‘Stop it, all of you,’ Alice protested, but she was smiling now as well. ‘That was years ago, when we were young,’ she reproved them all mock primly. ‘Anyway, I’m not pregnant! It’s nothing like that. I’ve applied for and been accepted on an Open University course.’

There was a small silence whilst they all looked at her with varying degrees of amused kindness.

Because they thought her news wasn’t important, or because they thought that she simply did not have what it took to carry her plans through?

Why, when they were her friends, did she sometimes feel as though secretly, inwardly, they felt that she was inferior to them; that they treated her more as a junior member of their group than an equal? Why was it that people just never seemed to show respect for her and for her needs?

‘Goodness, Alice, if I’d known you’d got that kind of spare time I’d have co-opted you onto one of my committees,’ Stella was saying briskly.

‘What good news. I’m so pleased for you,’ Maggie offered warmly.

‘You’re a lot braver than I am,’ was Nicki’s slightly terse contribution. ‘I find it hard enough keeping up with Joey’s homework—just one of the pleasures of motherhood that’s going to come as quite a culture shock to you, Maggie,’ she added grimly.

‘Well, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,’ Alice admitted, valiantly trying to ignore Nicki’s barbed comment. ‘More for my own satisfaction than anything else.’

Her own satisfaction; those years and that sense of self she had suddenly started feeling that her early marriage had robbed her of? Once she would have immediately expressed those feelings to the others, but now somehow she felt reticent about doing so, and about revealing her small dreams for their probably critical inspection. After all, they had hardly greeted her news with any degree of awe or admiration, had they? If anything, it had fallen rather flat.

‘I need the loo,’ Maggie announced, pink-faced, as she stood up. As she made her way across the restaurant she refused to allow herself to mourn the little daydreams she had been entertaining of having her friends reminisce about their pregnancies, bonding with her in her joy and excitement; teasing her for her shy uncertainty about things they were experts on.

Tensely Nicki watched her go.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said grimly to Alice and Stella. ‘You know I’m right! If Maggie had wanted to be a mother she had ample opportunity to do so when she was married to Dan. Look, I’m going to go. Here’s enough to cover my share of the bill,’ she told Stella, pushing some money towards her.

‘Nicki …’ Alice protested unhappily, but Nicki simply shook her head and got up.

‘Oh, dear,’ Alice sighed, watching her leave.

‘I can understand how she feels, but she did go a little bit over the top,’ Stella pronounced judicially. When Alice looked uncertainly at her, she explained, ‘The probabilities are that Maggie is having this baby for all the wrong reasons. She has always been inclined to be impetuous, we all know that. She should be acting her age.’

Alice frowned as she caught the note of angry bitterness in Stella’s voice. What was wrong with them all tonight? Why did they seem to be so at odds with one another?

‘It would be awful if Maggie and Nicki quarrelled,’ she said, searching Stella’s face for signs that she shared her anxiety and disquiet. ‘She and Maggie have always been so close. We’ve all always been so close. Our friendship is a very important part of all our lives, isn’t it?’ she pressed.

In the ladies’ room, Maggie ran cool water over her wrists and tried to compose herself.

Her face was burning with pain and anger. This was not how she had envisaged her news being received. There was no laughter or sense of closeness bonding the others to her now, Maggie recognised. And for Nicki, Nicki of all people, to react in the way that she had!

As she returned to their table Alice told her awkwardly, ‘Nicki said to say goodbye. She had to go. I think she was worried about Joey. He doesn’t like Laura, apparently.’

Alice was lying to her, Maggie knew. Nicki had left because of her! Because of her baby!

As though she sensed what she was feeling Alice told her, ‘Don’t be upset by what Nicki said, Maggie. You’ve given us all a shock and Nicki …’

‘And Nicki is the same age as me and the mother of a nine-year-old son, but, of course, it’s different for her. After all, we all know how much Nicki wanted to have children; she even stayed with that rat of a husband of hers long after she should have left because she wanted to conceive so much. Now there’s irresponsibility for you, if you like. Nicki was being physically abused by Carl, and we all suspected it, but she lied to protect him, and she would have had his child, even though the statistics she’s so fond of quoting prove that physically abusive men often abuse their children as well as their wives!’

