Free Nomance by T J Price Page B

herself: this Phoebe makes the same mistake over and
over again .
    And indeed, Carla could
now enjoy the spectacle of Phoebe wither under the flames of
contrition. It seemed to have dawned on her she’d made a faux pas.
However, Carla’s pleasure soon dimmed when she noticed everyone in
the room was staring at her reproachfully. It seemed she was being
singled out for interrupting them in the middle of a crucial
sentence, and not Phoebe.
    The jumpy geezer, that
drug-addict Carla had spoken to first and who knew Gwynne, stepped
forward out of the crowd and declaimed. ‘But that’s Gwynne’s
sister!’
    There was a general
exhalation. Gwynne, must have been a tried and tested source of
needless alarm. And who was to say her sister would be any
different?
    But then a tall,
lugubrious geezer wearing an old man’s coat piped up, ‘What are you
talking about? Gwynne hasn’t got a sister!’
    There was a general
murmur 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 that
he’s dead.’ This declaration was intoned by a late middle-aged
woman in a grey suit who, going by her demeanor, appeared to be a
member of the Government. ‘It happened last night. Didn’t anyone
else know?’
    ‘Gwynne’s not dead. I
know he’s not,’ Carla snarled with contempt, ‘or I’d have heard off
the EasyHomes DIY Superstore by now, wouldn’t I?’
    The woman from the
Government 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’s
in danger,’ she yipped, gripping her belly like a bomb. Then
glancing round to check no one else was listening, she added in
rasping whisper, just loud enough for next door to hear, ‘Gerald’s
feeding me drugs, you know. Trying to kill it so I don’t get your
five thousand pounds. He can use it for stem-cell research. It was
on the telly!’
    Juliet shook her head
and squeaked. All at once, the woman from the Government was in
Carla’s way again.
    ‘Listen sweetheart, who
is this Gerald? Please tell me, so I know what to say when I call
the police.’
    Before Carla could open
her mouth, Tamsin intervened on her behalf, ‘Gerald’s her doctor,
Helena, and her doctor appears to be mad.’
    Carla heard the news
race round the party – mad doctor!
    Helena produced a
glacial smile. ‘Well, if you don’t want to go back to hospital
because your doctor is mad, you don’t have to. But dear, you can’t
stay here, now can you? So, tell me, what is it exactly that you
want to do?’
    Carla clutched at her
stomach as the pain dazed her for a moment, then, collecting her
thoughts, she made a supreme effort to carry on like nothing was
wrong and to answer the question.
    ‘I want to supply all
the flowers for your funeral,’ she wailed. ‘So before you die,
could you please call Rupert Nodes. You can’t go wrong – he was
established in eighteen ninety-nine.’
    And with that she sank
to the floor in agony.
    Once down there, she
assumed the position – it always eased the pain to get her knees as
close as possible to her ears.
    Apart from her grunts
and snorts, an utter and complete silence descended on the
room.
    Till Tamsin spoke, that
is. Or rather, screeched, ‘My God, she’s gone into labour!’
    Carla dropped her legs
in alarm and also screeched. ‘What?’
    She gaped at the
towering figures around her. The guy with the bongos clutched them
to his chest in horror. Phoebe reached out to take the lugubrious
man’s arm, but the lugubrious man took a deft step out of reach and
she gripped the freestanding lamp instead. And Juliet – Juliet put
her hands to her sheet-white temples now and emitted a
spine-tingling shriek.
    ‘Dear God, not on my
floor!’
    This banshee cry sent a
convulsion through the crowd. Many were galvanised into action.
Amongst cries for towels and boiling water and – Call