Free Tangled Lives by Hilary Boyd Page A

other night. I met him at Marjory’s last Saturday.’
    Ed was silent, his head dropped.
    ‘Why did you give him away?’ Marsha’s expression seemed puzzled rather than disapproving.
    Annie was aware of a strange lightness in her body, as if the secret, now expelled, had had a material weight. It made her feel almost dizzy. Here was the question at last.
    ‘I … well, I … it was too late to have an abortion. I didn’t realise I was pregnant till I was four months gone.’ Lucy looked surprised, Ed still said nothing. ‘And anyway, it wasn’t so easy to get an abortion in those days.’
    ‘Who was the father?’ Marsha asked.
    ‘Just a boy I met. He … wasn’t important. A mistake really.’
    ‘And he didn’t want anything to do with the baby?’ Lucy queried.
    ‘I didn’t tell him.’ Annie heard the questions as if they were familiar stations on an Underground map. She had repeated them to herself so often, over so many years, and they were all interconnected, all leading one to another to another, but she had never arrived at a final destination, a reply that would end all questions.
    ‘It was such a different time,’ Richard said. ‘Your mother had no economic independence. She felt she didn’t have a choice.’
    She knew she should have been grateful to her husband for his support. But in fact she felt a surge of annoyance.
    ‘Don’t, Richard … please. I did have a choice. I knew of other girls who kept their children. But my mother was so horrified at how it would look to the parents if I was suddenly toting an illegitimate baby around her precious academy that I gave in. I was weak. And I’d led such a sheltered life.’ She paused again. ‘Mother sent me off to Marjory Best. That was how I met her and became friends. She took in pregnant girls like me, who had nowhere to go.’
    ‘What’s he like?’ Ed finally spoke. The face she knew so well was suddenly inscrutable.
    She took a long breath. ‘Well, he’s … he’s great. He’s thirty-five, he used to be in advertising, but now he writes plays, he read English at Cambridge. He’s really beautiful, he looks incredibly like Great-Uncle Terence. I thought he was charming, easy to talk to. I really liked him.’
    ‘So this is why you’ve been so weird!’ Lucy said.
    ‘Yeah,’ Marsha added. ‘We’ve been trying to work out why for days. You’d have laughed at some of our suggestions.’
    ‘You worried us,’ Ed stated, his tone faintly hostile.
    ‘So,’ she said, unsure what to say next. ‘You’re not shocked and horrified?’
    There was a small silence, then Marsha said, ‘Well, Mum, I’m surprised, sure. Shocked even, I suppose. But why would we be horrified?’
    ‘I think it’s exciting, having a new relly,’ Lucy declared.
    Annie turned to her son.
    ‘I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us before.’ He wouldn’t look her in the eye.
    ‘I’ve always felt so ashamed of what I did. I thought you’d think I was a terrible person for giving my baby away.’
    There was another short silence.
    ‘And it was hard, when you were children, to find the right moment,’ Richard added.
    ‘I can’t imagine having my baby adopted.’ Lucy said quietly. She reached across the table and took her mother’s hand in hers. Annie held it tight.
    ‘But why couldn’t you keep him?’ Marsha persisted, ever the truth-seeker. ‘Grandma had enough money. She could have paid for you to get a flat on the other side of London so those stupid parents wouldn’t be offended.’
    Annie felt a pricking in the back of her throat and swallowed hard.
    ‘You’re right, of course. But at the time …’
    ‘I’m sure you’d have kept him if you could’ve, wouldn’t you?’ Lucy said.
    Would I? She thought. Would I have kept him if my mother had supported me? I suppose so, but not happily. The truth is, I was young and thoughtless, I wanted my freedom.
    ‘Mum … he really is your son, is he? I mean, how do you know?’ Ed’s