Headfort School, Kells, Co.Meath, Ireland, the day before...

"And here are our languages classrooms," Mr Dermot Toole turned a corner as he lead Monica onto a long, narrow corridor with a few doors into them, explaining further in his posh Irish accent, "Unlike most state primary schools here we teach Ancient Greek, as well as Latin and the primary Romance languages"

"Excellent..." Monica peered through the internal windows and into the empty classrooms as she passed by.

"Well, that's upstairs of the east wing," Mr Toole rubbed his hands together, "Onto downstairs next"

"Come along, you two" Monica called the twins over.

Johnny and Roshni looked over from their spot at the tall windows and rushed back to her side as the headmaster led the three of them to a dark-looking stairwell. During most of the tour Monica had been glancing over to them, trying to read their faces for some form of approval after their initial disagreement at the idea of boarding school. But for now, they were both understandably curious towards their new surroundings and had eagerly been lingering up ahead of both the adults.

Due to the lack of students and staff who were at home for the Easter holidays, the emptiness of the building made it harder for Monica to believe that Headfort was a boarding school. The house itself was breathtakingly beautiful, as were the grounds and playing fields that were surrounded by tall, lush trees. And with the 18th century grandeur within the architecture, interior design, and the front garden's layout there was no way that Johnny and Roshni were going to get homesick anytime soon, for everything had a Garden Lodge flair to it.

"That has to be the fanciest assembly hall if I ever saw one!" Monica thought the moment they were shown it only twenty minutes earlier, envisioning its mint green baroque panels lined with white rococo, adorned with gold-framed oil portraits, and the rows upon rows of gold chairs with red velvet lined up on the polished wooden floor.

"You know, Miss Brannigan," Mr Toole began as they tread down each step, "We have a bursary scheme which may be of interest to you. It's for financially struggling parents and families who cannot afford to pay the annual tuition fee of 15,000 Irish punts, if you need"

"Why do you say that?" Monica furrowed her brows.

"Our school has a middle-class image, if you please," Mr Toole paused to take his tortoiseshell glasses off the bridge of his nose and polish them with the folded napkin in the top pocket of his herringbone tweed jacket, "most of our children come from privileged families who might have a limited understanding of the world around them. Ergo, we would like to diversify our student body and welcome children from all social classes and international backgrounds so that they can learn from one another."

They had reached the bottom step when Monica asked him, confused as to why what he was telling her was relevant, "But what makes you say it to me in particular?"

"Well, forgive me but you came here alone," he answered bashfully, putting his glasses back on, "I assumed that you were a single parent. It's hard to tell with divorce rates going so high nowadays, unfortunately"

Now Monica no longer felt perplexed, if not slightly judged at the same time.

"Does he even have any idea who their father is?!"

After all, this was also the first time that she had been immersed in an Anglo-Irish situation where everything, even the staff and students no doubt, were made up of old money. Johnny and Roshni, on the other hand, were brought up in a world that was built on new money:

"Oh, thank you for telling me about it but it won't be necessary. Their father is currently away for work, and he wants to pay the fees," Monica uttered, then raised her voice when she heard two pairs of footsteps scurrying away, "Johnny! Roshni! Don't run!"

The twins up ahead stalled, then rushed back down the corridor with slippery-looking brown tiles on the floor.

Mr Toole chuckled, and told her, "I'll let them off this time"

"Still, health and safety first" Monica muttered, for their lack of manners wasn't making her look any better as a parent.

As she tucked a tousled strand of her brown hair behind her ear in embarrassment, Mr Toole noticed the ring on her finger and asked, "What does your husband do?"

"Fiancé still, actually..." she hesitantly corrected him, "And he is a musician. He will be touring Europe over the summer, as he often does annually"

"Oh wonderful, what instrument does he play?" Mr Toole asked, assuming that Freddie was perhaps part of an orchestra or rather lesser-known underground group.

"Surely the administrator would've already seen Freddie's name on the enrolment forms and told Mr Toole immediately?!" She thought.

