Androshorts: A Christmas Affair

The older staff members all called him Doc. I had no idea why until someone said that his name was Savage hence 'Doc'. It still meant nothing to me of course until one of the older men told me about the American cartoon character and I googled it.

Dan Savage was a senior at my firm and reading the notes on Wiki I thought the nickname suited him rather well. He was a tall, muscular, chisel-featured hottie with just a tiny amount of grey around the temples. I guessed that he had about ten years on me; it turned out to be eight, but hey, I wasn't counting.

I'd been out of a relationship for about three months and it could have been better. I was early thirties and conscious that my body clock was spinning round, while my partner of five years was still all about foreign holidays, weekends away and going 'out-out' every Friday with our group of friends that seemed to have an age range of late 20's with us very much as the senior partners. The group changed in the way that groups do, as couples coupled and the children came along.

Ron and I attended weddings and christenings and he continued to talk about how lucky we were not to be tied down like they were and we would spend the occasional Thursday evening on the web and by Friday evening were buzzing off to Brussels or Berlin or Barcelona or Bern, even booking in in Brooklyn; to go out and eat out, get a tan and generally have a good time whenever and wherever we felt like it.

But I wanted more.

My younger sister Karen had met her man Carl, bought a house, married him and was carrying their second child in the same amount of time that Ron and I had been together. We were Godparents to her daughter Lily and I still loved to take the two year old for the afternoon or evening and didn't even mind changing nappies, bathing and putting her to bed.

On that fateful occasion she stayed over I went to hand her over to Ron while I made some tea and he just looked at me with a grimace, adding, "She's your bloody niece..."

I suggested he made the tea.

Once Lily was down in the travel cot in our spare room, I turned to him.

"She doesn't bite Ron," I said.

"Yeah," he sighed, "kids; t'choh," he shook his head, "I don't do babies and toddlers Fay, you know that."

"Ron, are you ever likely to want children?"

"One day I'm sure," he said still looking at the TV.

"Any idea when?"

"Not yet," he said sharply with a slightly annoyed half smile.

"I have a body clock," I said, "as women get older conception gets harder."

"Yeah but they can do miracles with test tubes these days can't they," he sighed again as if bored with stating the bloody obvious, still not making eye contact with me.

"I'd rather not have to do that," I said.

Ron started to bite the side of his thumb, one of his 'leave me alone, end of this particular conversation' tells. The second he picked up a side cushion and hugged it to his waist I knew he was about to leave the room.

"Ron..."

"What Fay, WHAT?" He angrily paused the TV then turned and grabbed his support cushion, "What do you want me to say huh? What?! You want me to give up my comfortable life that I have worked fucking hard for I must say, to throw it all away for a couple of whiney fucking shit machines --" This was his favourite jokey description of all young children and pets, " - Just so you can feed some inner fire of maternal hormones. I thought we were happy, I THOUGHT we had everything we wanted."

"Yeah, well times change Ron, and much as it may be what you want, I would rather like to have a baby."

"WHY?" he all but screamed at me in hurt betrayal.

"Why? Because I'm a woman, it's kinda built in..."

He leapt to his feet, his cushion falling to the floor,

"Oh, so I have to go with your hormones do I? You can't be a rational human being and rise above... fucking... fucking... instinct! You're not a fucking Labrador, not a fucking worker bee!" He looked at me like I had just suggested the most outrageous thing ever and I could see he wasn't finished yet, not by a long way. "That's it, no more looking after fucking children if this is what it fucking leads to, no way." He stood up. "That's it, that brat in our spare room goes home tomorrow -- I should have suspected this is what it would lead to, knew it would come to this, just more fucking trouble..." he took a deep breath as if coming to the end of his rationalisation, "No more, if her bloody parents can't look after her they shouldn't have had her," he sighed with an ironic smile, "fucking children!" he dropped back in his seat again, happy in the completion his self-righteous sermon.

End of story...

Yeah right...

Hell but I was cross, but trying to be the bigger person and not ruin him on the idea completely and thought I'd have one more go.

"Children, Ron. It's what humans do? It's kind of why we're all here, continue the species you know?" I'd kept my tone easy and simple, I'd never really heard him this angry before, not even over his one true love football. He got worse.

