Free Nomance by T J Price

swine!
‘You know though, Carla, thinking about it, playing in a Psycho
House band at his age, and with only one leg . . . well, it’s an
example to us all. Gwynne was always young at heart, triple bypass
or no.’
    ‘Only one leg?’ Carla
was affronted. ‘He’s got more than that!’
    The man was
sympathetic. ‘No, he hasn’t, dear. It was in all the papers.’
    ‘I don’t read the
papers,’ Carla assured him, like her life depended on it. However,
she was already wondering how long it would be before Gwynne was on
the telly too. Might there be no escape?
    ‘Well, I did hear he
was in denial. Which, in a way, is quite an achievement in itself,’
the man reflected. ‘Still, lets forget I mentioned it. In any case,
he’s in a Psycho House band now, so it sounds like it hasn’t
stopped him living life to the full. And did you say he’s settled
down with someone? That’s just brilliant. At long last, eh?
Charmaine you say? You know, I’ve never thought of that as a boy’s
name.’
    Carla finally lost
patience with these imbecilities. ‘Are you on drugs too?’
    It was a simple enough
question and yet the guy didn’t seem to have an answer. That’s how
far gone he was. Carla gave him a dirty look and knocked her wine
back in one. She needed it.
    When she looked again,
the weird, jumpy geezer was gone.
    She turned a full
circle, but there was no sight of him. Troubled, she examined her
surroundings again and began to wonder whether she had come to the
right address. It was a strange place for anyone to live in. Bare
wooden boards and odd furnishings, many in buffed steel, made it in
some ways reminiscent of Gerald Lytton’s fancy clinic.
    The thought of the
clinic gave Carla a queasy sensation. She shut her eyes for a
moment and waited for her stomach to settle down. When she opened
them again, she found a small, frail woman with huge glistening
eyes standing in front of her.
    Carla looked the greasy
pixie up and down, but without comprehension.
    It spoke, ‘Hi, I’m
Tamsin. Feeling alright, dear?’
    Carla handed Tamsin the
empty wine glass. ‘Just so tired, really. I can’t seem to sleep
nights. I’d like to complain, but I’m scared he’ll get angry and,
you know, do stuff.’
    Tamsin gave her a
“knowing woman of the world” look. Carla knew this look well. It
was affected by many of her customers in Kew. ‘It’s your neighbours
is it?’ Tamsin commiserated. ‘They can be such noisy bastards,
can’t they?’
    Carla frowned. ‘I have
fabulous neighbours. Golden, they are. They’ve both got Alzheimer’s
and I never hear a peep out of them. No, it’s the doctor we have to
worry about. He has to be stopped and stopped soon, before he ruins
more lives.’
    ‘The doctor ? My
God, what did he do?’
    ‘Artificially
inseminated me.’
    At that, Tamsin’s
“knowing woman of the world” hit a brick wall.
    Smiling with grim
satisfaction, Carla went on, ‘I wouldn’t worry so much if it was my
baby I’m carrying, but it’s somebody else’s and the real parents
don’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 it
and chops it up for stem-cell research . . . you aren’t the real
mother, are you?’
    Tamsin, having given
this some deliberation, it seemed, said, ‘No, I can’t be the
mother. Twisted tubes, you see.’
    ‘Twisted tubes? You
don’t know how lucky you are.’
    Tamsin’s eyes grew
wide. Then they grew narrow. She looked down into the empty glass
in her hand and then giving Carla an elvish smile, she asked,
‘Would you like more wine, dear?’
    Carla nodded and Tamsin
fluttered off.
    But instead of wine,
she returned with a great lanky beast, almost as big as the ugly
geezer with the bongos. Carla stared up into the ghoul’s cold, but
marvelling eyes, and felt her insides undulating – always the first
sign of an agonising stomachache. Either that, or it was the onset
of