Free Motherlove by Thorne Moore Page B

wait, then turned aside to speak to Mick Crier who was passing with his Rottweiler.
    He had seen her! She got up, switched on the fire and looked around wondering what else she could do to welcome him. She kept her coat on.
    She heard swearing as he passed Tyler, kicking him out of the way. Running up the stairs. Door swinging open.
    â€˜Gary!’ She rushed to him, wrapping her arms round him. He brushed her aside, so he could push into the room. Cropped hair, stocky, less weight on him than when he’d gone inside. The same good looks though. The same cocky confidence in those looks and in his ability to survive. Her man.
    â€˜Gary, I didn’t know if it was today or not. Drake said you was coming out. I would have come to meet you. Oh Gary!’ She wanted to cling to him again, but he held her casually back, grabbing and swigging a lager. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and turned to look round. At her, briefly, with his old grin, then round the room, nodding, accepting that it would do.
    â€˜All right, all right. No need to fuss. Got out this morning. So, you pleased to see me then, girl?’
    â€˜Oh Gary, I been that desperate without you.’ No, he wouldn’t want to hear about her troubles. ‘But you’re home now. I’d have come more but when they moved you I couldn’t afford the fare.’
    He laughed. ‘Always were fucking useless on your own. Never mind, eh. Home now. You going to give me a kiss or what?’
    She rushed to him, arms thoughtlessly wide, coat swinging open.
    She stopped, at his expression.
    â€˜You. Stupid. Bitch.’
    â€˜Gary…’
    â€˜Stupid fucking bitch. Who’ve you been screwing then, while I’ve been inside?’
    â€˜No one, Gary, honest.’
    â€˜Don’t you lie to me. Don’t try and tell me it’s mine.’
    â€˜It is, Gary. I promise. I wasn’t with no one else.’
    â€˜Oh no? How d’you get by then, without me, if you weren’t on the game?’
    â€˜I got a job, Gary. Cleaning offices. Honest. Until I started getting sick and they dumped me. ‘Cos of this.’ She looked down at her swollen belly, pushing out the over-tight sweater.
    â€˜You stupid cow.’ He snarled at her lump. ‘It’s not mine.’ He stared at her with the look he used on customers who wouldn’t pay up.
    She didn’t dare reply, just waited.
    â€˜Are you so fucking stupid you didn’t think of getting rid of it?’
    â€˜I didn’t know how, Gary. Didn’t know what to do.’
    â€˜Stupid cow! Well, you can fucking get rid of it now.’
    â€˜I can’t, Gary.’ She was half crying, half pleading, knowing that neither would work with him. He didn’t like whiney women. ‘It’s too late. They won’t do an abortion or nuffin’ now.’
    â€˜I told you, get rid of it, bitch.’ Here it came. She could see the explosion rippling up within him, bursting out at last. ‘Or I’ll get rid of it for you.’
    Even in the middle of the night it was never quite dark in the room, because of the street light outside and the thin curtains, but the light was softer tonight in the freezing fog. Lindy shivered under the quilt and tried to get more comfortable on the mattress, rubbing her feet up and down to warm them. No Gary to share his body’s heat. He was out, she didn’t know where. Didn’t know if he was coming back. She’d asked but he was still too mad to reply.
    Maybe it would make a difference if she lost the baby. She might. He’d punched her so hard she’d almost passed out. But she hadn’t started bleeding or nothing. Now she didn’t know what to do. There were ways of dealing with babies, other girls had told her, but that was for when you first got pregnant, not for when you were eight months gone. Things she just hadn’t done. Like she hadn’t accepted Carver’s