What Lies Between Us(34)

Damage it, I said to myself. Damage it.

The reality check was crippling. I wanted so much to be happy that for a moment I’d forgotten about my condition; that this unborn baby was already damaged beyond repair. Even if I carried it to full term, it wouldn’t live. I’d already researched my condition in a library medical journal and seen a photo of a baby with estroprosencephaly. I wanted to be sick. I learned it won’t have a usable brain and its face will not really be a face but a bit of mouth here and nose somewhere else and an eye in the middle of its head like a Cyclops. And it’ll die within minutes of being born. So it doesn’t matter if I did all the Es and whizz and coke and smoked all the spliffs in the world, I can’t hurt my baby any more than my body has already.

But I couldn’t tell Jon any of this because I didn’t want to lose him. I started crying again.

‘It’s okay.’ He soothed and spooned me, his hand still cradling my stomach. ‘My Lolita is having a little Lolita of her own,’ he said softly.



Weeks passed and my body expanded. It was as if Jon’s awareness gave it permission to blow up like a bouncy castle. And instead of dwelling on the inevitable, I allowed myself to imagine a happy-ever-after for the three of us.

I started telling myself that Mum and the tests I had when I was a kid were wrong and that I wasn’t carrying a bunch of faulty chromosomes. I talked myself into believing that last year’s miscarriage wasn’t down to my broken insides, it was just bad luck. And when this baby came out, it would be healthy. The fantasy was a far better place to visit than the truth, and I kept returning to it.

‘What’s going to happen after I have it?’ I asked Jon one afternoon. We had met in a truckers’ cafe just outside the town centre. He was wearing his reflective sunglasses inside and his hair was scraped back with wet-look gel. He looked every inch the rock star. A spot of blood had seeped through the long sleeve of his white T-shirt and left a stain.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked. His voice was slurred as he stirred sugar into his coffee. I was too exhausted to see him play last night and I assumed he had a hangover.

‘I mean where are the three of us going to live? Can we come and stay with you?’

He yawned and slumped into his seat. ‘My flat is no place for a kid, you know that.’

‘I don’t because I’ve never been there.’

‘And you wouldn’t want to because it’s a shithole and it’s where the band rehearses. It’s no place for our child, that’s why I doss at mates’ houses. Why can’t you stay with your mum?’

‘Because she is going to go ballistic when she finds out I’m pregnant.’

‘Then put your name down for a council flat. They’re obliged to look after teenage mums.’

‘We could get one together,’ I offered hopefully.

‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of your age. You’re fifteen and I got you pregnant at fourteen. Once that gets out, I could be arrested and it’ll be the end of you and me and the band. And we are so close to getting signed by a major label.’ He put his thumb and index finger close together as if to emphasise his proximity to success. ‘You wouldn’t want to ruin that for me, would you? I’m doing all of this for us. You just have to wait it out and then we can get somewhere together. I promise.’

I gave myself a moment to imagine the house and the life we could share and how content we might be, before reality hit home – it didn’t matter what I told myself, the doctors weren’t wrong. I wasn’t destined to have the life I badly wanted.

I started crying and I expected Jon to ask me why I was suddenly so upset, but he didn’t say anything. Then as the sun caught his eyes behind his sunglasses, I saw they were closed. He had fallen asleep.

I’m glad it’s Mum who’s with me now, but I still want Jon. Once she gets over the shock, she will know what to do. She always does. And she will be able to tell him that what’s happened to our baby isn’t my fault. She will make him understand and he won’t leave me.





CHAPTER 28





MAGGIE


TWENTY-THREE YEARS EARLIER


I gasp. ‘You’re . . .’ But I can’t finish the sentence.

‘I think it’s coming,’ Nina cries. ‘It’s really early and I don’t know what to do.’

Pain contorts her face and body and she clutches her stomach. Suddenly the truth hits me as to why I’ve been writing so many notes to excuse her from gym at school over the last few weeks. She blamed period pains when in reality it was quite the opposite. She didn’t want anyone to see her in PE kit and notice her belly. How many other things has she lied to me about?

‘Get Jon, I need Jon,’ she begs me.

‘I don’t know who Jon is.’ I shouldn’t feign ignorance while she’s at her most vulnerable, yet I find myself doing so. I might be in shock but I know I don’t want that bastard anywhere near her or this house. ‘Just concentrate on your breathing.’

She is sobbing now and short shallow breaths punctuate her sentences. ‘His name is Jon Hunter and he’s my boyfriend,’ she pants. ‘His address is in my coat pocket. I need him, I can’t do this without him.’