‘Come on, Maggie. We understand how upset you are, but that’s not—’ Stella began.

‘It’s not what?’ Maggie demanded. ‘It’s not fair of me to criticise Nicki, but it’s perfectly acceptable for her to criticise me?’

‘Oh, Maggie,’ Alice begged unhappily. ‘That wasn’t what Stella was trying to say … We’ve been friends for so long, we can’t let a little thing like this—’

‘A little thing? Is that how you see my baby, Alice? As something little and unimportant? Is that how all of you see me? Well, let me tell you, this baby, Oliver’s baby, my baby, means more to me than anything else, and that includes your friendship!’

‘Maggie, calm down,’ Stella intervened. ‘This isn’t doing you or the baby any good. Look, let’s get the bill. Then we can all go home and sleep on things.’

‘Yes!’ Alice agreed with obvious relief. ‘You did say that you didn’t want to be late anyway, didn’t you, Stella?’

Outside the restaurant they exchanged their customary hugs and kisses, but Maggie could sense awkwardness and constraint in place of their usual closeness. And it was all her fault. At least, that was obviously what the other three thought!

‘You know, I can’t help thinking that Nicki might have a point,’ Stella commented as Alice drove out of the car park. ‘I mean, Maggie has never been maternal. And if she is doing this because of Oliver …’

‘She might never have said that she wanted children, Stella, but she was always terrific with ours. The twins in particular adored her. They thought she was so much fun.’

‘Fun, yes. Maggie has always been that,’ Stella agreed. Suddenly wanting to make amends to Alice for her earlier refusal to reassure and support her, she added reminiscently, ‘Remember our pop group—that was Maggie’s idea. A ground breaking all-girl band, even if we never made it beyond a couple of gigs at the local youth club. That was when you met Stuart, wasn’t it?’

‘Don’t remind me.’ Alice groaned. ‘Those outfits … and that make-up! The music lessons our parents paid for, delighted by our desire to learn an old-fashioned accomplishment!’

‘I know. My poor father’s face when he walked into the garage and found us practising with our electric guitars.’

As they both started to laugh Stella’s austere expression softened. ‘Those were good times …’ she had to acknowledge.

‘Mmm. We thought we were so wild and cool, and in reality compared with today’s youngsters, we were very naïve.’

‘We thought you were sophisticated when you and Stuart started going steady! How does he feel about you doing this Open University course? I know he spends a lot of time away …’

‘I haven’t told him about it yet,’ Alice confessed, starting to relax. This was better, more the kind of reaction she had expected, and Stella could always be relied on for her calm, practical advice. ‘You know how he’s always been, Stella,’ she said tentatively. ‘He’s a wonderful man, kind, generous, loving …’

‘But?’ Stella invited, recognising her cue. And her role?

Were things perhaps not as good in Alice’s marriage as they all assumed, Stella speculated inwardly. Certainly Stuart never made any secret of the fact that he had a high sex drive, and she had sometimes wondered if Alice ever tired of keeping up with a man who was so sexually demanding. Initially in a relationship no doubt having that kind of intensity focused on you was exciting and ego-boosting, but after thirty years of marriage?

‘But … But nothing.’ Alice shook her head.

It wasn’t fair to criticise Stuart behind his back, even to her closest friends. After all, what if she did sometimes find him over-controlling? And then patronising her because she was so dependent on him … Compared to the appalling life Nicki had had to suffer with Carl, though, she had nothing whatsoever to complain about.

‘Do you know,’ she told Stella, changing the subject, ‘I think that’s the first time Maggie has ever mentioned the way Carl abused Nicki.’

‘Well, it’s a subject none of us likes to talk about, isn’t it? I mean, we were there when they met, and when they got married, and none of us had any inkling of what he was really like. We saw Nicki every week, and yet none of us knew what he was doing to her, and we should have known.’

‘She felt too ashamed to tell us. Her self-esteem was so low she had begun to believe Carl when he told her that she was the one who made him hit her. It was Maggie who found out in the end, and who made her leave Carl, helped her.’

