15

Three Months After Paris

Nina

Nina woke and for the first time in months didn’t feel sadness pinning her under her duvet as she tried to muster the energy to begin the day. Instead, she felt a flush of intention, like the first rush of spring: it was time to speak to Ted.

She was off-kilter, had been since she discovered she was pregnant. There was a long road ahead to feeling back to herself and she felt like speaking to Ted was a necessary part of her recovery; delaying it would only prolong the pain.

Nina dressed as she would for a business meeting, in wide-leg khaki-green trousers and a black sleeveless roll-neck. She slung the matching jacket over her arm, still warm, despite the chill in the air, from her morning run.

She almost went alone to the appointment. Flynn had offered to come but it didn’t seem right, this being her decision rather than his. She wished she could have been with Erin, like last time, but she couldn’t ask her to leave her family and travel over from Ireland, although she probably would. Luca was on hand for any work-related emergencies. The people she wanted by her side the most, the women she could sit beside and not need to say a word, were Jules and Alice, but that was out of the question. Not least because she still hadn’t heard from either of them.

The day before her procedure, feeling restless and tearful, stabs of doubt arresting her, she’d hopped on her bike, cycled from East London to Essex, and arrived at her mother’s floristry, sobbing. Joanie, dressed as ever for a night out in a fifties diner in a pale pink cardigan and white skirt with blue flowers, looked up in alarm from behind the counter and ran over to embrace her. ‘Nina,’ she’d gasped. ‘What’s wrong?’ And tearfully, over a cup of tea and a Mars bar at the little wooden table out the back of the shop, the ‘CLOSED’ sign on the door, Nina had told her everything. About what had happened with Ted, and what was happening now. ‘And I know you’re ashamed of me,’ she’d sobbed, turning a small square of chocolate over so many times that it had begun to melt on to her fingers.

‘Ashamed of you, Nina? Why?’ her mother had said, eyes wreathed with concern.

‘For having an abortion,’ Nina said.

‘Am I now?’

‘Yes. I’ve heard you say you don’t know how people can do it.’

‘Nina,’ she said. ‘Didn’t we go together to the march to repeal the 8th?’

‘Yes, but I’ve heard you say it: I could never do it myself.’

‘Oh Nina,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Nina, Nina.’ She cast her eyes around the room then, her lips rolled inwards as though weighing something up. ‘Lookit. When I told Samir I was pregnant, what do you think he suggested I do?’ Nina gulped. She’d always known a termination would have been an option for Joanie, had never known Samir had suggested it. ‘And when I’ve said, I couldn’t do it myself, it’s because I’ve been thinking of you. I could never not have you, Nina. And I’d be saying it in anger at himself. That good-for-nothing…’