“I’m late,” said Spud.
“Yes, isn’t it?” I replied, hoping to get off to sleep quickly in case she was telling me she’s pregnant.
Sleep can make many things seem better in the morning. Imminent fatherhood is not among them. Having thought I’d got it over with early in life (25), I had congratulated myself on my good fortune. The rest of my time stretched before me like an endless sea of good rockin’ times. I was almost jealous of my own superb life. The only cloud on my horizon was a death that would come all too soon; and I still wondered if I might escape it with a false moustache or by throwing my voice.
Holy. Fucking. Shite-on-a-bike, I’m going to be a dad again. 23 years after the last incident, as I like to call her.
I sat the Incident down to give her news of her impending sibling. “Ha! Your life is over,” she remarked, all too cheerfully.
“I mean, till you’re like, 70,” she said, trying and failing to pull the punch after delivery. We’ll see how she likes being known as One I Made Earlier from now on.
Next I had to tell my mate, Andy. Luckily, we were sitting down in a pub. Actually, it’s not that lucky. We’re always sitting down in a pub. Except when we’re leaning in a pub.
I could see in his eyes the realisation that our search for the best pubs in the land for a good lean would be affected. We, armed only with the Racing Post and a tiny bit of weed, sat overlooking the bay of a decaying seaside town in the drizzle. When would we next know such heaven?
But he recovered quickly, to say: “So when are we expecting little Andy?”
“Lord!” Said Spud's best mate, Scally, a large Scouse sinner who casts a deafening shadow, even in the dark. “You should call him ‘Lord’. What do you think?”
“Genius!” he replied, to himself.
“Genius!” he replied, to himself.
“When he gets stopped by the police and his ID says Lord so-and-so, they’ll let him on his way.” Funny, I hadn’t considered what name would be best should he/she be stopped by the police.
When I told Mike, he squeezed me so hard I may have impregnated him too. He’d like that.
Jamie cried, bless him. And my brother asked: “Do you know the mother?”
Everyone else was as pleased as Mike without expressing it physically. Except my dad.
“You bloody fool,” he said, wheeling himself out to calm down.
It’s understandable though. He is a cunt.
