She smiles gratefully.
A few minutes later I drop her files off at Janet’s office. Sally Ann is in the waiting room, reading one of Nina’s oldNMEs that I’ve brought in from home.
‘They were my daughter’s,’ I say. ‘I’ve never heard of most of the people in them.’
‘My boyfriend’s in a band and their new single is reviewed in here.’
Of all the times we’ve chatted, I’ve never asked her about the father of her baby. She doesn’t wear a wedding ring and he hasn’t accompanied her to any appointments so I assumed he was no longer in the picture. ‘Are they popular?’
‘They’re working their way up,’ she says, and it’s hard not to recognise the pride in her smile.
‘Can I have a look?’
She passes me the magazine. ‘That’s them, The Hunters,’ she points out.
My heart starts to race. ‘Which one is your boyfriend?’ I ask, hoping that it’s the long-haired man pictured in the centre who only recently warned me there was nothing I could do to stop his affair with my underage daughter.
‘That’s him. That’s Jon.’
I pause for a moment until I know my voice won’t sound thin. ‘I bet the girls love him,’ I say.
‘Tell me about it. He gets a lot of attention.’
‘I don’t know how I’d cope with that if I were you. Is he away from home a lot?’
‘He is going on tour a couple of months after we have the baby. But I trust him. He knows which side his bread is buttered.’
‘I’m sure he does. How long have you been together?’
‘Since I was fourteen, but don’t tell anyone that.’ She giggles. ‘My parents don’t like him and think I’m making a massive mistake settling down so young. But when you know something’s right, you just know, don’t you?’
I nod my head, but I don’t mean it. Hunter is doing to my daughter exactly what he has done to this poor girl. I wonder how many others he has, dotted about the town. I have the urge to tell her she’s being made a fool of and that her pervert boyfriend is a cheat. But I can’t bring myself to be the one to break her heart in her condition. So I leave with a smile and make my way back to reception.
The end of my working day can’t come quickly enough and when the clock reaches 5 p.m., I grab my coat and I’m out of the door. En route home, I rehearse what I’m going to say to Nina. I’ll slip Sally Ann into the conversation over dinner. I’ll casually ask Nina if she’s heard of The Hunters, then tell her I met the singer’s pregnant girlfriend in the surgery. Her imagination will do the rest.
Since discovering their relationship, I have said nothing to her about it. She has continued to lie to me about staying at Saffron’s house, and I have continued to play along with it. Hunter has me over a barrel. I can’t risk losing her.
I slip my key into the front door lock, but it’s already open. I take a deep breath and tell myself that if I remain poker-faced, this should all go like clockwork. ‘Hello?’ I shout, then work my way around the ground floor of the house until I reach the foot of the stairs. It’s then that I hear it – a moaning coming from behind Nina’s closed bedroom door.
I stop in my tracks, listening closely and hoping to God that she doesn’t have Hunter under my roof and in her bed. She knows that I return from work at around this time – is she really so deep under his spell that she would take such a risk? I climb the stairs and falter outside her room. There’s another moan followed by a shortness of breath. I cover my mouth with my hand, furious at the position she’s putting me in. But I cannot just walk away and pretend this isn’t happening. I cannot let Hunter get away with it. I bang on the door with the palm of my hand.
‘Nina,’ I say loudly and firmly. ‘Get dressed, I’m coming in.’
It’s the way in which she whimpers the word ‘Mum’ that alerts me to the fact that I may have got this all wrong. I grab the handle and open the door, and find Nina alone. But I struggle to make sense of what I’m seeing.
She is wearing a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms and I gawp at her exposed, swollen stomach. It’s then that I realise that not only is my daughter pregnant, but she is in labour too.
CHAPTER 27
NINA
TWENTY-THREE YEARS EARLIER
I hear Mum’s faint ‘Hello’ from downstairs and I know that I can’t keep my pregnancy a secret from her any longer. I’ve done everything I can to hide it but I’m in too much pain, and I need her. As she opens the door, it takes her a moment to realise what she’s seeing.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ I begin before I start howling again.
‘You’re ...’ she says, but she can’t finish her sentence.
