Jo looked down at the baby. Gently, she stroked the little girl’s cheek. Then she looked up at Dave and her face was so full of joy that he felt choked up.

‘I always dreamed when I had a little girl I’d call her Suki,’ she said.

‘Then let’s do that,’ said Dave, swallowing hard. ‘We’ll get her christened as our own. Nobody will know any different, not even Ginny. You can tell her you wanted to surprise her with the baby, she knows the troubles we’ve had and she won’t question it. She’ll be fucking delighted. Let’s pack this thing up, all right? Let’s take Suki down south and start again.’

43

43

The worst thing about it, Claire thought, was the leaking breasts. Within a fortnight of giving birth to the thing, she was back at her desk, filling in forms, interviewing staff, chasing suppliers, as if nothing had ever happened. Gradually, her stomach regained its shape but her breasts seemed to have a mind of their own. They seeped milk constantly, so that she had to wear pads inside her bra to soak the stuff up.

‘That’ll go,’ said Gina when she confided in her. ‘It’ll pass.’

‘Yeah, but when?’ Claire’s whole face screwed up in revulsion.

‘You still sure about all that? Me taking her to the Sisters of Mercy and everything?’

Claire looked at Gina. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, or hear about it,’ she said flatly. ‘It’s done and gone. All right?’

Gina held up her hands. ‘OK. Anything you say.’

Sylvester didn’t seem to know how to approach Claire after she’d given birth and brushed her baby aside. Stammering, blushing like a schoolboy, he asked after her health.

‘I’m fine,’ she snapped at him.

And then he called her into his office one morning and said: ‘Well, the day’s come. Gina goes at the end of next week.’

‘Is it that time already?’ Claire was sad.

She’d miss Gina; Gina had taught her everything about this job, and been a firm friend to her in a time of great need. Almost like a mother. But not quite. Claire longed for her own dear mother Eva, and Pally, her dad. And even Trace, her misery-guts of a sister, and that old doom-monger Nanny Irene. But all that was so long ago now and so far away, another place, another life. This was her life now. She had to make what she could of it and be strong, because to even think of reuniting with her family was madness. They would suffer for it if she weakened. Suffer like poor Blue. The image of his dying was burned on her brain forever. So she couldn’t afford to do that.