Excerpt: Identity Check

The message was from Aunt Sarah, Patrick saw when he left Rob's flat an hour later.

Call me at home re xmas

Damn. Yes, the cold biting into him despite the fleece Rob had loaned him to get home, reminded him how fast the year was drawing to a close. Term almost over for Nick and Colin and Russ.

How quickly the weeks had gone, in his new routine. Work, maybe a couple of nights out during the week, or hanging out at home watching DVDs or footie with the guys. A little online chit chat with Phil. And the wekends, Friday and Saturday night out with Russ's group, and Sunday morning usually spent in the local coffee house eating a non-nutritious breakfast of pastries or muffins and gallons of coffee. He'd developed a taste for mochas, though Colin said they were kind of girly. He just drank the strong brewed stuff - and complained about the price of that.

He blamed Patrick, saying he'd started developing a taste for good coffee when Patrick got his first monthly wage packet and rushed out and bought a coffee maker.

Now this message from Sarah reminded him that the routine was about to be broken. What about Christmas he wondered. Was she going to invite him to spend it with her and John and Nick? He'd have to accept that, as where else could he go? Not home, that's for sure.

Marion had to have Christmas absolutely perfect. The slightest problem meant the whole thing was a washout. Patrick used to be glad to get back to school after the Christmas holidays were over just to escape the knife edge tension.

One way to find out. He'd reached the Metro station and the next train wasn't for fifteen minutes yet. Damn Sunday. He dialled Sarah and John's home number

"Hi, Aunt Sarah, it's me, I got your message."

"Oh, thanks for calling back, Patrick. I hope I didn't call too early. I know you boys like to sleep in on a Sunday."

"Oh, yeah, I was in bed." He didn't tell her what he'd actually been doing there of course. "Got your message when I got up."

"Listen, Patrick, you know I've been talking to your mother for a few weeks, trying to see what I can do. And it's been going well... aside from that thing about your phone."

Yeah, that screaming row thing. He'd lost his damn number! He was quite willing to take over paying for the contract. They didn't have to cancel it like that. Had it been Alistair's idea? Sick of paying Patrick's bills? Or Marion's to try to stop Simon getting in touch with him?

"Yeah, well, there's nothing we can do about the phone thing now."

"No. Good, Patrick, good. You have to learn to put things that can't be changed behind you and work on the future."

"What does this have to do with Christmas, Aunt Sarah?" Patrick was growing tired of beating around the bush. "Has mother asked me to come home for Christmas?"

"Actually, your grandparents have asked all of us to come for Christmas."

His grandparents - he only had the one set, his father's mother long dead and father's father a mystery - his mother's and Sarah's parents, Geraldine and Clive Tavistock. Geraldine, Grandmother Tavistock, definitely came first there. Matriarchal. Grandfather should have taken her name when they married, Patrick thought.

They lived in a big-ass house in Hampshire and Patrick was damn sure they didn't like him much. They hadn't liked his father, he knew that. Alistair on the other hand was exactly the sort of man they'd wanted Marion to marry in the first place.

"Mother said they wanted the whole family together for Christmas, that's it's been years."

"They picked a hell of a year for a reunion." Did they know about him? They couldn't, surely? As strict a Catholic as he mother was, Grandmother was ten times more devout. The Pope would tell her to lighten up. "Sarah, I don't know. I don't know if I can be in that atmosphere."

"Patrick, your mother misses you very much. At the very least she wants to see you for Christmas. She wants to talk. Look, you could say I've negotiated a truce. She's promised no arguments, no yelling."

"You think she'll hold to that?"

"She doesn't want to lose you forever and she knows that's what she's facing. She can't approve of your lifestyle, you can't expect her to, her beliefs are sincere, but she's prepared to talk about what kind of lasting peace you two can make."

Well he wanted that of course. He knew he'd never get her approval, but of course he didn't want to lose her either. He'd missed her more and more as the weeks passed. Patrick sighed and slid his foot back and forth on a patch of ice on the platform.

"I... I think I should think about it for a while," he said eventually. "Talk to Nick about it."

"Of course, that's fine. You take all the time you need."

~*~

Patrick found Nick and Colin at the coffee house, and waved at them, sitting at tables outside, in the clear sunshine, despite the cold, wrapped in their coats.

"Need anything at the counter?" he called as he headed inside.

They shook their heads, no. Patrick walked in, rubbing his numb hands.

"Morning, Zoe," he said to the woman behind the counter, handing her the sandwich he'd selected for her to heat in the press. "Jack's cold better?"

"Oh, he's much better, thank you. What are you drinking today? Mocha?"

"You know, I think I'll have a hot chocolate, if those loons insist on sitting outside. And a choc chip muffin."

He paid for the food and drink and picked up his hot chocolate, with its cap of whipped cream and took them outside, Zoe promising to bring him the hot sandwich in a moment.

"Morning, you dirty stop-out," Nick said as Patrick sat down. "All nighter huh?"

"Morning, cuz. Morning, Colonel." He smiled at Colin's mildly irritated look at the nickname. It had been inevitable though, when he'd brought out his winter coat for the year, an RAF greatcoat, that he claimed belonged to his great-grandfather, who'd fought in the Battle of Britain. Naturally Nick and Patrick had immediately saluted him and turned him from Colin into Colonel.

Still, Colin was the one laughing on the other side of his face now, cosy in the heavy coat, despite the icy morning.

"Why are we outside?" Patrick asked.

"That weird bloke is inside," Colin said. "Kept looking at us."

"He's totally stalking us," Nick said. "I was in the library yesterday and he was looking at me in there too. Weird."

"This whole street is full of weirdos. And cats." Colin looked thoughtful. "So all the weirdos must own the cats. Typical."

Zoe came out with Patrick's food and took away a few empty mugs. Patrick, who'd let his attention wander from their nonsense, turned to Nick as he waited for the sandwich to cool a little so that the cheese in it wasn't at roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun.

"I was talking to your mum on the way home."

Nick looked alarmed for a second. "You didn't tell her about us breaking the washing machine, did you? Though when I say 'we', I mean Colin of course."

"Look that would have worked if you hadn't -"

"Shut up about the damn washing machine," Patrick, said, not in the mood, wanting to discuss this, make a decision. He's take his cue from Nick, he decided. "She said the Tavies have invited us over for Christmas. All of us, my parents and yours, you and me."

"Aw, hell, I forgot gran and grandad Mason are still on that cruise. Was it me, or was that postcard from St Lucia just a little too gloating?"

Patrick chuckled. Nick's other grandparents, his father's parents, though not related to Patrick except through marriage, had always given him a warmer welcome than the set of grandparents he and Nick shared.

"They deserve it," he said.

"Ugh, so we have to go and get frosty looks for not going to church twice on Christmas day. There's no way I'm standing during the Queen's speech. That was funny when I ten. Now it's just embarassing."

"Gosh these people sound like a laugh a minute," Colin said, grinning and finishing his coffee.

"Yeah," Nick said. "I think Grandmother Tavistock heard about laughter once and decided to devote her life to making sure nobody in her family ever did it."

"Your mum said that they said the whole family hasn't been together for Christmas for a few years."

"That's because most of us can't stand them."

"Nick!" Patrick didn't like them either, but still, they were his grandparents. He should treat them with respect. So should Nick. "Anyway, your mum thinks this is a good opportunity for me and my mum to talk. Try to get some sort of... I don't know, peace agreement I suppose."

Nick looked at him for a moment and nodded. "That's important to you."

"Of course."

"Then we should go." He raised his coffee mug as if in a tribute. "Those who are about to die salute you."