"Oh so we're getting all 'basic instinct' are we? Well," he waved his arms in the air, "it's part of the human condition for violence isn't it?" he stood up again, "I'll just go out into the street and beat the fuck out of someone, because I have testosterone -- and that's the human condition innit?" He looked extremely angry and for the first time in our almost six year relationship I was actually a bit scared of him; I knew that this was serious because the nice unaccented quantity surveyor had gone and was replaced by a nasty lad with a strong Leeds accent snarling like a pissed up LUFC supporter that had just seen 'The Whites' lose to Manchester United AND City -- at home.

I got my breath back.

"Ron, this is about a baby," I said.

"No it ain't!" he snapped, "It's about what humans do, you just said." He stuck a finger at my face, less than an inch from my eye. I realised whatever he had said a few minutes before, it would never be the right time for Ron, all the time his arse pointed downwards. I thought I knew him, but in that short three minute rant it appeared I hardly knew him at all.

"For fuck's sake Ron, I'd like a baby - you wouldn't, end of story." I folded my arms defensively.

"I like my life that's all! That's not a crime is it?" He snarled at me. I'd never seen a look of such anger, no... hate, probably not for me but for what I had suggested. He had things the way he wanted it, I wanted something that would change it all for good. No more last minute long weekends, no more going out every Friday getting pissed with the gang, no more last minute train rides to Elland Road for home games and Saturday night house parties and for what...

"Why does a child have to ruin everyth..."

The nasty Yorkshire man sneered through his teeth at me in a face I'd certainly never seen before and there and then I knew that our life would never go back to the way it was after that. I stood up.

"Well Ron, I suggest that you carry on enjoying your life," I turned, my brain starting to think about everything we had being split down the middle. "Because you know what?" I bent down and hoped to repay that hateful look he gave me, and my lip raised in anger to match his, "In fifteen or twenty years' time, that's all you'll fucking have." My turn with the finger at the face, "But there will be no going out with the mid-twenties Friday night set because you'll be pushing fifty and trying to find someone to go out on the piss with that won't rip the shit out of your grey hair, bald patch and wrinkles; and you, the sad old fuck pretending to be young while they laugh at you behind your back." I adopted a big smile, false as Fuck, "Still, you can go on all those weekend trips to Marbella -- just on your own; OH! You can get off with all the elderly pissed grannies on their single-mum granddaughter's hen weekends. I wish you well with that!"

He looked shocked. We had both commented on some of them during a spring bank holiday break to Ibiza; overly tanned, under dressed, flopped-bellied wrinklies that couldn't hold the booze in the same way their teenage relations could and so shitfaced that they got nasty angry when they didn't get any attention from the young bucks half or a third their age.

Ron got my suggestion.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he snapped back.

"Ron, I'm done. I want a child, children in fact and I always have, and you never will. I want a life with someone that wants children with me."

"Awwwww what the fuck?!" he whined, "one silly argument about kids and you're splitting us up?"

"That's exactly what I'm doing Ron, I really don't want to stumble through life on the off-chance that sometime you might and I say 'might' want to have a child and I'm still physically able. I'll end up hating you; if I get pregnant you'll hate me and lose your temper like you have now, so why don't we just agree that we've had a great time but we want different things and it's finished now and time that we moved on."

"YOU want different things! I still want..."

"Alright!," I shouted, "I want different things, I can live with that." I tidied the living room trying to burn off some of the energy buzzing around in my system, "I'll sleep in the spare room with Lily tonight."

"Whaaaat?" he whined like a fat white rapper.

"G'night Ron," I said.

"But Babe..." he said with a questioning inflection and extended, teenage 'what have I done' arms.

"I've taken my last 'pill' Ron, EVER!" I said, "Still want to sleep with me?" I raised my T-shirt to show him my bare boobs he had always been so enamoured of and turned to stick out my curvy bottom.

His face curled up like the kid told off for not doing his chores. He stormed off to the bedroom, nose in the air and convinced of his innocence and this breach of his human rights. I could hear him tossing and turning on the bed, while I just lifted my sleeping niece into the bed next to me pushing the king size single against the wall so she couldn't fall out. I slept like a log, waking with Lily at six thirty and having a lovely morning with her.

