Free The Truth Club by Grace Wynne-Jones Page B

call. I didn’t know if I was happy or sad until I found myself sobbing in my parents’ toilet. The tears arrived before I knew why I was crying. But, as I felt the tight twist of fear loosen inside my heart, I realised I was relieved. It didn’t seem like the right time. It wouldn’t have been the right kind of answer. But what would be? Had I even been asking the right questions?
    I managed not to be lured into Fiona’s house before we started this walk. She wanted to show me some new baby clothes, but I knew I would end up eating leftover cheesecake or moussaka, so I said we should meet at the pier. This would have been a good solution if an ice-cream van hadn’t been located directly beside me as I waited – and I had to wait a quarter of an hour, because Fiona was late. People were queuing, walking past me licking the creamy cones, and it seemed to me suddenly that ice-cream was one of life’s compensations. Buying one was seizing the day. Everyone died eventually, and perhaps one of the things they’d regret was all the ice-creams they hadn’t bought. I virtually ran up to the van and ordered a large cone with a piece of chocolate flake stuck into it. Then I ate it as if I’d never had an ice-cream in my life.
    When Fiona arrived, she looked unusually untidy. There was actually a small tomato stain on the front of her turquoise sweatshirt, and her hair was tied back with a shoelace. She looked like she had had the baby already and had succumbed to the tender, exhausting chaos. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to walk very far,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m so bloody tired. And it’s so hot!’
    It wasn’t all that hot, actually, but naturally I didn’t say this. ‘Are you sure you really want to go for a walk?’ I asked.
    ‘Of course I do,’ she said, somewhat brusquely. Then she added, ‘Look, when the baby is born, don’t go on about whether it looks more like me or Zak. I hate that kind of stuff.’
    ‘OK,’ I said slowly. Fiona can be a bit grumpy, very occasionally, but this was a whole new level. She was scowling furiously.
    ‘So let’s start this walk, shall we?’ she announced, striding ahead of me. ‘And don’t get pissed off if I suddenly have to pee.’
    She was in such a foul mood that I expected her to pee in the middle of the promenade if she felt like it. It must be the hormones.
    ‘I hate it when people start comparing noses and eyebrows,’ Fiona hissed. ‘A baby is just a baby. He or she doesn’t have to look like anyone in particular.’
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ I agreed, deciding to let her get on with it. I also decided not to tell her about the dream I had last night, in which I was giving birth myself. I was panting and groaning and heaving, and sweat was coming off me in buckets. At last it was over. ‘What is it?’ I asked Diarmuid, flushed with exhilaration. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ He held my hand tenderly, his eyes brimming with tears of joy. ‘Oh, Sally, darling, it’s a mouse. A beautiful white boy mouse.’ And the weird thing was, I wasn’t even that surprised.
    ‘They always say the baby has someone’s smile,’ Fiona continued. ‘I hate that too. The baby has his own smile. The baby is an individual.’
    ‘Indeed,’ I agreed. All this was reminding me rather too clearly of April’s arrival and how we all gawped at her.
    ‘I’ve told Erika she has to stop this thing with Alex,’ Fiona is now telling me. She’s sitting on a bench and panting. Her legs are sprawled out in front of her. She is making absolutely no attempt at decorum.
    ‘It’s hard to know what to say to her,’ I sigh, sitting down beside her.
    ‘No, it isn’t,’ Fiona snaps. ‘She’s being idiotic. He’ll never leave his wife. They never do.’
    ‘But they behave as if they might,’ I say. ‘And he does seem to have a lot of the… the qualities she’s been looking for.’
    ‘I won’t talk about him any more when she phones,’ Fiona says. ‘I simply won’t encourage