Lullaby Read Online Free PDF Page B

arrived home. She trod lightly into the room, as done-up as a Christmas tree, and randomly I thought I really must help her out sometime, teach her not to look quite so obvious.
    Then I was thrust back into my hideous reality as I sensed how thrown the girl was by my tears. She lookedaway again, as if she was embarrassed—only I’d never, not in the three months she’d been here—known her to be thrown by anything. Maxine was the kind of girl who would walk stark naked from bedroom to shower every day if she could get away with it, the kind of girl who didn’t mind who got a jolly good eyeful. Early on she’d paid the price for her insouciance, though, reckoning without Mickey’s foul morning temper: he’d finally bollocked her as I listened with some relief behind the bedroom door. He gave her short shrift indeed about her skimpy little towels—although apparently she’d just shrugged.
    Leigh took Maxine into the other room as I attempted to pull myself together a bit. I got through a packet of tissues, and my eyes were all puffy and sore, but eventually my wheezing calmed. After a while they appeared in the doorway together, Maxine towering over Leigh, her shadow all lengthy down the hall.
    ‘I’m sure Mr Finnegan, he will return soon, no?’ she said. ‘I just come back to get my purse, but—
si tu veux—
you want me to stay?’ and her funny plasticine face almost trembled with the effort. And I saw her crooning to Louis in French, rocking him gently to and fro, so natural when I’d been so scared at first, crushed beneath the weighty terror of my new responsibility. I shuddered at my jealousy as she sang him old songs like ‘Frère Jacques’ and he beamed up at her; remembered painfully how my tummy had squirmed and I’d felt like such a failure. Now the guilt lacerated me, and I clenched my fists as all my petty jealousies came back to punish me. If Louis could just come home now,Maxine could sing to him anytime she liked and I’d never ever feel envious again.
    And then another car pulled up outside and beeped, once, and then again, and I rushed to quiet it because of the baby, and then I remembered the baby wasn’t here, and I rammed my nails into my palm again, and then I thought perhaps it might be Mickey, so I threw the window open, but it wasn’t, it was just Maxine’s date. He beeped again, all arrogance, dark brows and silly phone headset as he tapped an impatient gold-bracelet rhythm against his shiny red car, and he wouldn’t catch my eye though I was sure he saw me, but slicked his hair back in the mirror instead.
    ‘Oh no, Maxine. Don’t worry.’ I sniffed hard, hating the fact she’d seen me cry. ‘New bloke?’ I said, too brightly. ‘Nice motor. But whatever happened to the lovely Leo?’ and Maxine flushed beneath her peroxide hair, and muttered something about him still being around. The fug of perfume that she left behind her probably belonged to me. With discomfort I remembered that sometimes—often, if I was honest—I’d felt left behind, by Mickey, by my friends, even by Maxine—jealous of their exciting, carefree lives, my freedom truly finished by motherhood. I was tied to Louis and the house. But someone else had Louis now—and I’d kill them for that tie.
    Leigh got me a glass of water, and then she changed her mind and found some brandy instead, which I’d never normally drink—but now I downed it in one.
    ‘You might want to sort that out, Jess,’ she said ratherstiffly, and I realised that my poor over-full boobs had leaked all over my new T-shirt, staining it. What with my dirty skirt I was looking a right old state. Not that I cared.
    ‘Go and get changed. You’ll feel better. I’ll hold the fort,’ she said, but I shook my head.
    ‘I can’t. The police—’ I mumbled. But she prodded me upstairs anyway and stuck me in the shower, where I leant against the tiles and sobbed and sobbed, watching the blue-white milk dribble from my swollen bosom. I