They were outside Stella’s house. Alice stopped the car.

‘What do you think we should do about Maggie and Nicki?’ she asked Stella hesitantly.

Stella’s reply was prompt and unequivocal.

‘Nothing! Except keep our fingers crossed and hope things sort themselves out.’

‘Do you honestly think that they will?’

As she opened the door of the car Stella turned to look at Alice. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, pulling the collar of her coat up around her neck against the chill of the sharp wind. Spring might only be several weeks away, but that didn’t alter the fact that right now they were still in winter.

Being optimistic too soon and with too little cause was never a good idea, even if someone like Maggie could never be brought to accept that fact!

‘Is Hughie back yet?’ Stella asked Richard, slipping off her coat and going to fill the kettle.

‘I heard him come in a few minutes ago. He went straight upstairs,’ Richard told her. ‘Pleasant evening?’

‘No!’

Putting down his paper, Richard looked at his wife. She had been a slightly bolshy, outspoken junior probation officer when he had first met her—they had both belonged to the same ramblers group—and he had courted her steadily for two years before asking her to marry him. His widowed mother had initially been slightly hostile towards her, but that hostility had melted when Stella had produced Hughie.

‘So what happened?’ he asked curiously.

Handing him the cup of tea she had just made him, Stella sighed. ‘Maggie announced that she’s pregnant!’

‘At her age!’ Richard looked appalled. Much as he loved Hughie he had never been a ‘hands on’ type of father, Stella reflected ruefully. Night-time feeds and nappy changing had all been left to her. Not that she had minded. If she was honest, the love she had felt for her son as a baby had been far more intense and passionate than the calm, relaxed emotion she felt for Richard. Which did not mean, of course, that she didn’t love him. She did.

‘I certainly wouldn’t want to be in that position,’ Richard told her.

‘Well, we aren’t likely to be, are we?’ Stella replied wryly.

She knew it was unfair of her to remind him of the growing infrequency of their sex life. He was after all fifty-seven, they had been married for twenty-seven years, and sex had never been high on their list of shared priorities anyway. And at her age …

But she and Maggie were the same age, she couldn’t help inwardly reminding herself. And the idea of Maggie deciding she was too old to merit a good sex life was as preposterous as … as Maggie’s pregnancy? And it wasn’t just Maggie, was it? There was Alice with Stuart, and Nicki with Kit. No, none of her friends lived a life where sex was reduced to a rare occurrence, that sometimes actually bypassed even ‘high days and holidays’. Only she was expected to be non-sexual and like it!

Her frown gave way to a smile as the door opened and Hughie came into the room.

She and Richard were both tall, but Hughie was over six feet three, his body well muscled from the rugby he played. To her, though, Stella acknowledged, there was still something that was almost little-boyish about his face at times.

‘Mum, have you and Dad got a minute?’ he asked.

He was nervous, Stella could see that. Automatically her stomach tightened. This was something Maggie was going to have to get used to, this never-ending, relentless awareness of the vulnerability of one’s child, coupled with the frightening realisation of how little one could do to protect them and keep them totally safe.

‘Of course. Do you want a cup of tea? I’ve just made some,’ she offered.

‘No. No … Look … there just isn’t any easy way to tell you this … I know you’re going to be … Julie is pregnant and the baby is mine.’

Somehow or other, Stella discovered that she was sitting down, whilst Richard in contrast was now standing up, his shock showing in his eyes as he stormed furiously, ‘What were you saying about him being intelligent? My God! How the hell much intelligence does it take to use a bloody condom?’

‘I did … It burst.’

Nicki could see the Adam’s apple moving in Hughie’s throat as he swallowed. He was still a boy, really. A baby. Her baby! A wave of fiercely protective maternalism struck her. He was looking at her, waiting for her to say something, his puppy dog eyes pleading with her … trusting her …

Trusting her, Stella recognised as she forced herself to bite back the words, Are you sure it’s yours?

Richard, though, felt no such restraint, or tact, she realised as she heard her husband bursting out with the words that were hammering inside her own head.

Instantly Hughie went white, his hands clenching as he stared accusingly at his father.

