The Time of Their Lives by Maeve Haran

Author:Maeve Haran [Haran, Maeve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781447268208
Publisher: Pan Books

CHAPTER 14

‘Bella, darling, are you really sure about this baby?’

It might seem a cruel or tactless question but Laura couldn’t bear it if the baby had been conceived to serve Simon right. Bella’s face, lit up by that fiendish little smile of triumph, had haunted her mother all night. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t be fair on you or the baby if you were doing it, even a little bit, to get back at Dad.’

‘Then it’s just as well I’m not, isn’t it? I think the timing’s quite funny, admittedly, and I will take a certain delight in telling him, but actually it happened by accident.’

Laura was sitting on the sofa in Nigel’s incredibly untidy flat. She glanced around her. The place had come furnished with odds and ends no one wanted and Nigel had supplemented this with pieces he’d found abandoned or in skips. There was a single light bulb lighting up Sleepy Hollow posters and a vampire bared his blood-soaked teeth from the other wall. Laura found herself wondering what baby Goths wore and had to shake herself back to reality.

‘Going ahead with it is different, though.’ She reached for Bella’s hand but Bella snatched it away.

‘Look, Mum, I know you’ve come to try and talk me out of it. I don’t earn enough, blah. This place is a dump, blah. Nige isn’t exactly an investment banker, blah. But I know all that, Mum; I’m twenty-four, not some pregnant schoolgirl wanting a free council flat. And the answer is yes, I do want this baby.’

Laura couldn’t help feeling a free council flat wouldn’t be that bad a thing.

‘But how are you going to support a baby?’

‘Nigel’s found a job.’

Laura found herself wondering what that might be. Bouncer at a Hell’s Angels convention? Body double for the Incredible Hulk?

‘He’s going to do supply teaching.’

‘Don’t you need training for that?’ Laura could remember all the horror stories Claudia’s Don told them about supply teaching. How they were given the worst pupils in the worst classes at the worst schools and even then the pupils traded mercilessly on their unfamiliarity with the place. Poor Nigel. Though maybe pupils would be less likely to try it on with a giant Goth.

‘Well, actually, he is trained.’ There was a hint of pride in Bella’s voice.

‘What as?’ The words slipped out before Laura had thought them through. ‘A football coach?’

‘An RE teacher. He studied theology at uni.’

Laura was lost for words.

‘OK, Mum,’ Bella’s tone took on a sudden intensity, ‘You obviously think this is a disaster, that I should be getting on the career ladder, making money and all that, but I really want this baby. Life’s made so much more sense since I found I was pregnant. I’m going to keep it safe and protect it! Always.’

Her fierce determination cut Laura to the quick, for implicit in her words was the fact that Laura herself had not succeeded in protecting Bella always.

‘Another thing, Mum.’ Bella reached out a hand covered in its new spider’s web tattoo.

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