Now or Never

Her frown gave way to a smile as the door opened and Hughie came into the room.

She and Richard were both tall, but Hughie was over six feet three, his body well muscled from the rugby he played. To her, though, Stella acknowledged, there was still something that was almost little-boyish about his face at times.

‘Mum, have you and Dad got a minute?’ he asked.

He was nervous, Stella could see that. Automatically her stomach tightened. This was something Maggie was going to have to get used to, this never-ending, relentless awareness of the vulnerability of one’s child, coupled with the frightening realisation of how little one could do to protect them and keep them totally safe.

‘Of course. Do you want a cup of tea? I’ve just made some,’ she offered.

‘No. No … Look … there just isn’t any easy way to tell you this … I know you’re going to be … Julie is pregnant and the baby is mine.’

Somehow or other, Stella discovered that she was sitting down, whilst Richard in contrast was now standing up, his shock showing in his eyes as he stormed furiously, ‘What were you saying about him being intelligent? My God! How the hell much intelligence does it take to use a bloody condom?’

‘I did … It burst.’

Nicki could see the Adam’s apple moving in Hughie’s throat as he swallowed. He was still a boy, really. A baby. Her baby! A wave of fiercely protective maternalism struck her. He was looking at her, waiting for her to say something, his puppy dog eyes pleading with her … trusting her …

Trusting her, Stella recognised as she forced herself to bite back the words, Are you sure it’s yours?

Richard, though, felt no such restraint, or tact, she realised as she heard her husband bursting out with the words that were hammering inside her own head.

Instantly Hughie went white, his hands clenching as he stared accusingly at his father.

‘Of course I am sure. Julie was … I was her first,’ he mumbled, brick-red. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘Maybe not, but what is our business is that our son, our clever, clever son, has got his girlfriend pregnant while she is still at school and he is in his first year at university! I thought you told me it was virtually over between the two of you.’

Richard was shaking his head, as though he still couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing.

‘It was … it is.’

‘It’s over?’ Stella knew she would never totally understand the world of the modern young, where a couple could fall in love, and commit to one another sexually only to tire of the relationship within months, if not weeks, and decide to go their separate ways. It had been so different in her own day. ‘So … so what …?’

‘Our relationship is over,’ Hughie agreed. ‘But that does not alter the fact that I am the father of Julie’s baby. And naturally I want to do the right thing for them both,’ he added proudly.

‘Naturally,’ Stella agreed, a small spiky shoot of hope beginning to emerge through the shocked chaos of her anxiety.

‘Of course, Julie wants to have the baby.’

The spiky shoot withered.

‘Of course,’ Stella acknowledged hollowly. Well, they did, these modern girls, didn’t they?

‘I will have to help support it … financially, I mean.’

‘Yes, you damn well will,’ Richard told him savagely. ‘And if you think for one minute that I am going to put my hand in my pocket to pay for your—’

‘Richard!’ Stella interrupted him warningly. ‘Obviously, we’re still feeling the shock at the moment, Hughie, but tomorrow I think your father and I should get in touch with Julie’s parents to discuss things.’

‘No … you can’t. There isn’t any point.’

‘What? Why not?’ Stella asked.

‘Julie’s father refuses to accept what’s happened. He’s thrown Julie out. He says he never wants to see her again.’

‘What?’

Now Stella was shocked. She had seen enough of what could happen to girls under such circumstances during her probation service days to feel genuinely protective towards Julie, and outraged by her father’s attitude.

‘Well, where has she gone—where is she?’

‘Here,’ Hughie told them uncomfortably. ‘Upstairs in my room. Ma … what else could I do?’ he appealed to Stella. ‘She is my responsibility. They both are, at least until the baby is born. I couldn’t just leave her. I mean, it’s not as if she’s got any other family to go to!’

‘All right, Hughie. I understand. You’d better go upstairs and bring her down.’ Stella sighed.

As soon as the door had closed behind him Richard exploded. ‘No way. No way are we going to have her here. Stella …’

‘What else can we do?’ Stella asked him logically. ‘And anyway, I don’t imagine it will be for very long. Her father will probably come round. And since Hughie is the baby’s father, I feel—’

‘I doubt it, from what I know of him. He and I were both in a local “Think Tank Group” a couple of years ago. Originally he’s from somewhere in the North—a small, very strait-laced mining town. He’s still got an enclosed community mentality, he’s very narrow-minded—bigoted, I would say. He wasn’t a very popular member of our team, definitely got a chip on his shoulder from somewhere.’

Stella frowned. ‘I didn’t know you knew Julie’s father—you never said.’

Richard gave a brief shrug. ‘The project ended and we went our separate ways. Not the sort of chap one would want to keep in contact with, really. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t think he’d be someone who would budge once he’d taken a stand over something. Bit of a soap-box operator when it comes to modern morals and so on. Likes to hold forth about the subject. He’ll consider Julie’s situation to be a serious loss of face.’

‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that she is his daughter …’

Stella stopped speaking as the kitchen door opened and Hughie ushered Julie in.

Dressed in baggy trousers and a huge loose top as she was, it was hard to tell that she was pregnant at all. Her face looked very pale, though, Stella acknowledged, and she could see the smudges of mascara on Julie’s cheeks where she had been crying.

In fact she looked as though she was about to start crying now, Stella recognised.

‘Julie, it’s all right,’ she said firmly, going up to the girl and putting her arms maternally around her. ‘Hughie has told us what’s happened. He says, though, that the relationship between the two of you is over … is that true?’

Ignoring the angry look Hughie was shooting her, Stella waited patiently for Julie’s reply. There was no way she wanted Julie to turn round at a later date and claim that Hughie had dropped her because she was pregnant. But, to her relief, Julie immediately nodded, her voice papery thin as she whispered, ‘Yes. I … we … I’m not going to keep the baby,’ she burst out tearfully, ‘but I couldn’t let my dad make me kill it and I know that’s what he would have tried to do.’

She was sobbing in earnest now, and Stella tried to calm her down.

‘Julie, it’s all right,’ she said reassuringly. ‘No one is going to hurt your baby. When is it due, by the way?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘Three months.’

Stella thought she must have misheard her.

‘Three months,’ she repeated. ‘No … I don’t think …’

‘It’s three months!’ Julie insisted stubbornly, shaking her head and begging Hughie, ‘You tell her.’