Free Between Friends by Jenny Harper Page B

folks, give the girl some air.’
    Her angel was brisk and kind and turned out to be a nurse at St Thomas’s Hospital. She was large and very black and spoke with a strong Welsh accent.
    ‘You feel better, my lovely? Did you have breakfast this morning?’
    She chattered inconsequentially and steadily until Jane grew calmer and the crowds lost interest.
    ‘My cello!’ Anxiety flooded through her and the sweat stood cold on her forehead.
    ‘Here. It’s safe.’
    Someone thrust the case into her hands and she grabbed at it with relief.
    ‘You go to your doctor, now, promise?’
    ‘I promise. And thank you. Thank you so much.’
    ‘You’re welcome, my darling. Take care now.’
    A few days later, and only because she had promised, Jane walked into her local surgery convinced that she would be prescribed a placebo and instructed to go away and eat sensibly.
    The doctor’s words make no sense.
    ‘You’re pregnant, Mrs Porter.’
    There was a nick on his throat, an early morning shaving error, onto which he had stuck a blob of cotton wool. It wiggled grotesquely up and down as he spoke.
    ‘Miss.’
    ‘Miss Porter.’ His smile disappeared and the cotton wool froze as he scanned her notes.
    It hit her later, as she walked out of his consulting room and onto a damp pavement.
    Pregnant.
    With Tom’s child.
    They had never discussed children, it hadn’t been on the radar, it was too early, their livelihoods were too precarious, but now – pregnant ?
    She itched to tell him. The baby was a blessing from heaven. Her beautiful man would come back to her and all would be well.
    She was in the flat at midday, which almost never happened. She’d been violently sick in the morning and was still feeling wretched.
    The lock scraped. Someone was opening the front door. Tom! It was four days, seven hours and sixteen minutes since she’d left the doctor’s surgery, and she had been rubbing her lamp and making her wish a thousand and one times.
    Her genie appeared.
    ‘Hello, Tom.’
    ‘Jane!’
    ‘You’ve come back.’
    ‘Just for the last of my things. I didn’t think you’d be here.’
    ‘But I am.’
    ‘So I see.’
    She turned, filled the kettle, replayed her tidings in her head, selected words.
    ‘Tea?’
    ‘No. Thanks. I’m just here to—’
    She dumped the kettle on the counter and swung round to face him.
    ‘We’re going to have a baby, Tom.’
    She said it in exactly the right way. Not, ‘I’m pregnant’. No coy euphemisms. A child. Their child.
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘Don’t be sorry. A baby. You’re going to be a father.’
    She didn’t see the violence coming. He moved across the space between them in an instant, caught her wrists in his hands, was holding them hard, twisting them, burning the skin viciously so that she cried out.
    ‘No. Don’t kid yourself, Jane. Get rid of it.’
    ‘Tom! You’re hurting me!’ She yelped with pain and shock. She had never seen Tom like this, his face twisted and dark with fury. ‘What are you talking about? I can’t—’
    He shoved her roughly against the table. The edge cuts across her buttocks painfully. ‘Is it mine?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘All those weeks away. Leeds. Manchester. Birmingham. Taunton. West-of-back-of beyond. Wherever. All those fiddlers ,’ he said the word sneeringly, ‘the drummers, the brass. Fine strapping men those brass players. Don’t tell me you never slept with them.’
    ‘Tom! I never – would never – how could you—?’
    ‘I’m told getting rid of these things is easy. Tell you what, I’ll be generous. I’ll even pay for it. There should be some cash in our account, unless you’ve been on a spending spree.’
    ‘I won’t! I can’t! I would never do that.’
    His face darkened and for a minute she thought he was going to strike her. Then he shrugged.
    ‘Suit yourself. Just don’t come running to me for cash when the kid needs school clothes – or anything else, for that matter. And don’t expect