Happy New year and a very Merry Christmas/Chanukah/ Winterval and all other seasonal celebrtations!
To be perfectly honest I don't like this chapter at all – I couldn't make it do anything I wanted and it's been annoying the hell out of me for ages! I've written the next chapter while mulling over this one, so this one is being posted with a massive apology because I really don't think it's very good! And hopefully the next chapter will be up within two or three days.
Thank you for all of you who still read this fic, it means so much to me that you've persevered and not only continue to read but continue to review, please do continue to both read and review!
This chapter's song is:
Fairytale of New york - The Pogues
Enjoy! xx
Further A/N: Many apologies to people called Ian, people married to Ians and the parents of Ians … Sorry!
"What about Rose? Or Daisy?"
"You've been watching Downton Abbey havn't you."
"… No … well yes."
"I can tell, no – I'm not a fan of floral names, makes me think of Hyacinth Bucket."
"Hmm true … What about … Harriett?"
"No! Harrietts play lacrosse for the school and are terribly good fun. I like standard names, you know like … well like Tim."
"We can't call the baby Tim. Ok, simple … Hannah? Sarah? Tom? Luke?"
"Hannah's OK, not keen on the others. Sally?"
"This isn't 1959 and we're not giving birth to a girl from the typing pool. Molly?"
"Mmm – not bad. I think we're thinking too normal, and standard and straight. We need something a little bit unusual but not outlandish, something reasonably common but not day-to-day."
"Hmm … Laura? Christina … Louisa … Freddie … Charlie ... ummm … Stephen?"
"No, I don't like Stephen. Freddie and Charlie are nice, but then we'd have to call them Frederic or Charles and they're a bit … I don't know … adulty."
"Like Ian, I always wonder … all those men called Ian, at one point they were babies called Ian."
"The mind boggles, perhaps it was parents who couldn't think of a name either and just went 'oh sod it – we'll call him Ian!'"
"Patrick, whatever happens. We are not calling the baby Ian."
"Oh agreed. Bloody hell yes … agreed."
Shelagh fastened her bra and wandered across the bedroom to fish around in the back of the wardrobe for the laminated card bag from her recent shopping trip with the girls. They had of course been right, that she would feel far more like going out for the Christmas do after buying herself something that was not only impressively shiney, but also something that, like all maternity clothes, have a pretty short shelf life.
"Can I come in?" Came a voice from behind the bedroom door,
"I'm naked …"
"Oh – I thought you were naked," said Patrick, pushing the door open. "I'm a little disappointed."
"You mean underwear isn't revealing enough for you, who are you? Peter bloody Stringfellow?"
"Excuse me, do I look like a lecherous 70 odd year old with a mullet?!"
"In the right light. So now I need your help," Opening the bag Shelagh pulled out a top and held it against herself, navy blue fitted lace with ¾ length sleeves and a boat neck, "So there's this one or …" she hung the top off of her bump and reached into the bag to pull out the second top. "This one" The second choice, a green blouse, v-neck with buttons half way down the front and more ¾ length sleeved.
"Umm – oh God, please don't ask me, I'm not a woman!"
"No – you're better, you fancy me – which would you rather see me in?"
"The … blue one?"
"You don't sound sure …"
"No? No … blue one – definitely."
" OK blue one it is." Smiling at her husband, Shelagh threw her unchosen top back into the bag on the bed and put on Patrick's choice, "How long have we got?"
"45 minutes-ish. Do I look alright?"
"Very dapper, not sure about the tie."
"Oh?"
"Yeah – I've never been a fan of striped tie to be honest – try that blue one."
"Which one?"
"That one with the silver stripe, down the side … you know, the one you wore to Tim's parents evening."
"Oh! Oh yeah … where is that one?"
"Uh, I'm not sure … did I throw it somewhere?"
"In rage or passion?"
"Passion I expect – try behind the chair, that's where your jumper was last time."
"Ah yes, found it – bit dusty, we really should hoover more."
"A clean house is a sign of a wasted life. Can you pass me those jeans?"
"Yeah - I think ours is a sign of negligent home-owners. You know … you really are beautiful."
Shelagh put down her mascara wand and looked at Patrick's reflection in her mirror, smiling at him she laughed quietly to herself. "I'm not laughing at you … but you really are an odd man."
"Am I?"
"You're always so happy about me, with me."
"Shouldn't I be?"
"It … just takes getting used to I suppose, having someone permanently happy to have you in their life. It's much easier for me to be in love with you than understand you being in love with me."
"But … why?"
"Because I'm the size of a small house right now, and I watch bad tele programs that you hate and I shout at you when you haven't done anything wrong but you're just there."
