‘Diarmuid for a boy. Or Siobhan for a girl. Do you like those?’
‘Ah, whatever makes you happy.’
If Rufus Malone dropped dead, that would make her happy.
She went down the shops, and Mrs Simmonds asked her if she had people staying.
‘You what?’ asked Megan, heart galloping in her chest.
‘You got visitors? I’ve seen the light on in your box room, every evening. Is it your ma, come to stay to help with the baby on the way? I haven’t seen her down in the shop, so. She taken up smoking, has she? She never used to smoke.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve seen smoke coming over the fence in the garden.’
‘Oh! No, that’ll be Rory, having a fag.’
‘Is he doing the box room out for a nursery?’
‘Yes, that’s it, we’re decorating. I have to go, I’ve been having twinges…’ she said, picking up her shopping and rushing out of the shop.
When Rory came in that evening, his navy-blue overalls dirty and his hands caked black from being under engines all day, she was waiting for him.
‘He’ll have to go,’ she said, straight out.
‘What?’ Rory was dipping his fingers into the Swarfega tin at the sink.
‘Rufus. That old bat Simmonds says she’s seen the box-room light on every night, she knows someone’s in there. And he’s been smoking in the garden. She’s seen someone puffing up smoke out there. I had to tell her it was you. Thank God for the high fences. If she knows something’s going on, then others do too.’
Rory looked at her in concern. ‘You didn’t tell her anything…?’
‘I told her we were decorating the room as a nursery, and that I was cramping and had to go.’
‘Well then.’
‘Well nothing. You know what she’s like. Next thing she’ll have baked a cake and she’ll be banging on the door, wanting to see for herself who’s in here.’
‘You’re fretting over nothing.’
‘If Don Callaghan finds out we’re hiding him here, he’ll kill us both. And our baby.’
‘But he don’t know. And he won’t.’
‘If he-’
‘He won’t. He can’t. All we have to do is hold our nerve, OK?’
Rory went off upstairs to see how the invalid was doing, leaving Megan on the sofa with the news blaring on the radio. But she wasn’t taking in a single word as she clutched her arms around her swollen abdomen, shielding the child within.
London, 1983
‘Good trip?’ asked Annie as Layla, brown as a berry, piled into the hallway wafting Hawaiian Tropic and dropping bags and suitcases on to the floor.
Layla was seventeen now, and just back from Christmas in Barbados with Max. Annie had spent Christmas pretty much alone. As usual.
‘It was OK,’ said Layla, looking at her mother with no appearance of affection. ‘Um, the taxi…?’