Free Nomance by T J Price Page A

labour.
    ‘Sweetheart, I hear you
want to find parents for the child you’re carrying.’ This
apparition, huge and threatening, with its ravaged and hectic face,
had a beautifully pure and crystalline voice.
    ‘Well, not any old
parents,’ Carla said, trying to sound calm. ‘They have to be the
right ones.’
    ‘Of course. But isn’t
it a bit soon to put it up for adoption?’
    Carla considered this.
‘Depends how much other people are willing to offer. You don’t want
a baby, do you?’
    ‘A baby? Me?’ The bogey
looked flummoxed for a moment. ‘No thanks. I’m blessed with a
complete absence of maternal instinct, dear.’
    ‘Fair enough. But if
you change your mind in the years to come, I can give you a piece
of advice – don’t ever go to Doctor Gerald Lytton.’
    ‘Doctor Lytton? Who’s
that?’
    ‘Phoebe, dear,’ Tamsin
said, ‘I think that’s the guy who assaulted her.’
    ‘He didn’t assault me,’
Carla interjected, ever a stickler for detail. ‘He explained what
he wanted to do from the very beginning, when we met in
Cyprus.’
    ‘Ah, a holiday fling,’
Phoebe said, adding with impressive authority, ‘a lot of bad shit
can go down on holiday.’
    ‘Sure, I was there on
holiday,’ Carla snapped, ‘but that’s beside the point. I’m a
working girl and there was no question of my doing it for
free.’
    Phoebe’s manner became
righteous. ‘A working girl? Well, that’s great, dear. I really mean
that. You know, I totally support full legalisation for working
women. Like all our sisters, I think working women get a raw
deal.’
    ‘I got a raw deal, all
right. Five thousand pounds – not a penny more. He was
adamant.’
    ‘ 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?’ Carla
said, disgusted. ‘Do you think I’d have stood for that? He wore
rubber gloves.’
    Phoebe leaned back.
‘But as I understand it, he made you pregnant.’
    ‘Getting pregnant was
part of the deal.’
    ‘What?’ Phoebe was
outraged. ‘Some men have the most bizarre fantasies . . . ’
    Tamsin shook her head
vigorously. ‘No, no, Phoebe, you don’t understand. She’s talking
about artificial insemination and a mad doctor.’
    Carla scowled in
disgust. ‘What the fuck else did you think I was talking about?’
But her annoyance petered out. She had begun to feel dizzy. Her
stomach was churning.
    Tamsin looked
concerned, ‘Are you alright, dearie?’
    ‘No, I don’t think I
am.’
    Phoebe got excited.
‘When is your baby due, darling? Not now?’
    ‘I’ve told you,’ Carla
snapped. ‘It’s not my baby – it belongs to Juliet Westhrop.’
    ‘Who?’ Phoebe
hooted.
    ‘Juliet Westhrop.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Oh Christ, is this the
nut house or something?’
    ‘Never mind that,’
Phoebe said with diabolic avidity. ‘Just tell me one more time
whose baby it is and then I promise we shan’t ever refer to it
again.’
    Carla answered in a
cold voice. ‘You tell me something first. Who lives here?’
    Tamsin’s eyes grew wide
and fearful, and she put her hand on Phoebe’s arm as if to restrain
her.
    ‘Juliet Westhrop,’
Phoebe said in a hushed tone of expectancy.
    ‘There’s your answer,
then. It’s her baby.’
    At this Phoebe quivered
like a huge coiled spring. Tamsin withdrew her hand in trepidation
as the fiend scanned the crowd. She soon spotted her target.
    ‘Juliet, darling,’ she
hollered across the room with boundless mirth, ‘come over and meet
Carla. Guess what? She’s having your baby!’
    A deathly silence
descended upon the room.
    Finally, Carla was able
to set eyes on Juliet Westhrop. She was the one whose face, one of
a refined, metropolitan beauty, sagged now and went grey, like an
old pair of Y fronts.
    Tamsin whispered, ‘Oh, Phoebe !’
    Hearing that, Carla
thought to