But then Monica realised that perhaps anonymity could be a good thing for Johnny and Roshni while they were at this school.

"Piano and vocals. Speaking of which," She pat Johnny on the head as he lingered by his mother's side, "Johnny here is a budding maestro like his father. Do you have any extracurricular opportunities relating to the arts, or for children who have a performative streak?"

"Well, around Christmas time the English, drama and music departments like to put on an annual production in which each class and year group participates," Mr Toole explained "More often, our music teacher Mrs Joyce runs an extra-curricular school choir during lunch break for those who like to sing"

"You hear that?" Monica smiled down at Johnny, whose brown eyes lit up with excitement.

"Do you have any computers and video games?" Roshni eagerly asked.

"Well," Mr Toole answered with a chuckle, "There's a Macintosh in the library for research purposes. And I'm afraid the only games you'll find are board games in the common room."

Roshni's face fell a little, and then she asked her mother, "Mum, do you think you and dad could let me bring my Atari?"

Monica laughed, as did Mr Toole as she said, "Why on earth do you need to bring your Atari to school with you, sweetheart?!"

Before the little girl could think of a good reason, a short and stout older woman with strawberry blonde permed hair and a wrinkled face scuttled out of what appeared to be the pantry, wearing a pink spotted apron and wheeling a metal trolley stacked with teacups and saucers in front of her and onto the corridor.

"Oh, let me introduce you to our cook Ms O'Malley," Mr Toole spoke up, catching the old lady's attention, "Ms O'Malley, these are the twins from London that I was telling you about"

"Oh, is that so? Please, you can call me Eileen," Ms O'Malley smiled warmly and shook Johnny and Roshni both by the hand before turning to Monica, "You must be their older sister, or perhaps their nanny?"

Monica bashfully corrected her, "I'm their mum actually, but I suppose that's what I get for having children so young"

"Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph..." Eileen bugged her small green eyes and gave herself the sign of the cross before clutching the crucifix hanging around her neck.

"Ah, I forgot about how taboo sex before marriage is here..." Monica reminded herself.

"Ms O'Malley, Roshni is a vegetarian," Mr Toole interjected, putting his hands on the girl's shoulders, "Would you be so kind to prepare her meals with no meat or fish when she starts here in September?"

"If it's not still a phase by then, that is" Monica anxiously added with a chuckle, already wondering whether or not a devout catholic would be willing to feed two children born out of wedlock in the first place.

"Away with yeh, 'tis no problem at all!" Eileen leaned down to Roshni, "I've gone out of my way to make halal and kosher meals for some children here, and at the end of the day they never finish their vegetables!"

"That's right. You know, there was a terrible famine here over one hundred years ago. It was a lot like the one that you raised money for in Ethiopia, Johnny," Monica informed them both in an attempt to impress the staff present, "You two should be thankful that you have food."

"That's right. And speaking of food, here we have the dining room where you two will be eating every day" Mr Toole extended his arm towards two double doors into a large room with long tables and benches, a table with a giant serving pot up the front.

"Well, I best be off," Eileen briefly excused herself and shook Monica's hand goodbye, "God bless"

Monica watched as the cook wheeled her trolley down the corridor, then turned to look at her children being guided around by their new headmaster:

"What a warm, friendly place. With such accommodating staff, and what is practically a ballroom for an assembly hall, they're both in such great hands," she thought, "How could Freddie not want any of this for them?!"

A cottage in Dunseverick, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, the morning after...

Monica's eyes fluttered open.

The first thing she saw from her bed made on the sofa of her parent's new living room was the north-facing open window, from which she could faintly hear a symphony of birds singing in the trees and bushes, seagulls squawking in the blue sky along the cliffs, and new-born lambs bleating from the nearby fields.

 A light, cool breeze was hitting her face, just enough to wake her up and shake off the cobwebs. She slowly lifted her head from the goose-feather pillow and sat up, aching in her neck and back as she uncurled her legs that had been cramped up the whole night. There was also a comforting smell of a cooking Ulster Fry in the air coming from her parent's new small open-plan kitchen.

