‘So the play went well?’
‘It was brilliant. You should come and see it – you and Anna. Your mum said you’re coming home for Christmas.’
‘Anna?’ He frowned.
‘Oh, I meant Inez.’ Damn, that was a hard habit to break.
‘Why do you keep calling her Anna?’
‘It’s how I used to think of her in my head,’ she admitted. ‘Anna Purna.’
Ben’s eyes twinkled in amusement. ‘First name Anna, last name Purna?’
‘Exactly.’
He gave a hoot of laughter. ‘I must tell her that.’
‘Oh god, don’t!’ Sive gasped.
Ben smiled around his beer bottle as he took a swig.
‘She’ll think I’m an awful bitch.’
‘She won’t,’ he said when he’d swallowed. ‘She’ll think it’s funny.’ He put the bottle down and fell silent for a moment. ‘You should meet her,’ he said then. ‘I think you’d like her.’ His voice was soft, tentative, but she knew him well enough to tell he wasn’t as nonchalant as he was trying to appear. He needed her to get on with Inez because she was his partner now, so she’d be in Bean’s life too – which meant she’d also be part of Sive’s.
She knew he was right, and she didn’t really have any reason to bear a grudge against Inez. It wasn’t her fault she’d fallen in love with Ben, or he with her, and she believed him when he said that nothing had happened between them in Nepal.
If Ben hadn’t broken up with her, Inez would have become nothing more than a distant memory for him, someone he’d had a brief connection with, who lived in a different country and was unlikely to cross paths with him ever again – someone he might think about once in a while, less and less as the years went on. But nothing would alter the fact that a little bit of Ben’s heart would always belong to her. It would have been wrong for all of them. So she’d make the effort to get on with Anna – Inez. She should probably start with calling her by her proper name.
‘I’ll email you the scan photo, so you can show it to her.’
‘Thanks.’
Sive shifted on the bed to get more comfortable, plumping up the pillows behind her.
‘Are you in my room?’
‘Yep. Your mother was fine with it. It’s not as if we can get up to any mischief on a Zoom call.’ She smiled. ‘Anyway, the damage is already done. Not that I’d call Bean damage.’
‘Show me again.’
Sive smiled and held the photo up again for him to see.
‘It’s weird, isn’t it? Does it feel weird?’
‘Knowing there’s a whole human being growing inside me? It’s beyond weird.’ She put the photo down again.
‘But everything’s okay?’
‘Yeah, it’s all proceeding as normal. My official due date is May eleventh. Though Bean might have other ideas.’
‘Do we know what it is yet? Girl bean or boy bean?’
‘No. They could have given me a fairly accurate guess, but they can be more definite at the next scan, so I said I’d wait until then. Do you want to know?’
‘Yeah, unless you don’t.’
‘No, I’d like to know.’