‘Of course I am sure. Julie was … I was her first,’ he mumbled, brick-red. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘Maybe not, but what is our business is that our son, our clever, clever son, has got his girlfriend pregnant while she is still at school and he is in his first year at university! I thought you told me it was virtually over between the two of you.’

Richard was shaking his head, as though he still couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing.

‘It was … it is.’

‘It’s over?’ Stella knew she would never totally understand the world of the modern young, where a couple could fall in love, and commit to one another sexually only to tire of the relationship within months, if not weeks, and decide to go their separate ways. It had been so different in her own day. ‘So … so what …?’

‘Our relationship is over,’ Hughie agreed. ‘But that does not alter the fact that I am the father of Julie’s baby. And naturally I want to do the right thing for them both,’ he added proudly.

‘Naturally,’ Stella agreed, a small spiky shoot of hope beginning to emerge through the shocked chaos of her anxiety.

‘Of course, Julie wants to have the baby.’

The spiky shoot withered.

‘Of course,’ Stella acknowledged hollowly. Well, they did, these modern girls, didn’t they?

‘I will have to help support it … financially, I mean.’

‘Yes, you damn well will,’ Richard told him savagely. ‘And if you think for one minute that I am going to put my hand in my pocket to pay for your—’

‘Richard!’ Stella interrupted him warningly. ‘Obviously, we’re still feeling the shock at the moment, Hughie, but tomorrow I think your father and I should get in touch with Julie’s parents to discuss things.’

‘No … you can’t. There isn’t any point.’

‘What? Why not?’ Stella asked.

‘Julie’s father refuses to accept what’s happened. He’s thrown Julie out. He says he never wants to see her again.’

‘What?’

Now Stella was shocked. She had seen enough of what could happen to girls under such circumstances during her probation service days to feel genuinely protective towards Julie, and outraged by her father’s attitude.

‘Well, where has she gone—where is she?’

‘Here,’ Hughie told them uncomfortably. ‘Upstairs in my room. Ma … what else could I do?’ he appealed to Stella. ‘She is my responsibility. They both are, at least until the baby is born. I couldn’t just leave her. I mean, it’s not as if she’s got any other family to go to!’

‘All right, Hughie. I understand. You’d better go upstairs and bring her down.’ Stella sighed.

As soon as the door had closed behind him Richard exploded. ‘No way. No way are we going to have her here. Stella …’

‘What else can we do?’ Stella asked him logically. ‘And anyway, I don’t imagine it will be for very long. Her father will probably come round. And since Hughie is the baby’s father, I feel—’

‘I doubt it, from what I know of him. He and I were both in a local “Think Tank Group” a couple of years ago. Originally he’s from somewhere in the North—a small, very strait-laced mining town. He’s still got an enclosed community mentality, he’s very narrow-minded—bigoted, I would say. He wasn’t a very popular member of our team, definitely got a chip on his shoulder from somewhere.’

Stella frowned. ‘I didn’t know you knew Julie’s father—you never said.’

Richard gave a brief shrug. ‘The project ended and we went our separate ways. Not the sort of chap one would want to keep in contact with, really. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t think he’d be someone who would budge once he’d taken a stand over something. Bit of a soap-box operator when it comes to modern morals and so on. Likes to hold forth about the subject. He’ll consider Julie’s situation to be a serious loss of face.’

‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that she is his daughter …’

Stella stopped speaking as the kitchen door opened and Hughie ushered Julie in.

Dressed in baggy trousers and a huge loose top as she was, it was hard to tell that she was pregnant at all. Her face looked very pale, though, Stella acknowledged, and she could see the smudges of mascara on Julie’s cheeks where she had been crying.

In fact she looked as though she was about to start crying now, Stella recognised.

‘Julie, it’s all right,’ she said firmly, going up to the girl and putting her arms maternally around her. ‘Hughie has told us what’s happened. He says, though, that the relationship between the two of you is over … is that true?’