Monica deeply inhaled it, and stared at the bright green landscape out her window, hugging her legs to her chest. She'd only been back on the Emerald Isle for 48 hours, yet she was so taken aback by all of the vivid colours on the green spectrum such as lime, teal, jade, khaki, among many more. As she drove across the Irish countryside within the last few days she captured them all in short bursts on her trusty Super 8 video camera, with the intention of editing them together into a short piece when she got back to London and submitting it to her top choice universities.

She then gazed at the sea beyond. Already there was a small, lonely cargo ship slowly moving across the Atlantic Ocean horizon en-route to North America, with the transparent grey outlines of the Scottish Hebridean islands Islay and Jura lying faintly in the background behind it.

It may not have been Ballysillan, yet it still felt warm and familiar like home again. And for Monica the difficult past few months were slowly starting to feel like a bad-

"Morning, you," Patsy Brannigan was walking past the living room doorway when she saw her daughter was finally up and awake, "How does it feel to be seventeen again?"

"Hmm?" Monica yawned.

Her mother folded her arms and leaned against the doorway, "You know, having lie-ins at the weekend?"

"It's been so long, forgot how it feels," she answered as she lifted her blanket and stood up, looking at her leather watch on her left wrist, "Jesus, eight forty-five isn't what you'd call a lie-in, mammy!"

"Look at you, Mo," Patsy stepped into the room, tutting with a look of sympathy in her eyes, "You've lost so much weight and there's no colour in your cheeks"

"You know why that is, let's not go there," Monica crooned, referring to the miscarriage as she neatly folded her heavy quilted blanket and put it on one of the armrests, "Anyway, you'd always tell us that we're putting on too much or eating too little"

"You didn't have to let the Johnny and Roshni have the guest bed, you know," her mother changed the subject, following her out the door, "Your dad and Len could've taught them how to pitch a tent on the front lawn next to their uncle. Sure, weans love all that Swallows and Amazons stuff"

"I'm fine here. Besides, I forgot how cold Ireland can be and I wouldn't want them to suffer out there..." Monica trailed off, looking around her and careful not to trip over one of the unpacked boxes in the hallway.

"Freddie would probably hate to see you sleeping rough," Patsy continued, "There's always the Causeway Hotel up the road if things aren't up to your liking, you know"

"You still don't like him, do you?" she numbly muttered as she stopped walking, although she knew well enough that her mother was right.

Patsy ignored her daughter, walking ahead and entering the kitchen, "Room for one more at the breakfast table!"

Monica's father cheered from his spot at the stove, wearing his wife's floral apron over his flannel pyjamas as he cheered, "Look! Wee Mo is up at last!"

"Morning, mum!" Johnny and Roshni chimed at the breakfast table by the wide window.

"Good morning, you two!" Monica smiled, kissing their heads before she stepped into her seat, "Did you two sleep okay?"

"Not really, Johnny kept kicking me" Roshni nagged.

To which Johnny retorted, "Only 'cause you kept hogging the duvet and I was freezing!"

"Okay okay, that's enough Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee!" Monica shushed them as she sat down.

Missy the old tabby cat lingered under the table and around her legs, greeting her with a small meow as she sought out a pat on the head.

Surprised, Monica asked, "Missy's still going?! She's got to be a dinosaur by now"

"Aye, and she obviously still remembers you" Mr Brannigan chuckled as he set a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs down in front of her, and a small bowl of hot baked beans and fried mushrooms in front of Roshni, "And some protein for the little lady."

At that moment Johnny tauntingly stuck a piece of bacon on his fork in front of his sister, a simper on his impish face, "Go on, you know want it!"

"That was probably still a cute little baby piglet when it got turned into food!" Roshni turned her wrinkled nose away and stuck her dessert spoon into her beans, unwavered.

Monica sighed, pulling Johnny's elbow back, "Why can't we just have a nice break away from home and school without you two going at each other?"

About a year ago, the Garden Lodge household was much more harmonious and everyone was on good terms with one another. Just...