Ron woke, dressed and left the house without a word.

That was that.

The flat was in my name and I paid the bills so I kept it, moving his stuff into the spare room. He grumbled about that, saying that the flat should be sold, I blinded him with sums that all of my money went on the rent and utilities and food while his went on holidays and parties. His bank account had seventeen or eighteen grand in it while mine was virtually empty and always was. I suggested that if we sold my flat then I'd have half of his money in the bank seeing as I could show he had never paid a single bill. He backed down because I think he still refused to see our relationship as the lost cause that I could see. We'd talk, he'd bite the edge of his thumb, so I just knew what was going on in his head. Still a 'no' -- I could tell.

"But Fay we're so good together!" he would say with a proper big boy's 'feel sorry for me' hung head.

"No, we WERE good together Ron, we've both said things and found out things about each other that have changed it all..."

"But I'll... I'll forget all that, we can start again..."

"What?!" I snarled. "I want to grow up while you want to remain a twenty-something singlie for the rest of your life!"

"You want to get married? Is that it?" he stopped for a moment seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, "I could... get married..." He perked a bit, but really didn't sound that convinced mind you.

"I want a family Ron!" I said, "marriage is a piece of paper and a couple of rings, I want a child, flesh and blood, someone I can hold in my arms, watch grow and love for the rest of my life. Not something you can send back if you don't like it."

"We... could... get a dog?" he said experimentally.

Hell but I was soooooo pissed at that,

"A... A FUCKING DOG!?" I sneered snapping out of my chair in seconds, "You don't have a fucking clue do you, you ignorant northern twat!" I braced for a scrap and while he was a bit taller than me I could certainly give as well as I got and would head straight for his eyes and his testicles, end of story. I was a copper's daughter and had learned the hard way growing up.

"Oh 'I WANT SOMEONE TO LOVE AND TO HOLD RON'!" he mocked, "swallowed a fucking Mills and Boon book have we?" The nasty northern lad was back again, and he shook his head and laughed derisively, but no more than that.

"No fucking business of yours what I do now is it?"

That was pretty much the last time I spoke to him. He rented the unfurnished top floor of a house from a mutual friend taking the king size single bed from the spare room and a few other bits and pieces of furniture to make it liveable.

I met his Mum a few weeks later. She had come south at speed to visit him in his new flat once she got the change of address cards (that I sent!) and was disappointed that in the two weeks he'd been there it had turned into a classic unkempt bachelor pad, complete with games consoles, unwashed crockery (I'd had a dishwasher at my place), empty pizza boxes, fast food wrappers, overflowing bins, bottles and cans, dirty laundry and the smell that goes with all of that.

His Mum was actually really lovely, and I had always got on really well with her. It was a hell of a surprise when she tapped me on the arm in the queue in the Costa Coffee near my office that lunchtime.

"Mine's a skinny de-caf cappuccino Fay," she said, giving me 'the look'. She was in town to sort things out, the tough and tiny trouble-shooter was in town and on a mission and my shoulders sagged. "Don't worry Love," she said, "I'm not blaming you. I'll get a table."

"But Gwen I only have..."

"I won't take more than five minutes of your time love, I promise."

Shit.

She walked across the store and grabbed a window seat and took off her coat. Ron's Mum was everything you would think of as the classic no-nonsense northern lass beloved of soaps and sit-coms. A short, broad shouldered, short haired former factory worker turned nurse that really didn't have enough minutes in the day for too much buggering around with anything that wasn't important.

I got both drinks, mine extra hot in a take-out mug for a quick exit if necessary. I sat down opposite her.

"So you've split up then," she said. Strange; she asked a question that she had already answered, most unlike her. I could go with that. I sipped my hazelnut latte.

"Yep."

"And..." she threw in the questioning inflection.

"And what?" I had another sip. Gwen let the question hang in the air -- so did I.

"There has to be more to it than that Fay?" she said, "you two were getting on like a house on fire, why the sudden break?" I guessed that Ron had only given her a tiny bit of the story, if anything.

"Children Gwen, just children."

"Children?"

"I want them, he's made it extremely clear that he doesn't." I stretched, "he said, and I quote 'You want me to give up my comfortable life that I have worked fucking hard for to throw it all away for a couple of whiney fucking shit machines', his words."

