Did The Earth Move? Read Online Free PDF

them. Love everyone. That was his motto. And, in his way, he meant it.
    Deepa yanked her nightie off and stood up to try and locate her clothes. Tom quickly moved in behind her, cupping her breasts up in his hands and kissing the back of her neck.
    'This looks like a Benetton ad,' she said, looking at his white hands holding her brown breasts. We'd make a beautiful baby, she thought, just as he said it aloud.
    'What!?' she asked, turning round to face him.
    'We'd make a beautiful baby, you and me,' he repeated.
    'Tom, I'm halfway through a degree I've wanted to do for my entire life. I don't want a baby right now,' she snapped, 'I can't have a baby.' And then, for the first time since she'd begun to suspect that this was what was wrong with her, she began to cry. Great, embarrassingly helpless sobs.
    'Shhh,' Tom cuddled her against him and tried to soothe her. 'It'll be fine. You won't be pregnant, I know it... And you know, if... we'll do whatever you want Deeps. It'll be fine. People go through this stuff all the time.'
    She was crying really hard now.
    'Anyway, I love babies,' he added, hoping this would help.
    She punched his back for that.
    Now what? He couldn't exactly say: 'And I love abortions too.'
    'We have choices,' he said and suddenly felt a wave of panic. Was she really pregnant? Was this really going to happen to them? Jesus. What the hell would his mother say?
    'We need tea,' he said and gently set her down on the edge of the bed.
    He opened the door on the flat's tiny kitchen and set about trying to find the kettle.

Chapter Four
    Anna had woken as soon as the light filtered through the filmy curtains of her second bedroom, the one she had to herself and didn't have to share with her little brother.
    She checked the clunky diving watch, which she wore even in bed, and saw that it was a quarter to seven. Good. Her father and Michelle wouldn't be up for about two hours, so she would have the flat to herself. She would be able to do the secret guilty thing that she could only do here, when everyone was asleep.
    Wrapped in her blue dressing gown, she slipped out of the bedroom and into the sitting room where she quietly turned on the TV, then searched through the cabinet for the video which she knew was tucked down the back of the bottom shelf where she had left it last.
    She slotted in into the recorder and before she pressed play, she went into the kitchen to pour herself a bowl of cereal – one of the sticky sweet kinds her dad allowed her, Coco Pops, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes – and a glass of milk. Then she came back into the room and switched the tape on.
    She was planning to watch the full ninety minutes of action. Here was her mother breastfeeding while her dad videoed her, telling her how beautiful she was and how their baby, Anna, was perfect. Here, he reached out a hand and stroked them both as if he couldn't quite believe that the scene in front of him was real.
    But the bit that always made Anna cry was later on in the tape. Her mother was sitting in a deckchair in the garden. A crawling Anna was now at her feet, rummaging through a selection of baby blocks on the grass and the footage bumped along, Joseph obviously walking quickly as he filmed:
    'Hello there.' Eve was caught unawares, putting up her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.
    'Hello.' The camera swooped as Joseph bent to kiss her face.
    'What is it?' Eve asked with a laugh. 'You look incredibly secretive.'
    'OK, performance time.'
    'Oh... great.' Eve was trying to sound sincere. Then the camera was set down on the garden table and adjusted so that it focused on Eve in her deckchair.
    'I want to film your reaction,' Joseph explained.
    'I see. What, the full audience horror?'
    'Maybe.'
    Then he slung his guitar down from his shoulder, put his foot up on her chair and strummed a chord.
    "This is a home-made number.'
    'Oh, how . . . nice,' she settled on, but then couldn't resist, 'Should I cover the baby's ears?'
    'Ha, ha ... a one, two,