‘So when does it happen?’ Freddie asked.
‘At the end of the evening we’re all going to end up back at The Manor for the finale. I’ve already done a walk-through of the performance with Coup de Théatre – they actively encourage everyone to wander off, to explore and experience the actors and dancers alone. So there should be a point where you can get Ned’s attention, pull him aside and . . . I’m going to have to let you come up with that part yourselves.’
Keith nodded slowly, and turned to Freddie, as did she. He looked from her to Keith, and back from Keith to her again. In his eyes she could still see a desperate hope that this was a joke, a prank, that suddenly Ned was going to jump out of a bush laughing.
‘It’s up to you, Freddie,’ she told him gently. ‘Only you know what’s on that memory stick. Only you know if you can afford to pay what Ned is asking, every year. Every single year for the rest of your life.’
‘Okay,’ said Freddie, quickly, sharply. ‘I get it. I’m in. I’m in too.’
Nikki
She was six months pregnant before she realized.
Just turned sixteen and six months pregnant.
It had simply never occurred to her that it was a possibility. She had gone on the pill, as Ron had suggested. Had she forgotten to take it, ever? Absolutely not. He always asked her and the answer was always yes. Occasionally he even made her take it in front of him. ‘I’m only thinking of you, my darling.’
She did not want a baby – not then. Not ever, probably. Perhaps, looking back, that was most likely a major part of the appeal of girls like her to men like him.
Ron would blame her, that was her first thought. Her second was, how would he ever find out? She hadn’t heard from him since filming had wrapped and he’d handed back the key to his Home suite. He’d said something vague about looking him up, but even in her naivety she knew he hadn’t meant it, and there was no way to actually do it even if he had. She didn’t have a mobile phone, or an email address. She could hardly ask Ned. This was just the kind of situation her mother had warned her about getting into: don’t fuck your life up at fifteen like I did. They ruin your life, kids.
Six months, though? Thin as she was in those days, relentless as she was in her efforts to stay that way, her periods had always been irregular. Maybe she’d developed a tiny little bit of a tummy – a couple of casting directors had even mentioned it, her agent calling to relay the ‘helpful’ feedback. But she’d put that down to the carbs – handfuls of chips, thick slabs of bread and butter – she snatched standing up in the kitchens at Home.
When Nikki first went to the doctor – the walk-in, in Soho – it was because she was feeling lethargic, headachy, bloated. He asked her if she might be, if there was any way she thought she could be, pregnant. She had said no, she was using contraception, they’d given it to her at that same clinic, so he took blood to check what else it might be. But she had peed on a stick when she got back to the friend’s flat she was staying at, just to check. I can’t be. That was what she kept telling herself, over and over. I just can’t be. She had not felt nauseous, she had not had cravings. Apart from being a bit run-down she had not felt any different from usual.
She went back to the doctor, completely incredulous. ‘Did you have food poisoning at all?’ he asked her. ‘If you throw up just after you’ve taken your pill, your body may not have had time to absorb it.’ She thought back to the nights she’d drunk too much in Ron’s suite – she never had been able to stomach much alcohol – making herself sick to stop the room spinning, and using one of those little fold-out toothbrushes to freshen up after.
‘You’re having what we call a cryptic pregnancy,’ the doctor had said. ‘Some women don’t know what’s going on until they’re in labour – at least we know now. It happens more often than you think, although you’re the first I’ve seen.’ He asked if she had any questions – she had too many to know where to start – and then referred her to the maternity department of the local hospital. He laughed at one point, she remembered, as if he actually found it all quite funny, a medical curiosity. She remembered thinking quite clearly: this is a story he’s going to tell his friends. She could even imagine just the way he would tell it. Poor thing, just sixteen. Not a clue what was going on. It’s the child I feel sorry for.