She stopped talking. We were the last people in the bar and the barman was stacking chairs around us. I unclenched my fingers from the edge of my chair.

Jessica was looking down at the table. She hadn’t looked at me once during her recital.

“It’s weird,” she said. “Being able to remember something and then you hit a complete wall. Like it’s a photograph in your mind and then you come to the blank part and it’s like the photo fades out. And there’s nothing left. Nothing you can see, anyway. But you know, deep down, you do know what happened. You just can’t retrieve the memory.”

I stood up abruptly. I still couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth to say something but I didn’t wait to hear it. I ran for the toilets and crashed open the cubicle door.

I didn’t vomit, although for a few minutes I was sure I was going to. I hung over the porcelain bowl, gagging and gulping. My whole body ached. Eventually, I stood upright, moving like an old woman. I felt faint.

I heard the door to the bar open and Jessica’s voice a moment later.

“Maudie, for God’s sake. Speak to me!”

I caught sight of my face in the mirror over her shoulder: I looked deathly white.

“Christ,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would get to you so badly.”

“Don’t worry.” My mouth felt numb – I couldn’t form the words properly.

“You’re as white as a ghost,” she said. “I think you need another drink.”

I managed to get back to the bar, walking by her side with her arm under mine. She ordered the drinks, triple vodkas for the both of us; just as well, as the barman would never have served me. Jessica steered me back to the table and we drank our drinks, grimacing, as if they were medicine.

“I’m sorry,” I said, managing to speak properly. “I don’t know what happened there.”

“You scared me.”

“I was scared myself.”

I felt as if I’d just avoided a terminal accident, or I’d stepped away from a crumbling cliff top just in time. I drank the rest of my drink and felt the vodka move through me at quicksilver speed, numbing me, protecting me. That awful feeling of panic subsided and I sighed.

“Jessica–” I began.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say anything now.”

“But–”

“That’s all there is,” she said. She sounded very sad. “That’s all that needs to be said.”

“But–”

Her chin came up again. Her eyes glittered. “That’s it. That’s all there is. The whole truth. So now you know.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

A shadow bent over me. I made a low noise in my throat, something like ‘ugh’. I felt the warm pressure of Matt’s hand on my shoulder.

“I’m off, darling. Don’t get up.”

I managed to raise my head two inches from the pillow. “What?”

The hand squeezed my shoulder. “I’m off, darling.” One final pat. I collapsed back onto the pillows. “Go back to sleep. You look all in.”

I didn’t hear him leave. The next thing I was aware of was the phone ringing. I buried my head in the pillow, wanting to shut out the real world for just a little bit longer.

My eyes remained stubbornly shut but now my mind was racing. I gave up, sitting up in the tangled bedsheets, and reached for the bedside clock. Ten thirty-two. I collapsed back on the bed with a groan.

The phone by the bed rang again, shatteringly, sending me upright and clutching my chest. I reached out a shaking hand to the receiver, then drew it back. I lay back down and pushed my head under the pillow.

The phone rang again. I kept my head under the pillow, listening to the ringing of the phone, once, twice, three, four, five – the answerphone clicked on and I heard the hesitant sound of a voice.

“Maudie, are you there? Maudie?”

It wasn’t her. I sat up, catching the next part of Becca’s message. “Maudie–”

I scrambled for the phone, and reached it just in time. “I’m here–”

“Maudie?” There was a gasp in her voice, as if she’d been crying. My mental antennae went up, quivering. Becca never cried.

“Yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

There was a silence, and then another faint gasp. “Can I come round?”

“Now?” I looked down at myself, at my stained nightshirt and unshaven legs.

“Please. I need to talk to you.”

“Of course.” I said it automatically. Once I’d put the phone down, I rolled back onto my front, prone, face in the pillow. I lay there for five minutes, cursing under my breath. Then I got up, got in the shower, and attempted to smile.

Becca had been crying – it was obvious. The tip of her nose was red, the edges of her eyelids were inflamed, and her face had that puffy, tear-soaked look. I gave her a hug and let her sit down at the kitchen table.

“Tea? Or something stronger?”

“It had better be tea,” she said, miserably.

I busied myself with the kettle and mugs. Cravenly, I wished I’d never picked up the phone. I didn’t want any more revelations. I didn’t want to hear anything bad, not now.

I plonked a mug down in front of her, and sat myself down with my own drink. Mentally, I braced myself.

Becca looked up at me from her red-rimmed eyes. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

I said nothing for a moment. I said nothing because I felt precisely as if someone had swung a heavy, booted foot into my lower belly. “Are you sure?”

“I did three tests. I thought the first must have been a mistake, but three – you wouldn’t get a false positive from three, surely?” She started to cry again and I could feel myself struggling not to grimace. “I can’t believe it, – I don’t know what to do, Maudie-”

I held onto my hot coffee cup, drawing meagre comfort from the heat of the porcelain. I thought for one awful second I was going to be sick.

“Is it–” for a moment, the name of her recent boyfriend deserted me. “Is it Martin’s?”

She nodded.

“Well, you can’t have it,” I said. The words came out of my mouth, abruptly, without me even thinking about them.

Becca’s eyes widened. “I haven’t decided–” she began.

I talked over her. I could hear my voice getting louder with every word. “You can’t have it. I won’t let you do this. You can’t do this.”

“Maudie–”

I stood up abruptly. My coffee cup fell out of my hands and smashed on the floor. A wave of coffee and porcelain shards splashed up against my legs.

Becca was getting up too, her eyes and mouth wide.

“Maudie, for God’s sake–”

“You can’t have it!” I bawled. “If you have it, it’ll die, don’t you know that? If you have a girl, she’ll die, they always die, you might kill it, you’ll kill it without even meaning to–”

She was coming round the table, her arms stretched wide, her face rigid with alarm. “Maudie–”

“Leave me alone! Just get out!”

She flinched back but I only kept screaming.

She stepped back, raising her hands. “Alright, alright, I’m going,” she said. “I’m going to call Matt.”

“No!”

“Alright, alright. Just – just calm down.”

I turned and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I was choking with tears; salt water was blinding me. I fell onto the bed and pulled the pillow over my head, screaming and hitting out at the mattress beneath me. I thrashed around until I could barely breathe, until I had to stop and just lie there in the semi-dark, crying bitterly.

I hadn’t heard Becca leave but I could tell that she had because the flat had the empty feel to it. After a few minutes, the phone started ringing. I heard Matt’s voice, his worried voice, come through on the answerphone, repeating the same question. Maudie, are you there? Are you there? But I wasn’t there. I didn’t know where I was, but wherever I was, I intended to stay there for a long time. I kept still on the bed, my face buried in the sheets, not moving, not thinking, until I fell asleep.