Ignoring the angry look Hughie was shooting her, Stella waited patiently for Julie’s reply. There was no way she wanted Julie to turn round at a later date and claim that Hughie had dropped her because she was pregnant. But, to her relief, Julie immediately nodded, her voice papery thin as she whispered, ‘Yes. I … we … I’m not going to keep the baby,’ she burst out tearfully, ‘but I couldn’t let my dad make me kill it and I know that’s what he would have tried to do.’

She was sobbing in earnest now, and Stella tried to calm her down.

‘Julie, it’s all right,’ she said reassuringly. ‘No one is going to hurt your baby. When is it due, by the way?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘Three months.’

Stella thought she must have misheard her.

‘Three months,’ she repeated. ‘No … I don’t think …’

‘It’s three months!’ Julie insisted stubbornly, shaking her head and begging Hughie, ‘You tell her.’

As she saw the confirmation in Hughie’s eyes Stella frantically grappled with the enormity of what she was facing.

‘Julie! Your parents … When did you tell them?’ she asked uncertainly. Three months! Had Julie registered with a doctor? The hospital? Had she …?

‘When Hughie came home. I couldn’t tell them before. I was too frightened … and I didn’t want to tell anyone until I knew it would be too late for anyone to make me do … anything.’ Her voice was stubborn, her facial expression saying that she felt proud of her actions, like a small child who thought she had outwitted the adults around her. Stella’s heart sank even further.

And it was certainly too late for anyone to make her do anything now, Stella acknowledged. Julie was seventeen, six months pregnant and still at school, and her father had thrown her out. Stella closed her eyes.

‘What am I going to do? I can’t go home! My dad …’ Tears were brimming in the huge washed-out eyes.

‘What you’re going to do for the time being is stay here with us,’ Stella told her as calmly as she could, firmly taking control of the situation. Over Julie’s downbent head she saw the look of relief and hope that Hughie was giving her, and her own eyes threatened to mist.

‘Thanks, Ma,’ he told her gruffly, coming over to give her a hug. ‘I told Julie you’d know what to do!’

Things would have to be sorted out with Julie’s parents, of course, a way found for her to go back home, but there was no point in them discussing that right now. Julie looked exhausted, and, now that she knew just how far advanced her pregnancy was, Stella felt seriously concerned for her.

Their house was an old Victorian three-storey one with plenty of bedrooms, and a granny suite on the top floor where Richard’s mother had lived whilst she had still been alive, so there was no problem in finding room for Julie. But the sooner she was back at home with her own family, the better, Stella resolved.

It was all very well for Hughie to face up to his responsibilities and to accept that he had them, but Julie’s parents had their responsibilities as well!

‘Mmm … I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve only been gone for four hours,’ Maggie tried to protest, but Oliver was too busy kissing her to let her speak properly.

‘Four hours, fifteen minutes and several seconds,’ Oliver corrected her as he cupped her face and smiled down into her eyes.

Irresistibly his glance was drawn to her mouth. Maggie had the most wonderful, the most sexy, the most kissable mouth he had ever seen. In fact, so far as he was concerned, Maggie had the most wonderful, the most sexy, the most kissable, the most lovable everything any woman possibly could have.

‘How was The Club?’ he asked her teasingly as he drew her closer, one hand in the small of her back, the other resting on her still-flat stomach. ‘I suppose they’ve all rushed home to knit baby clothes.’

To his bemusement and her own chagrin, Maggie immediately burst into tears.

‘Baby hormones,’ she excused her reaction to Oliver, but as she said the words she could hear inside her head Nicki’s voice, taut with anger and contempt, insisting, ‘You can’t be pregnant!’

As he registered the brief look of betraying bleakness in her eyes, Oliver demanded gently, ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

Maggie closed her eyes and took a deep, painful breath.

‘You are far too perceptive,’ she told him wryly.

‘We made a pact, Maggie,’ Oliver reminded her. ‘No game playing, no hidden agendas, no hidden anything between us.’ Lifting her hand to his lips and placing a kiss in her open palm, he added, ‘We agreed that our love deserves better than that.’

Now more tears were threatening her composure but for a different reason this time, brought on by a different emotion. Pain and joy—strange how in their intensity both could call forth the same physical response.

‘How could I ever forget us making that pact?’ Maggie answered him, her eyes luminous with her love.

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