"Ahh yeah … but I still love you. You once told me that loving someone included wanting to put their face through a plate-glass window from time to time."
"That sounds unusually profound for me … but I suppose I talk sense from time to time. Now … can you buckle up those shoes for me, I don't think I can bend over far enough?"
They got cars big as bars, they got rivers of gold. But the wind goes right through you it´s no place for the old. When you first took my hand on a cold christmas eve you promised me broadway was waiting for me. You were handsome - you were pretty, Queen of new york city when the band finished playing they yelled out for more. Sinatra was swinging all the drunks they were singing we kissed on a corner then danced through the night. And the boys from the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay … and the bells were ringing out for christmas day.
"You´re a bum!"
"You´re a punk!"
"You´re an old slut on junk! Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed …"
"You scumbag! You maggot!"
"You cheap lousy faggot! Happy christmas your arse I pray god it´s our last … And the boys of the NYPD choir's still singing Galway Bay, and the bells were ringing out … For christmas day!" Shelagh burst out laughing as Jenny and Trixie went for the high notes in the final verse, collapsing back on the bench she rested against Patrick's shoulder who was watching the girls with a mixture of amusement and trepidation. Their singing left a lot to be desired. Downing the last of his drink he half turned to her,
"Another?"
"I think I may well be all lemonaided out."
"I could get you something more exciting?"
"You mean go wild and have an orange juice?"
"Or even more exciting than that – let me see what I can do." Sliding out of the booth Patrick leaned across to speak to Julie and her husband who was involved in a fraught game of Jenga with Miroslav and Tim. Shelagh ran her hand along the length of her bump and shifted slightly to stop her back getting stiff, she was slowly getting used to being pregnant and the fact that she now had no control over her body – it was a vessel used to carry her and Patrick's baby around, which unfortunately meant cravings for fish and marmalade and a bladder that seemed to have developed a conscious of its own lately. She watched Patrick at the bar, his jacket long since discarded and his waistcoat sat wonkily exposing the bottom of his now half un-tucked shirt. He really was a hopeless dresser she decided, it was one thing that she imagined that she would have been able to change – but alas, unless she physically handed him clothes he would continue with his floral shirts and strange jumpers. Only two days earlier while in Debenhams she had had to almost wrestle a particularly offensive lilac and blue floral shirt out of his grasp and steer him into shoes.
But despite the bad clothes and the way he would get obsessed with books and insistently read paragraphs out that he found hilarious but were, out of context, very dull, Shelagh still found herself utterly infatuated with the man, the ridiculous man. Who had proposed to her while drunk and asking for bacon, who had driven around east London one night to find her after an argument, who had hunted high and low for a copy of the 1987 original cast recording of Les Mis for her birthday, who had flown to Aberdeen at a moment's notice to look after her when her father was ill. He was an eccentric, and a disaster, and wonderful and as she watched him manoeuvre around the dancing people carrying far too many drinks with two packets of pork scratchings clamped between his teeth she filled up with a surge of pride, that despite everything, she had won her man, and she was happy.
"Happy new year Shelagh!"
"Bit early Tim – seven minutes left to go."
"But Dad said."
"Your Dad's a filthy liar! And to be fair - he has also drank a lot of cooking sherry so I'm not surprised that he can't tell the time."
"Can I have a drink?"
"No, you're too young love."
"Dad said I could!"
"I'll refer you again to the cooking sherry, you're Dad's so pissed he'd let you take some heroin if you asked. You can have some Asti if you want for midnight if you want though?"
"Ok, aren't you bored, not drinking?"
"No – it means I can take the moral high ground with your Dad tomorrow and make him bring me a cup of tea on the sofa! Ooh – according to the kitchen clock, one minute to go: I'll get you a drink."
"Thanks Shelagh."
"10 … 9 … 8 …"
"Oh and your Dad's off, is he out on the street?"
"Yeah … holding hands with the neighbours …"
"Oh God he's going to sing, come on – lets go and join him and Julie."
"6 … 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 …1! HAPPY YOU NEAR!"
Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and old lang syne? For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne. And surely you'll buy your pint cup! And surely I'll buy mine! And we'll take a cup o kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
*Morning sleepy head, feeling OK? Sxx*
*nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn*
*Is that a no? Sx*
*I can't think, my head is not … help.*
*I made you a bacon sandwich, and a coffee – they're in the microwave. You are too old for this shenanigans Dr Turner! Sxx*
*I love you – marry me! Px*
*And then go and do some sleeping! Sx*
*Oh yes! Px*