The Baby Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘I can’t bloody believe it.’
    Olivia allows herself a grin. ‘Some birthday surprise.’
    Jonty remains silent, his face still strained.
    â€˜What I don’t understand is …’ Olivia watches as Ben twists the latch to open the door, his face open, waiting, ‘who the hell is the father?’ Olivia’s voice is tense. She can’t get it out of her head. Nicola has not had a boyfriend for over a year. She’d assumed her friend was still a virgin. She remembers precisely the day when she’d told Nicola about her first time with Jonty. They’d been on the swings sucking ice pops, and Nicola’s eyes had sparkled with interest when Olivia had told her everything. Isn’t that what best friends did? It doesn’t feel right that Nicola hadn’t told her.
    And then she can’t help noticing how quickly Jonty rushes through the door. She watches the back of his head, remembering the odd look which passed between them as Nicola held the baby in her arms.
    And suddenly she doesn’t feel good. Blood rushes to her cheeks which makes her feel faint. She doesn’t like the thought of the look. She doesn’t like it one little bit.
    Suddenly it feels, with this new and unexpected arrival, that nothing will ever be the same.

There’s a sharp rap on Nicola’s bedroom door. She winces and thinks of the sleeping baby. Her mum doesn’t seem to have remembered. It’s like she forgets on purpose sometimes. Her mum’s head pokes through the gap between door and frame. The corners of her lips are turned down and her eyebrows are raised in disapproval. ‘It’s Alice. She’s downstairs.’
    Nicola, with effort, raises her head off the pillow. ‘Can you send her up?’
    Her mum looks around, frowning. ‘Let’s clear this up first.’
    Nicola’s head flops back against the pillow, her mind dazzled by the stuff around her. She is confused.
    How did this all happen?
    She watches her mum moving around the room, opening curtains and sniffing the air. Pointedly opening the window. Her bedroom, the same one in which she played with a doll’s house when she was five, with Barbies a year or so later, with an art set and easel when she was twelve years old and with her laptop and DVDs last month, is now given up totally to the huge collection of stuff that a baby seems to need.
    There is a stack of nappies in the corner, spilling out of their plastic shrink-wrap. A cot, still in pieces, wedged against the wall, waiting for someone – God knows who – to put it together. A mobile with blue, stuffed whales tangled together is in its polythene bag, hanging off one of the cot posts. Triple packs of babygrows and vests are piled untidily on her chest of drawers. There’s a plastic baby bath, a baby rocker, a sling for carrying the baby, which Nicola has no intention of wearing because it looks disgusting, and pots upon pots ofcreams and potions and liquids. All in pastel colours. They’re seriously beginning to do her head in.
    Only five weeks ago she was getting all her clothes ready for Olivia’s party and this room was like any of her school friends’ rooms. Posters peeling off the walls, photos and pictures everywhere. Clumps of clothes (from her fat or thin wardrobe depending upon how her diet was going) crumpled on the floor. Make-up spilling out of handbags. A phone. An iPod. Headphones. Speakers. Perfume. Deodorant. Screwed up make-up wipes with mascara smears and foundation smudges. Crumpled tissues.
    But now hardly any of these are left, just a few posters and photos. She can’t remember the last time she used make-up. And what’s the bloody point bothering about what clothes to wear when A: you won’t be seeing anyone of interest, and B: the clothes don’t suit you any more? Even from the fat wardrobe.
    So everything’s been scooped away. Cleared back into drawers and hung