Firstly so that her and Nan could talk about him and also because Belinda was flustered at the obvious mess "Charles don't drink tea, Mum, strong black coffee if we've got any"
"Charles?"
"That'd be lovely but please don't worry, just as it comes will be fine, thank you Mrs. Daw…. Belinda"
-OG-
"It won't be lovely trust me, round here strong coffee means two spoons of Nescafe instead of the one, that's if we've even got any Nescafe, it's more likely to be some knock off shit from the market"
They'd moved into the hallway out of earshot of the kitchen, and were having a whispered conversation although Molly could hear the faint buzz of conversation so that she knew that they were talking about him; she thought of asking Charles if his ears were burning as she bent to collect the carrier bags, but had suddenly got all uptight again. He put his hands out to spin her round and then let his gaze roam slowly over her worried little face before dropping a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"So, what's up with you now grumpy?"
"I'm not grumpy, yeah alright maybe I am 'n I know I wanted them to like you, but it feels a bit … dunno, yeah I do, it feels like you're charming the bleedin' pants off of them"
"What a thought …" He chuckled as he kissed her again "I know you want me them to like me but I wasn't doing anything … like that, I was just being polite" He turned her round and patted her on her bum as they headed towards the front room "Can't bloody win with you, can I?"
"No, I know 'n it's not you it's me, I'm a bit …. you know, sorry"
"God I'd never have guessed if you hadn't told me, stop worrying, it's all going to be okay"
The tree came as a complete surprise, a 'lost for words', stand still in total amazement surprise. When Molly had been a little girl, a tiny white plastic approximation of a tree had sufficed. It had been bought from a market stall by Nan, or more likely liberated without the necessity of any exchange of cash, but to Molly it had meant Christmas and she'd loved it. There weren't any lights on it, not that she could remember anyhow, but they had had some decorations, a couple of baubles and a bit of tinsel here and there, probably acquired from the same source as the tree, and all those paper chains that she'd spent hours and hours licking and sticking together.
This tree still wasn't a real one, but it was big and it was green and it was covered with loads of little lights and baubles and strings of tinsel, and in Molly's eyes it was beautiful. Okay, maybe there was a bit too much sparkly stuff on it for it to be called tasteful, and there wasn't any discernible colour scheme but it was everything that she hadn't had as a kid and she loved it. Her eyes now started to prickle and fill with tears that threatened to spill over as she felt this overwhelming affection for her mother who she knew would have loved being able to get all this, so that she turned and shouted at her mum who was still in the kitchen.
"Mum, the tree's beautiful, it's really lovely, I love it"
-OG-
A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing Chapter 16, your kind words mean so much to me. The next Chapter is just about ready to go so I will be updating in a day or so, I hope that you enjoyed this.
