Did The Earth Move? Read Online Free PDF Page A

it was a shame she wasn't in love with him. She'd decided that about a month ago now. She wasn't in love with him and she didn't think she ever could be. Not his fault, just one of those things.
    She looked at the bedside alarm clock: 7.18a.m. Shit. She was due over on the other side of town by ten and she had a lot to do – shower, shave, quick eyebrow pluck, nails, hair, make-up. This would be a great job, if she could get it. Every model she knew was after a shampoo contract. The money was amazing!
    She was preening herself in the tiny bathroom mirror when there was a banging on the door.
    'I have to come in,' came the choked voice on the other side.
    'Hang on,' Patricia said, peering closely at the eyebrows. Were they matching? Or was the left one just a little bit too high?
    'Please, it's urgent.'
    'Oh for God's sake.' She recognized the voice now. Tom's girlfriend Deepa, Miss Completely Bloody Worthy medical student, who could barely hide the fact that she thought Patricia was a total waste of space.
    She unbolted the door and Deepa ran in, lifted the toilet lid, bent over and threw up loudly.
    'Oh yuk,' Patricia gathered up her make-up tools and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her. It reminded her of the early days, all that miserable puking to stay thin. She'd graduated long ago to the ballerina method of two days a week, soup and fruit juice only.
    Deepa was heaving up again. She felt appalling. Beads of sweat were leaping out of her forehead, upper lip, back of her neck.
    She grabbed at a handful of toilet paper and wiped her face, then lurched over to the sink to splash herself with water.
    Finally, she felt able to let herself out of the bathroom and head back to Tom's room. She was going to have to tell him, oh no . . . just the thought of that and – she raced back to the toilet again.
    * * *
    'Are you OK?' Tom's messy head was surfacing from the tangle of mismatched pillows, sheets and blankets.
    'No.' She sat down on the edge of the bed beside him and put her hands up to support her head.
    'What's the matter?' He sat up now, stretched and put an arm round her, stroking her soft velvet brown shoulders and silky black bob.
    'Tom ...' She wasn't looking at him, she was focused on the battered old Oasis poster Blu-Tacked to the wall, 'I'm ten days late, I'm sick as a dog. I think I'm pregnant.'
    'Nah,' he said and carried on stroking the shoulders.
    'I wouldn't joke about this kind of shit.' She turned to face him now. 'I'm going to do a test today.'
    'I'm sure it'll be fine. We've been very careful.'
    'Hmmm.'
    He slipped out of bed, naked, and she watched the slim white buttock and thigh move past her face. Even from the depths of this horrible nausea, bubbles of desire still managed to burst up and she touched him as he passed.
    He went to the tumble of clothes heaped at the end of the bed and fished out black moleskin jeans, which he pulled on without anything underneath. Then came a long-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned 100% HEADSHRUNK TO FIT IN.
    'Chop chop, today is a work day, Deepy-beebs,' he said, as if pregnancies were announced at his bedside every day of the week. 'Do you want tea? Toast? Cereal? Other proof that I know how to keep house?' He was hopping about pulling on a sock, which she suspected was unwashed and maybe just a little bit crusty.
    'I love you,' she blurted out, which was very spooky because she'd never said it before, to anyone. She really must be pregnant: this was exactly the kind of thing pregnant women did, wasn't it?
    1 love you too,' Tom replied and carried on with the other sock. Totally unconcerned, because he said 'I love you' all the time – to every girlfriend, to his mum, to his brothers, to his sister, to his step-dad, to his boss, to the sandwich lady, the Australian barmaid at his local. He loved everyone. Thought there was quite enough crap flying about the world without people worrying so much about who they really loved and how much and should they tell