Eighteen

She felt it, lying in bed one morning: a tiny pulse of movement inside her, like a bubble bursting. The little lump of her stomach had grown just a fraction. It terrified her, the way it could just grow and grow, with no way of her stopping it. At the same time it was hard to take in that it was real.

For minutes at a time she would forget. When things were very busy in the office and she sat pounding her typewriter, concentrating on the latest schedule, there were blessed moments when it slipped from her mind. And then he would speak to Mrs Crosby, or a breeze carried through the open office windows a whiff of smoke from a cigarette or factory chimney. Everything seemed to smell more strongly. Or she would feel queasily hungry. And it all came flooding back, the numbing panic that made her catch her breath and sometimes sit staring, stunned, out of the window at the neighbouring rooftops until something nudged her back to work. For the first time she was glad that Simon did not pay any attention to her in the office, his mind turned to his male world.

The worry wore her out as much as anything, and by the evening she was exhausted. A couple of times she told Simon she couldn’t come out with him. She was tired and she found pretending everything was normal a terrible strain. At home she would fall asleep in the chair over the book she was pretending to read, though her mind was usually miles away, worrying, panicking.

‘You seem tired,’ Vera had remarked several times. She was more careful about what she said to Katie these days. ‘Perhaps you’re sickening for something? I’m usually the one who’s dropping off!’

Katie would try to smile and stifle her yawns. ‘Yes, I s’pose I am tired. Maybe it’s everything just catching up with me.’ Most people were tired. The strain of the war was taking its toll.

It was only when she was in bed alone that the fear took over. Sometimes she lay rigid, her head full of jeering voices: ‘. . . O-ho! She’s got a bun in the oven! . . . Bastard child . . . No better than she should be . . . You’d never have thought it to look at her, would you?’ And above all the voice demanding: What are you going to do? What in heaven’s name are you going to do?

Over these months while she and Simon had been going about together, she’d lived in a rosy bubble of love and hope, not seeing things she didn’t want to see. He loved her and she loved him, and that was all that mattered. This was how it was supposed to be, and she had been able to see nothing but him. But now everything she had put her hopes in seemed to rest on dreadfully frail foundations. She had dreams of marrying Simon and becoming Mrs Collinge, of spending her life with him and, yes, having his children. But now all she could see were the excuses he’d made to keep their affair – she had to admit that was what it was – a secret. He barely acknowledged her at work, and he had never taken her to meet his family. The way he’d put it to her, wanting things to be secret, like an adventure, had all seemed fun and exciting. But now she felt a fool. It was as if she was his dirty secret. She was a complete dupe to think he’d want anything to do with her now that she was expecting a baby – his baby. But still she clung to hope. He loved her, of course he did! He’d make sure everything was all right. Then she would feel ashamed of doubting him.