Garden Lodge, 1st April, 1985

"Your tea is on the table by the window" Phoebe told Freddie, who was emerging from the en-suite bathroom dressed in his kimono.

"Thanks" the man muttered, and resumed patting his freshly-shaven face dry with the microfibre cloth hanging around his neck whilst his assistant went to back folding his laundry in the corner of the room.

When he entered his master bedroom he saw Monica reclining at the seating area, quietly reading a few documents in her hand that were for work no doubt. Next to her was the coffee table where her cup of tea was waiting for him.

Johnny and Roshni were lingering around her suspiciously; he almost forgot that they were on their school holidays starting today, and he might as well enjoy them before Easter Sunday when they were going to be pumped-up and hyper with sugar and chocolate.

But for now Freddie's attention was focused on Monica. She looked so perfect curled up on the sofa, still wearing her silk white pyjamas with her shoulder-length brown waves pushed to one side, and her heart-shaped face still bare as the morning sunlight hit it from the east-facing window.

"You two should be getting ready for your swimming lesson," She told the twins, lifting her head from her papers, "Have you packed your goggles and togs?"

Johnny and Roshni obediently headed for the doorway as their father sat down across from their mother, asking her, "Doesn't their school already take them to the pool?"

"Swimming is a good life skill to have," Monica set her papers down, and straightened up with a smirk, "Besides, it's not like you know how to swim properly either, which is odd considering that you were born on an island."

The man sighed, and chuckled, "You win"

Monica smiled, and returned to reading her work documents. Freddie lifted his saucer and cup of tea to his lips for a sip, only to splutter it out suddenly and drop it in front of him a second later.

"What's the matter?" Monica asked worriedly, "Is it too hot?"

"PHOEBE!!" Freddie's face grew purple as he exploded, "WHY DOES MY TEA TASTE LIKE PEPPER?!"

"I-I, wait, what? I didn't put pepper in your tea!" Phoebe blubbered in confusion and shock from his spot in the corner of the room, but then it was filled with the sound of giggles.

Johnny and Roshni emerged from behind the slider doors, red-faced and holding their stomachs in a fit of laughter, essentially revealing themselves to be the culprits of such a cruel prank on the Earl Grey.

"Come here, you... you little shits..." Freddie growled and fumed, leaping off his seat as the twins squealed and scrambled around the bedroom.

Phoebe and Monica covered their mouths to muffle their sniggers, her shaking her head and watching as he loudly chortled and tackled both children to the carpet. 

Then she ignored the commotion as the three of them play-fought each and looked back at her papers, noticing that today's date on the crew call was the first of April:

"Ahh of course, April Fool's. They got you good, Fred..."

*****

Monica giggled to herself at such a fond memory.

Lenny emerged from the corridor, reading aloud from this month's copy of the National Geographic in his hand, "Mum, dad? According to this article tonight is the last time that we can get to see Halley's Comet clearly in the sky. Do you want to go down to White Park Bay to see it?"

"What's a comet?" Johnny asked.

"It's the result of star and space litter orbiting the sun!" Roshni answered excitedly, having read about them in books, "Oh, please can we go?"

"Are you sure it's a good idea, son?" Patsy looked up at Lenny wearily, "They all just got here last night and your sister's probably knackered after driving around the place these past two days"

Johnny and Roshni then looked to their mother, eagerly and expectantly.

The truth was that Monica really did feel exhausted. She had only reached her parent's new downsized cottage late last night, but it was worth it because at least she got to spend time with her children on the road trip.

"It's not up to me, it's up to them," Monica nodded at the twins, "If they want to go then I will go"

They, along with their Uncle Lenny, both cheered only to be hushed by their granny Patsy and told to finish their breakfast.

"I was meant to give you this last night," Mr Brannigan placed a manageably sized box in his daughter's arms, also breaking Monica's train of thought, "It's from your bedroom in Ballysillan"

"Couldn't you wait to give it to her later when we're not eating?" Patsy nagged her husband.

To which he answered, "Someone will trip over it if it stays sitting in the corridor any longer!"

