Josh was taken aback. He was going to be married, he was going to become a father and he was going to buy a house. He looked at Shauna and felt apathy overtake him. But maybe the deal wasn’t all bad. She was beautiful. Iron-willed and mouthy as fuck, yes – but a real strong gypsy woman with smooth olive skin, long dark curling hair and conker-brown eyes. She’d make beautiful babies, he could see that.

Christ though – a house, a proper house, like a gorgi would live in?

‘We can afford it,’ said Shauna, a frown forming like a small thundercloud on her brow.

Maybe they could. Money was pouring in. He stared at her set, determined face.

‘We’ll go and look at some soon,’ he said. ‘And we’ll pop in the register office, set a date.’

30

30

There was a new estate going up, diggers and dumper trucks zooming about the place, concrete lorries backing up, bricks arriving by the ton, and at the edge of all the building activity was a show home, set up as a sales suite. Girls in fitted suits were in there, passing out brochures to prospective buyers, making pots of tea and doling out fancy biscuits.

Shauna and Josh looked around the show home, and Shauna felt like she was going to explode with happiness.

‘I want it,’ she said, dazzled by fitted Formica kitchen units, the posh avocado suite in the bathroom and décor that a professional had worked hard on, all burnt oranges and soft mossy greens. There were huge pot plants in corners, big rugs and mirrors everywhere. Outside, you had your own actual back garden, all fenced in so that no one else could intrude, with a freshly laid lawn in its centre and shrubs planted all around.

It was so beautiful and so different from what she knew – the muddy country clearing with its trailers, its grazing piebald and skewbald horses, the haphazardly strung washing lines, the scent of rabbit stew and the flickering camp fires at twilight – that she could have cried.

The sales girl beamed.

‘I want this one. The show house,’ said Shauna.

‘That could take some time . . .’ said the sales girl.

‘How long?’ asked Shauna.

‘Up to three months.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Shauna, who knew she wouldn’t be ready to drop the baby until well after that. Meanwhile, they could ditch the hotels – she was sick of them – and rent a place until everything came good.

‘Shall we go over to the office, put some figures together . . . ?’ asked the girl.

‘Yeah,’ said Shauna, grabbing Josh’s hand and pulling him along like a tug guiding an ocean liner into port.

‘Might have some more work going, if you’re interested, Josh,’ said John.