Trio - [70]

‘Why were they adopted?’

‘Same thing. Their mothers weren’t married. Well, Dominic’s was but they weren’t allowed to keep him. They’d had other children that had been neglected. The rescue society took him at the hospital.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Ruth.

‘It must be awful,’ Letty said, ‘having a baby and giving it up.’

‘What else can you do?’ said Rita.

Theresa winced. It was only a week since SPUC had brought their gruesome slide show into school and the Third Form had been forced to look at pictures of embryos and foetuses and babies and basins of blood accompanied by a savage commentary. Afterwards Father McEvoy had made an impassioned plea to the girls to stand up for Jesus and fight the wholesale slaughter of the innocents. There would be a LIFE rally in London, they were all enjoined to come and save the babies.

‘If I got pregnant I’d keep it,’ Ruth said.

‘It’s easier nowadays,’ Rita said.

‘I don’t think abortion’s always wrong,’ said Letty.

‘God!’ Ruth shuddered. ‘How can you say that?’

‘It’s got to be up to the person who’s having it.’

‘That’s like saying murder’s up to the person doing it,’ Theresa said.

‘It isn’t.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘Keep your legs crossed,’ said Rita. ‘Just don’t let them go all the way.’

‘You can get the Pill from the doctor,’ Theresa said.

‘Clinic’s better, that Brook place. Our Lucy goes there. They don’t know your Mum and Dad like the doctor does,’ said Letty.

Theresa finished her fag. Ground it out on the side of the wastepaper bin.

‘If you had a baby though, it’s your whole life gone, isn’t it?’ Letty said.

The bell for the end of break rang and the girls got to their feet.

‘I’d never have an abortion,’ Ruth repeated, bending over to stub her cigarette out. ‘No way.’

‘I’d never have a baby adopted,’ Theresa said vehemently, her chocolate eyes flashing. And the declaration astonished her even more than her friends. Adoption had been fine for her, and her brothers. Why had she said that? She felt unsettled for the rest of the day.

Kay

The glaze is beautiful,’ Faith said.

‘You were right to use the deeper blue,’ the pottery teacher told Kay. ‘It’s perfect for the red clay.’

Kay placed the large bowl on the work bench at the side of the kiln. It would look lovely filled with fruit and would give her something to talk about the next time she had to make conversation with more of Adam’s business wives. The agency were involved in a takeover bid; if it was successful they’d be selling property throughout most of Lancashire. The expansion would mean more functions, more dinners. Thinking of Adam brought the familiar twist of anxiety to her stomach. Was she imagining it all again? It wasn’t as if she’d caught him out. She shuddered at the memory. The sight of Joanna and Adam naked together was frozen in her mind, etched indelibly even after seven years.

But this time there was no evidence. No lipstick on his collar or perfume on his skin. No unexplained bills. Nothing except an air of distraction and the fact that he had been attentive. He brought her flowers, told her he loved her after they made love. He never did that, not usually.

She wrapped the bowl in newspaper to protect it on the way home. It was the final class of the year. She’d come back again in the autumn. She had the knack. Faith wasn’t so sure. ‘I might try French. I could still give you a lift, it’s on Wednesdays as well.’ Kay didn’t drive, had never learnt, but Faith did. Faith was working now, teaching, and her mother looked after the children on a Wednesday night. Mick never saw them. The divorce had been acrimonious and costly.

Kay held the bowl on her lap in the car. When Faith drew up outside the house, Kay turned to thank her.

‘I think Adam’s having an affair.’ The words came out in a rush.

Faith looked shocked. She turned the engine off. ‘Oh, Kay!’

‘It’s just a feeling, I’ve no proof. I don’t know whether to say anything to him or not.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

Faith looked at her, considering. ‘If you’re not sure… I mean, Adam’s never done anything like this before, has he?

‘Once,’ Kay said. ‘A few years ago.’ She didn’t elaborate.

‘You never said anything.’

There was an awkward pause. Kay imagined Faith feeling hurt that Kay hadn’t told her about it.

‘I didn’t tell anyone. It was a long time ago.’ Implying it was before they met.

‘What if you’re wrong?’

‘You think I should wait and see?’

‘There are places aren’t there, private investigators.’

‘Oh, God! I couldn’t do that.’ She saw some seedy type in an old coat trailing after Adam, spying on him, taking horrid photos. ‘You’re probably right, I’d look a real idiot if I was wrong. It would be awful.’

But the feeling of unease wouldn’t leave her, and suspicion made everything between herself and Adam seem shallow and false. She kept up the act for a further two weeks but the gnawing in her stomach grew stronger and she had vivid dreams where she came upon Adam with someone in their own bed and he laughed and pointed at the door and then he resumed having sex, his buttocks moving furiously, the woman beneath him obscured from view.