But Monica was taken aback by the sheer nostalgia that had been placed on her lap, for inside the box was a whole other era from the days of her innocence that was now long gone.

The dust wafted into her nose as her other arm sifted through her roller blades that she was too scared to use more than once, a tangerine orange scarf, her hand-painted Portuguese piggy bank that sat on her shelf above her bed, some dried-out nail polishes and unused pots of pastel-coloured eyeshadows, her A-level art charcoal sketches and paintings that were once hung up on her wall amongst her posters and other mementos...

"Mum, who are they?" Roshni asked her, reaching in to pick something out.

It was a framed black and white photograph of three children standing on the pavement walkway of what appeared to be a concrete bridge with pillars, smartly dressed in their Sunday bests in a row from the shortest to the tallest.

"Why, that's your Uncle Len and I on a trip to London when we were little," Monica pointed, "There's me in the middle"

Her wavy brown hair was kept much longer back then, and tied back with a ribbon like most girls did back in those days. Hadn't the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben been in the background then it wouldn't have been easy to tell what city they were in. Monica didn't remember much from that trip, other than when she met a teenage boy in a record shop that her older sister insisted on visiting and getting told off by her mother for wondering off-

"That can't be you! That's my old pink coat!" Roshni exclaimed.

"And that's my blue one!" Johnny pointed to little Lenny at the lower end of the photo.

"Ah yes. But you see, they were actually ours before Granny Patsy sent them to you" their uncle told them with a grin.

"Can I keep it, Granny?" Roshni looked over to her grandmother, holding the photograph close to her.

"Why do you want that old thing, love?" Monica asked, perplexed.

But Patsy kindly told her grandchild, "Of course you can keep it. I'm sure your mammy would be fine with it"

"Okay, I don't see why not," Monica shrugged and nodded, and pointed to a few of her old artworks next in the pile, "Do you see these? I painted these back in high school"

"Look! Is that dad?" Johnny suddenly pointed to something in the box.

Monica peered back in, only to see a pair of dark eyes boring into her.

It was him.

She must've stuck it up on her wall one day and completely forgotten about it, for everything else in her final year of high school went by in a blur. Funny how little she knew back then that one day the man in the white boiler suit was going to be the father of her children. 

"It almost seems like he was a completely different person back then, inside and out..." she thought.

Monica slowly lifted the poster out, regaining composure at the sight of Freddie as she asked her son, "How do you know that's your dad?"

"Same eyes as me," Johnny stated proudly, then snickered, "His hair looks so stupid!"

"I know, very stupid," she giggled with him, "Can you believe I fell head over heels for the likes of that?!"

Suddenly the Brannigans and Bulsara twins were startled by the loud honk of a vehicle horn outside, and all six of them lifted their heads from their breakfast and looked out the front window.

Ms Paula McIntyre was leaning against the open door of her trusty Fiat Pandora camper van in its bright green glory, taking a drag of her cigarette whilst her black pet Great Dane scampered across the small front lawn.

Patsy dropped the spoon in her hand in horror, whilst Johnny and Roshni both squealed and leapt off their seats for the back door, "MAX!"

"Paula? How did she find me here?"

Ignoring the commotion, Monica set her box of old things down and slowly stood up from her seat with a growing a smile on her face. The day instantly got better. And all the while did she miss Freddie once?

Maybe a little, but not really...

Author's note: 

I know that tomorrow is a difficult, emotional day for a lot of Queenies. And so I am sorry that a chapter like this one which mentions very little of Freddie is being published so inconveniently close to what will be the 30th anniversary of his death (unless it's already 24th November wherever you are in the world). In the meantime, without sounding too much like the inside of a Christmas Greetings card, I hope that my alternative retelling and imagining of Mr Mercury's life brings you warmth and joy.

Go easy on yourselves tomorrow.

Slightly xx

P.S. I remember back in 2016, around 7pm on what was the 25th Anniversary of Freddie's death, I saw a shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger. If you see one as well tomorrow night, know that it just might be a sign... ;)