Nomance, T Price [bookreader .TXT] 📗

I’m carrying, but it’s somebody else’s and the real parentsdon’t know what’s going on. That’s why I came here, to warn them.See, they can formally adopt it straight away, before he aborts itand chops it up for stem-cell research . . . you aren’t the realmother, are you?’

Tamsin, having giventhis some deliberation, it seemed, said, ‘No, I can’t be themother. Twisted tubes, you see.’

‘Twisted tubes? Youdon’t know how lucky you are.’

Tamsin’s eyes grewwide. Then they grew narrow. She looked down into the empty glassin her hand and then giving Carla an elvish smile, she asked,‘Would you like more wine, dear?’

Carla nodded and Tamsinfluttered off.

But instead of wine,she returned with a great lanky beast, almost as big as the uglygeezer with the bongos. Carla stared up into the ghoul’s cold, butmarvelling eyes, and felt her insides undulating – always the firstsign of an agonising stomachache. Either that, or it was the onsetof labour.

‘Sweetheart, I hear youwant to find parents for the child you’re carrying.’ Thisapparition, huge and threatening, with its ravaged and hectic face,had a beautifully pure and crystalline voice.

‘Well, not any oldparents,’ Carla said, trying to sound calm. ‘They have to be theright ones.’

‘Of course. But isn’tit a bit soon to put it up for adoption?’

Carla considered this.‘Depends how much other people are willing to offer. You don’t wanta baby, do you?’

‘A baby? Me?’ The bogeylooked flummoxed for a moment. ‘No thanks. I’m blessed with acomplete absence of maternal instinct, dear.’

‘Fair enough. But ifyou change your mind in the years to come, I can give you a pieceof advice – don’t ever go to Doctor Gerald Lytton.’

‘Doctor Lytton? Who’sthat?’

‘Phoebe, dear,’ Tamsinsaid, ‘I think that’s the guy who assaulted her.’

‘He didn’t assault me,’Carla interjected, ever a stickler for detail. ‘He explained whathe wanted to do from the very beginning, when we met inCyprus.’

‘Ah, a holiday fling,’Phoebe said, adding with impressive authority, ‘a lot of bad shitcan go down on holiday.’

‘Sure, I was there onholiday,’ Carla snapped, ‘but that’s beside the point. I’m aworking girl and there was no question of my doing it forfree.’

Phoebe’s manner becamerighteous. ‘A working girl? Well, that’s great, dear. I really meanthat. You know, I totally support full legalisation for workingwomen. Like all our sisters, I think working women get a rawdeal.’

‘I got a raw deal, allright. Five thousand pounds – not a penny more. He wasadamant.’

‘Five thousand?’Phoebe’s face dropped. She sounded less righteous and more jealous.‘Well, if he insisted on unprotected penetration,’ she allowed,‘there’s a chance of AIDS, isn’t there? So – fair enough.’

‘Unprotected?’ Carlasaid, disgusted. ‘Do you think I’d have stood for that? He worerubber gloves.’

Phoebe leaned back.‘But as I understand it, he made you pregnant.’

‘Getting pregnant waspart of the deal.’

‘What?’ Phoebe wasoutraged. ‘Some men have the most bizarre fantasies . . . ’

Tamsin shook her headvigorously. ‘No, no, Phoebe, you don’t understand. She’s talkingabout artificial insemination and a mad doctor.’

Carla scowled indisgust. ‘What the fuck else did you think I was talking about?’But her annoyance petered out. She had begun to feel dizzy. Herstomach was churning.

Tamsin lookedconcerned, ‘Are you alright, dearie?’

‘No, I don’t think Iam.’

Phoebe got excited.‘When is your baby due, darling? Not now?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Carlasnapped. ‘It’s not my baby – it belongs to Juliet Westhrop.’

‘Who?’ Phoebehooted.

‘Juliet Westhrop.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh Christ, is this thenut house or something?’

‘Never mind that,’Phoebe said with diabolic avidity. ‘Just tell me one more timewhose baby it is and then I promise we shan’t ever refer to itagain.’

Carla answered in acold voice. ‘You tell me something first. Who lives here?’

Tamsin’s eyes grew wideand fearful, and she put her hand on Phoebe’s arm as if to restrainher.

‘Juliet Westhrop,’Phoebe said in a hushed tone of expectancy.

‘There’s your answer,then. It’s her baby.’

At this Phoebe quiveredlike a huge coiled spring. Tamsin withdrew her hand in trepidationas the fiend scanned the crowd. She soon spotted her target.

‘Juliet, darling,’ shehollered across the room with boundless mirth, ‘come over and meetCarla. Guess what? She’s having your baby!’

A deathly silencedescended upon the room.

Finally, Carla was ableto set eyes on Juliet Westhrop. She was the one whose face, one ofa refined, metropolitan beauty, sagged now and went grey, like anold pair of Y fronts.

Tamsin whispered, ‘Oh,Phoebe!’

Hearing that, Carlathought to herself: this Phoebe makes the same mistake over andover again.

And indeed, Carla couldnow enjoy the spectacle of Phoebe wither under the flames ofcontrition. It seemed to have dawned on her she’d made a faux pas.However, Carla’s pleasure soon dimmed when she noticed everyone inthe room was staring at her reproachfully. It seemed she was beingsingled out for interrupting them in the middle of a crucialsentence, and not Phoebe.

The jumpy geezer, thatdrug-addict Carla had spoken to first and who knew Gwynne, steppedforward out of the crowd and declaimed. ‘But that’s Gwynne’ssister!’

There was a generalexhalation. Gwynne, must have been a tried and tested source ofneedless alarm. And who was to say her sister would be anydifferent?

But then a tall,lugubrious geezer wearing an old man’s coat piped up, ‘What are youtalking about? Gwynne hasn’t got a sister!’

There was a generalmurmur of mystification.

‘It was only a joke,’Phoebe said, appealing forlornly to Juliet. ‘Gwynne’s set us up.You know what he’s like.’

‘I happen to know thathe’s dead.’ This declaration was intoned by a late middle-agedwoman in a grey suit who, going by her demeanor, appeared to be amember of the Government. ‘It happened last night. Didn’t anyoneelse know?’

‘Gwynne’s not dead. Iknow he’s not,’ Carla snarled with contempt, ‘or I’d have heard offthe EasyHomes DIY Superstore by now, wouldn’t I?’

The woman from theGovernment opened her mouth, but a reply did not come out of it.Carla shouldered her aside and took a step towards Juliet.

‘It’s your baby that’sin danger,’ she yipped, gripping her belly like a bomb. Thenglancing round to check no one else was listening, she added inrasping whisper, just loud enough for next door to hear, ‘Gerald’sfeeding me drugs, you know. Trying to kill it so I don’t get yourfive thousand pounds. He can use it for stem-cell research. It wason the telly!’

Juliet shook her headand squeaked. All at once, the woman from the Government was inCarla’s