The Single Mums' Secrets - Janet Hoggarth Page 0,61

that happened it could be like a healing circle.’

‘Oh my God, have you turned into a hippie? A healing circle?’ I rolled my eyes like a bored teenager.

‘It’s all those grief books I’m dipping in to. You know I would never say shit like that in the real world.’

‘It’s so awkward though, Lou. The father doesn’t know. He’s with someone else, and I don’t think I can cope with all that as well.’

‘Does he need to know? Is he married?’ she said in a tone implying she was shocked at my behaviour.

‘No! He was single, but met someone else after we… got together.’

‘So it was a one-night stand? I didn’t think you did those!’

‘I don’t. Ever. He’s a friend.’

‘It’s not Tom, is it?’

‘Jesus Christ, no way! Can you imagine that?’

‘Not really, no. He’d love it though.’ She picked up her wine from the floor, obviously mulling over likely candidates in her head. ‘Will the father ever find out he’s the dad if you do go ahead and don’t tell him?’

‘Highly likely. He’s black.’

‘Oh, right.’ Her brow crumpled and she pursed her lips, pulling her thinking face. ‘Fucking shitting fucktits – is it Carl in the Mews?’

I didn’t say a word. My finger was stinging where I’d torn the hangnail.

‘It fucking well is, isn’t it?’ she cried gleefully. ‘Oh my God! He’s so fit.’

Despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn’t help a smile. Carl was indeed a handsome man but I’d managed to avoid him since the BBQ, even today at the party we barely got past a perfunctory hello. I lay back against the wall of tasteful swallow-print lemon-yellow cushions and sank into a fog. I’d shed a multitude of skins between the hideous night in the tent that had snatched away my fragile fertility. I was a completely different person by biology alone. All the cells in my body were fresh, the secrets of my past no longer cached within them. What was making me hang on to a belief system that I’d enforced to protect my heart?

Fear.

‘You must be viable for a nuchal fold scan by now,’ Louise said insouciantly. ‘But you need to be in the system first.’

‘I can’t… I can’t go through with it.’

‘Well, book in for an abortion tomorrow. Ring the clinic first thing.’

A dark crevice split open before me and I just wanted to bury my head inside it. I sipped my wine, but even that felt wrong now.

‘You could move in here and I could help you with the baby.’ Louise tried another approach.

‘Louise! No!’

‘Imagine it, we could be a single mum commune like Ali and her friend Amanda were. The baby would have a ready-made family here, doting cousins. Gemma would be so excited. Mum would have a fit though – you having a secret baby without the father knowing.’

‘Louise, stop. Like that would ever happen. I would have to tell him!’ The sneaky betrayal involuntarily slipped out.

‘Ha!’ She sipped her wine triumphantly and raised both eyebrows in a victory salute.

‘If I kept it.’ The more I protested, the more it grated. But the thought of going through with the pregnancy and all the complicated connotations made my head spin so out of control like being trapped on a runaway fairground waltzer.

‘Christa, I can make up for being shit.’ Louise put her wine glass down on the floor and sat up straight. ‘I won’t ever forget that summer and what happened.’

‘Louise—’

‘Please, let me speak. I promise I’m not going to make this about me. I know that’s what you think. But I need to say it.’ She took in a deep breath, expelling the last twenty-one years. ‘When that man raped you, I did initially believe you blamed me for it all, and for him stealing your chance to be a mum, even if you insisted you’d never wanted kids. Over time I realised that it wasn’t just that I was afraid of; what I found so hard to deal with was the fact you weren’t solid any more. You weren’t my big sister, this tower of strength that you’d always been. It made me feel scared. That was why I didn’t ring you. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to comfort someone who I’d always looked up to and who’d always looked out for me, someone who didn’t need anyone. When you told me you couldn’t have children, I was devastated for you because if someone had done that to me, I would hate them for