Trio - [12]

‘I’ll not beat about the bush, Kate. It's about our Megan and Brendan. She’s expecting.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ Kate’s hands flew to her mouth and her eyes swam. ‘Oh, no!’ she moaned.

‘It’s a terrible thing but they’ve only themselves to blame.’

Kate shook her head again. Closed her eyes. Weary. You worked so hard, unremittingly, feeding them, keeping them clean and safe and clothing them. Day after day and at the end of it this was how they rewarded you.

Maggie Driscoll spoke again. ‘I think we should keep it quiet until it’s clear what they are going to do.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Barely grown.’

‘Too young to know what’s best. I haven’t spoken to Mr Driscoll yet, but I wouldn't want to push them into an early marriage and then it all go bad. St Ann’s may be the best solution.’

‘Aye. But Brendan, we won’t let him shirk his duties if you decide…’

‘Yes, yes, I know.’

There was little else to say and after a pause Maggie Driscoll rose. ‘I’ll be getting back.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said, ‘I’d no idea.’

‘I know.’

Brendan’s father returned from the market where he had a pots and pans stall to find his wife red-eyed and woebegone. She told him the situation. When Brendan got in from the print shop a little later his father knocked him into the middle of next week.

That’s how he heard about the baby.

Joan

She had worked the remainder of her notice out in an icy atmosphere. She made sure that she and Duncan were never alone.

‘What’s wrong with his Lordship?’ Betty had asked her.

‘He thinks I’m letting the firm down,’ she said, ‘handing in my notice.’

Betty raised her eyebrows. Whether she believed this explanation was hard to tell. It wasn’t difficult for Duncan to replace Joan. There were plenty of youngsters coming out of secretarial college and several had applied for the post. Duncan selected two for interview and silently passed her a letter for typing and sending. She felt quite immune to the whole business until the girls arrived in the Thursday afternoon. Jenny and Rosemary. Jenny was very pretty and, with a pang, Joan imagined Duncan seducing her. The thought sickened her and she had to go and sit in the toilet until she’d collected herself.

On the Wednesday morning of her final week Duncan came into the office in a foul temper. He roared for Betty to bring him in the salaries file and then sent her out for a new ledger. As soon as she’d gone he came through.

‘Are you expecting?’

‘What?’ She feigned surprise.

‘You heard me. Are you pregnant?’

She stared at him coolly while her insides twisted with tension. She forced the edge of a smile to curl her lip.

‘Why else?’ he said when she didn’t reply. ‘Why suddenly up sticks and go to London? No warning, nothing.’

‘It’s an ambition of mine,’ she said crisply. Not that he’d have known, never asked her about her dreams, her passions.

‘If you were, Joan, I could help. We could help. Catherine and I, we’ve been considering adoption.’

She couldn’t believe it. Rage sluiced through her. How dare he. What did he imagine, a private arrangement? His wife kept in the dark about the exact parentage of the child. ‘Girl at work, darling, got herself in a bit of a mess, nice family, thought we could help, baby’ll need a home…’ She loathed him for this. And how could he imagine that she could live knowing who had her child, where it was, what Daddy was up to when he worked late at the office? She would give up the child. She would know nothing of its future. She wouldn't see it again. End of story.

‘I’m not pregnant, Duncan.’ She funnelled the words through tightly held teeth. ‘I could have been but nothing happened. Just like Catherine. Looks like the problem lies with you.’ She saw the remark meet its target, piercing his self-esteem and rocking all that superior certainty. He pressed his lips together and turned away. She felt cheap and mean but it was his own fault. She blinked several times and resumed typing. Hitting the keys and banging the carriage return far too hard, the stinging in her hands a welcome distraction from the coil of fury breaking around her heart.

Caroline

She bent to pull the sheet from the bed, adding it to the pile in the cart. The effort made her grunt. She was big now, enormous. She felt like a clumsy giant. The skin of her belly was all stretched and you could see the veins like blue threads criss-crossing it. Nearly lunchtime and her feet were already aching. She could feel her bones pressing against the floor, her ankles swollen and hot.

‘What will you do after?’ Megan had been put on to laundry with her. Cook wouldn’t put up with her rushing out to be sick every half-hour. Megan worked quickly. She was like a bird, Caroline thought, small and swift and she had those alert bright-blue eyes.

‘Go home.’

‘Have you finished with school?’

Caroline nodded. She had not been able to complete her final year and get her certificate. She’d be too old now, no one ever went back to school. She liked the idea of farming but the only way to do that was to marry a farmer and even thinking of Roy and the farm made her belly turn over and her mouth dry up. She liked to grow things. She’d helped Grandma on her allotment since she was a tiny child and had absorbed all her tips and sayings and become familiar with the cycle of the year. Last year she’d grown enough vegetables on her own patch to be able to feed the family and give stuff away. There wouldn’t be anything this year. The weeds would be waist high. By the time she went home it would be too late to sow anything. If she went home…