There was a crisp layer of frost as Archie trudged up the hill from the shops in the village main street. He was glad, because first footing in the rain was a miserable business. It was much better in the cold. A pair of heavy shoes instead of wellies made a visitor more welcome when the ladies had been to such trouble cleaning their houses for the big night.

Tonight would be the biggest night any of them would ever experience. New Year’s Eve, 1999.

He reached his mother’s house and wondered what stage her preparations would be at.

As soon as the door swung back he smelled potato and leek soup. How good that had been to come in to when they’d all been round the village as teenagers.

“Hello, Mum. Sam sent me up with this tray of vol-au-vents,” he called from the front door.

It was a bit of a struggle balancing the tray and trying to wiggle his key out of the lock, but he managed it in the end.

“Vol-au-vents?” his mum asked as she emerged from the kitchen at the end of the hall. “What are they when they’re at home?”

“You know, little savoury pastry things,” Archie replied, rising to her teasing.

“Vol-au-vents were the big thing in the Seventies,” Mrs Prentice said. “Is Sam keen on them?”

“She saw a recipe for retro treats. You were still making them when I was wee. Oh, and I stopped into the Co-op to buy some cans of beer for you>’

“Thanks, I forget you young folk prefer beer. A dram was your dad’s tipple.” Mrs Prentice accepted the tray and Archie stashed the beer in the fridge.

“We thought we might look in after the bells…”

“After the bells? So I’m to be here on my own when the lights go out, am I?” Mrs Prentice said with a grin.

Archie laughed.

“You haven’t been reading that stuff about the computer programmes failing, have you? Some of my staff are in a right twitter about that.”

Her answering smile lit up her face.

“We’ll see. Thank Sam for the pastries. How is she feeling?”

“She’s having a rest at the minute, otherwise she would have come over to help with the able. Still three weeks till her due date, and she’s put on a lot of-“

“Girth?” Mrs Prentice supplied. “I know what you mean. She’s bigger than her sisters at the same stage in their pregnancies. You are remembering her dad was a twin?”

“No, I’m seriously trying to bury that fact. Sam’s had scans and it is one baby only.”

When his mum still looked unconvinced, Archie went on.

“She’ll be fine.” He took the lid from the big stock pot and smelled the soup. “Need a taster?”

Sam was up and about when Archie got back to their flat above his father in law’s garage. She was moving with a slow grace despite the size of her bump and his heart swelled.

Only a few more weeks and they’d know whether they had a boy or a girl.

Archie didn’t care as much as Sam’s dad. Mr Drummond was desperate for a grandson. After three daughters and five granddaughters, he regarded it as his due. Sam was a biology teacher and she could only shake her head when he voiced this opinion.

“Did you sleep?” Archie asked.

“A little. Mum phoned to remind us they would be at Jilly’s anything happened.”

“And woke you?”

His wife nodded ruefully.

“I didn’t understand how much this baby belongs to everyone,” she said. “Is your mum organised? Will there be an Eightsome Reel in the street like last year?” Sam rubbed her back as she spoke and, as Archie watched, a tiny grimace clouded her face.

“Sam?” he asked nervously.

“It’s nothing. Been happening for days now. Braxton Hicks contractions. Remember, I told you…”

“Yes, miss.” He crossed the room and pulled her towards him. “We don’t have to go first footing, you know. We could curl up here with the telly on and watch folk in Edinburgh at the fireworks.”

“Nonsense. Who would eat your mum’s soup?”

“No shortage of neighbours who’ll be looking in for that. Seriously, love, if you don’t feel up to it, just say.” His words faded away as he yawned.

“Look at you. Did your mum have you cleaning the pelmets again?”

“This year she’s focusing on the backs of the furniture. We shifted two wardrobes, and even empty wardrobes are heavy,” Archie said with feeling.

He couldn’t understand this passion the women had for going into the New Year with a clean house.

“As if any spider would dare to take up residence behind her furniture – Sam!”

Archie caught his wife as she sank to her knees.

“Oh, Archie,” she managed as a wave of pain etched itself on her features. “I wonder if she’ll be the first baby born in St Joseph’s in the new millennium?”

“We came as quickly as we could, Mrs Prentice.” Archie heard his father in law’s voice in the hospital corridor. “Every junction seemed to be twice as clogged up as usual. How are things going?”

“Much as they would want, the doctor said. She came out a few minutes ago and spoke to Archie and me before she went on to the next girl. She’s Polish.”

“The doctor?”

“No. The doctor is Sadie Watts who was three years above Sam at school.”

“Sadie Watts,” Sam’s mum interrupted. “I didn’t know she’d come back from Newcastle.”

