Free City Girl by Patricia Scanlan

straight from school to matrimony to motherhood.
    ‘And what’s more, Devlin, I think . . . ’ What Lydia thought Devlin never discovered because a wave of nausea overcame her and she had to flee to the bathroom. She retched
miserably, cursing the day she was born.
    When she came out of the bathroom her mother was waiting for her and there was a granite-like grimness about her features that caused Devlin’s heart to sink.
    ‘I want the truth from you, Devlin.’ She stared at her daughter with eyes as cold and forbidding as a fjord in winter. ‘This dizziness and sickness. Is there any reason for it
and the peaky way you’ve had about you lately?’
    Shocked into silence Devlin could only stare back mutely.
    ‘Were you misbehaving in Portugal?’
    Misbehaving! Devlin felt a wry amusement at the term. It always brought to mind children playing in puddles or pulling hair and spitting. It was a word of childhood, not a description of the act
she had performed with Colin.
    ‘Are . . . you . . . pregnant?’
    Each word was enunciated with a savage intensity that stunned Devlin. The words hung in the air between them like a guillotine ready to descend on her admission of guilt. Speechless, she could
only stare at her mother.
    ‘Jesus! Will you answer me!’
    Devlin had never heard her mother use the Holy Name and it gave her a funny little shock. Coming from her mother’s lips it seemed like blasphemy. Swallowing hard, knowing there was no
point in denying it, she met her mother’s eyes. ‘Yes Mum, I’m pregnant . . . I’m sorry,’ she said inadequately.
    Pain, anger, horror, were etched on Lydia’s fine features as she stared at her daughter.
    ‘Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus!’ she muttered almost to herself, in a voice of such anguish that Devlin felt a lump rise to her throat.
    ‘I didn’t mean to,’ she whispered, frightened at the expression on her mother’s face.
    ‘You didn’t mean to . . . ’ Lydia raged at her. ‘Do you know what you’ve done . . . don’t you know how people will talk? My God Almighty, is this the way you
repay Gerry and me for all we’ve done for you? Oh my God, the shame of it . . . the shame of it!’ She was sobbing harshly now, her mascara running down her cheeks in black smudgy
streaks. Her hands, heavy with jewellery, were grasping each other so tight that the veins in them bulged bluely.
    Her father, who had heard the commotion and raised voice of his wife, came hastily up the stairs, puffing a little as he got to the top. ‘Lydia! What’s wrong?’
    ‘What’s wrong? Ha . . . ask
her
what’s wrong!’ his wife cried noisily, almost hysterically, her natural restraint gone because of the brandy and wine she had
consumed during the course of the evening.
    Shaking with reaction, dry-mouthed, her heart thudding so loudly that she was sure it was audible, Devlin told her father and watched and hated herself as his face crumpled in pain and
disappointment.
    ‘Ah Devlin, Devlin,’ was all he could say, shaking his head in disbelief. Gerry had never been able to chastise her; that had always been left to his wife. The pain of her
father’s reaction was a memory of guilt she would always carry, the way he had seemed to age visibly before her, his shoulders sagging as he saw his daughter fall from the pedestal that he
had so proudly erected for her.
    ‘I knew something like this was bound to happen when she went to that flat,’ Lydia was sobbing and hiccuping into his shoulder. ‘She’s just like her mother!’
    ‘Shush! Shush, Lydia, you’re distraught. Go and lie down for a while,’ her husband urged.
    Devlin felt icy tentacles of fear curl around her insides, gripping and squeezing. ‘Wait a minute, Mum! What do you mean?’ Her voice became high-pitched as various little memories of
past years flashed through her mind, like the time Lydia and Gerry had been arguing and Lydia had been shouting, ‘We should have told her at the beginning,’ and Devlin