"Oh," she said, pausing and obviously hearing her son in every syllable, "well I'm sure he didn't mean it."

"Oh, I'm sure he did. He got extremely angry and let me know in no uncertain terms that he wasn't into 'settling down'."

"Well he's..."

"He's thirty six Gwen, I'm thirty two, I don't want to be trying to get pregnant and raising young children in my forties, if I'm able to - just so he can party on until he's fifty."

She looked disappointed, and there was a detectable hint of resigned recognition in her normally implacable face.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Tosser..."

"What?!" I snapped at the insult.

"Him!" she said quickly her hand on mine, "Him Love, not you!" She smiled and squeezed my hand. She took a deep breath, "I raised a spoilt brat there Fay love, I'm so sorry about this." She sipped her Cappuccino, "I will confess I was waiting for the wedding invitation and the patter of tiny feet."

"So was I." I chuckled but couldn't stop the tear I felt slip down my cheek, but smiled through it, hastily wiping it away.

Gwen saw how upset I was and I saw the hint of recognition flower into understanding.

"Well it's his loss Love." She said leaning in closer to me, and with a napkin from the tray wiped another tear from my face. "I often wish I'd had one daughter," she said looking at me fondly and wistfully with her head to one side, idly brushing my long brown hair away from my cheek, "I hoped it was going to be you, but my idiot son has put pay to that as well."

Ron was the eldest of four boys, and in the last few weeks I'd often thought that being the oldest and watching his three brothers come along had done for the idea of children in his head from an early age.

Ron's younger brother Ray had two children by two different women and Gwen never saw them or their mothers. Ron had told his brother on both occasions to insist the foetuses were aborted as soon as Ray had announced his impending parenthood. This reaction was the thing that stopped me from just going ahead and trying to conceive without telling him. Rogan the next down was gay, and the youngest Rick had learning difficulties and had recently moved into a warden controlled flat.

Gwen sat up straight.

"Well, you move onwards and upwards Fay," she said with a new resolve, "You put that twat of a son of mine into your past and get on and find what, and more importantly who, you want," she sighed with the realisation that it wasn't going to be her son, "Ron is too much like his pig-ignorant father to realise what he's thrown away and what's more always will be. He'll go to his grave still insisting that life is all about him." She sipped her cappuccino finding some tiny pleasure in the act, "Again, just like his bloody father," she sighed again, shaking her head, "Big... Ron..."

Ron often spoke fondly of his late father, 'Big Ron'. A big, hearty former Sheffield steel worker that met and married tiny squeaky Gwen not realising that her size didn't match her inner fire. For Big Ron marriage was about someone being married to him, not him being married to someone else. He drank, smoked and shagged his way around town as if still single, right up until Gwen found out and gave him an ultimatum.

He wasn't taking that from no bloody part-time seamstress from the local rag factory and laughed in her face and went out on the piss just to show her just how little he cared for her opinion. By the time he got back at gone midnight, reeking of the kebab he had eaten with his pissed mates it was to find his house locked and bolted, his family and his car gone with no contact until a process server arrived at his parents' house with divorce papers. She took her four sons to Leeds and raised them there herself, in the midst of that somehow training to become a registered general nurse at the same time.

Big hearty Ron died because his big heart had an attack one evening because of his atrocious lifestyle once Gwen divorced him.

With his passing, his Dad's words and deeds slipped into legend and young Ron spoke of him as if he was some great wit and as he got older he adopted many of the same attitudes as he dead father including some minor racism and serious narcissism.

"Big Bloody Ron," hissed Gwen stroking my hand, "that bastard has so much to answer for..."

I sipped my coffee, I really hadn't expected her to come down on my side. I wiped my tears again, the first I had cried for the ending of this relationship.

"Sorry Gwen," I whispered as my voice failed me, "I tried honest I did." I tried to stop the tears and the wobbling of my bottom lip.

"I know Love," her eyes were misting now, "but you'll come through it, stronger!" She squeezed my hand in support, giving it just the tiniest shake. She took a deep breath, "I think I'm not destined to be anyone's Nanny." It was her turn to smile through her tears now.