“So, who’s Polish, then?” Bert Drummond asked.

Archie thought it was just typical. Here they were at the most important moment of their lives and the in laws were fretting over details. He patted Sam’s hand and went out into the corridor.

“Hello, folks. Sam’s good, but it’s getting quite close now. Do you think you could all go along to the family room?” he asked without much hope of getting any peace for Sam in the last hour or so of her labour. “In fact, why don’t you all go down to Mum’s and I’ll phone as soon as I can?”

“We’ve just got here, Archie,” Mr Drummond complained. “And you’ve no idea what the traffic was like around the supermarket in Livingston.”

“Sorry, I just think Mum needs to get back for the phone calls.” He sent his mum an appealing glance and she rose to the occasion.

“Of course. How silly of me.”

“Right,” Bert said. “Phone calls?”

“My daughters are both in New Zealand this year. They always phone at midnight Scottish time, though, wherever they are in the world.”

“We can drive you down,” Mr Drummond said as he opened the clasp on his sporran to reach his keys. “Good job we’d been dancing and not toasting yet.”

“May I just take a wee peep?” Sam’s mum asked, and without waiting for an answer ducked into the labour room.

She was as good as her word, though, and came out again very quickly.

“Everything OK?” Mr Drummond asked, and when his wife reassured him they went off to settle in to wait for the New Year and Archie’s phone call.

He made it at 11.36 p.m.

“Mum, it’s a lassie. A beautiful wee girl. We’re going to call her Ellen.” Archie was crying and had to take a breath before he carried on. “Oh, Mum!”

“Congratulations, Archie. A girl. That’s lovely.”

Archie listened as a cheer went up in his mum’s living-room.

“Who have you got there, then?”

“Loads of folk. Never mind them. Janet needs to know how Sam is. I’ll give her the phone.”

Archie heard a bit of shuffling going on and then his mother in law came on the line.

“How’s Sam?”

“She’s good, Mrs Drummond. Really good.” Archie knew the relief in his voice would tell Mrs Drummond more than the words he spoke.

It had been a nerve shredding climax to the century for the Prentice. He realized his mother in law was asking about the Polish girl. She would want to know everything was all right there, too, so she could enjoy Sam’s good news.

“The Polish girl? Yes, she’s had a boy. It’s really busy on the ward,” he was adding when the door of Sam’s room opened and a nurse stuck her head through.

“What?” Archie held the phone away from his ear when the doctor also came into the corridor. He could hardly credit what she was telling him. “Mrs Drummond, they need me back in the ward. I’ll ring again.”

He hoped more than ever that all the hype about failing computer programmes was just that.

Archie knew that, down in the village, the family would be pouring drinks in these last minutes before the bells. His mum would be putting the television on and everyone would be gathering in the living room, except tall, dark Mr Williamson from two doors down.

He’d be lurking in the frost with a bit of coal wrapped up in newspaper in one pocket and a bottle of whisky in the other. It was so familiar, yet this year it was going to be so different. He suppressed a squeal as Sam’s hand crushed his fingers.

Just as the midwife allowed Sam to push, he spared a thought for his father in law. Not only had 1999 brought him another granddaughter, but it also looked as if it was going to bring him two.

At 20 past midnight on January 1, 2000, the lights, and everything else, were working in St Joseph’s hospital.

Archie stepped out under a covered walkway. He looked over to Edinburgh and saw the sky full of fireworks and the glow of a big city well lit up.

He drew a deep breath and hoped he was composed enough to speak to his mum.

“Happy New Year, darling. How are your lovely girls?”

“They’re fine, although Ellen’s nose might be a bit out of joint,” he said. “We have a son, too.”

“It was twins?”

“Yes! Ellen has a twin brother and he was born after the bells, and in another century too boot! We think we’ll call him Josh Robert.”

Archie heard the chaos in his mum’s front room as the word went round, within seconds Mr Drummond was on the phone.

“Archie, is it right? Do we hae a boy?”

Archie thought Mr Drummond had already enjoyed a dram or two, but he couldn’t resist teasing him a wee bit.

“Gratulacje! Szczesliwego Nowego Roku.”

“You’ve got me there, Archie.”

“It’s Polish. Sam’s neighbor in the labour ward had a boy and that’s what her man said to me. It means ‘Congratulations. Happy New Year’.”

“Does it now?” Mr Drummond wasn’t overly interested in the international dimension. “It’s down to me, you know.

I’m the twin.”

Archie laughed. As he watched the glow over the village its lights went off. They came on again within seconds, but the rip in the system guaranteed Mrs Prentice’s New Year party a place in village folklore.