Doreen sat back in her chair. Then, without warning her hand shot out and she slapped Suzy a stinging blow across her face. ‘You little bitch! Let words like that get out and there’ll be trouble, my girl. You broke your frigging neck to get up that aisle and don’t you forget it. When I think of the shame we’ve had to endure because of your association with them Cavanaghs, I could cheerfully throttle you, and that little child you’re carrying can’t be blamed. My God, I wonder at times just what you think you’re playing at, madam, with your butter wouldn’t melt look and that scheming brain. Let his Aunt Briony hear talk like that and you’ll be singing a different tune.’

‘Oh go away, Mum!’

‘No I won’t. You left that lovely house, all that nice furniture. Me and your Dad would have moved in there and looked after you, but no, not you. You had to come running home here like a baby.’

Suzy felt a moment’s triumph as they reached the nub of her mother’s annoyance. Doreen saw herself in the big detached house, bringing up her grandchild, guaranteed a good allowance and the property. Suzy had sussed that out in no time. ‘You’ll never live in that house, Mother, get that straight now.’

Doreen’s lips moved back over her teeth, and she said, ‘You’re a little bitch, Suzy Rankins, a bitch. When I think of how I brought you up, gave you the best...’

Doreen’s tirade was interrupted by the doorbell.

Suzy smiled grimly. Saved by the bell. If her mother knew how much she had been paid for her interview with the paper she’d have a fit, but there was a method in her madness. Once she was delivered of this child she would go away and make a fresh start. The name Cavanagh, which had excited her so much when she had first met Boysie, disgusted her now. She was pointed at, stared at and gossipped about every time she walked down the street.

Her heart stopped as she heard her mother’s voice: ‘Oh, hello, Briony, come away in. I was just making a cup of tea.’

Briony rustled into the room. ‘Hello, Suzy, love.’

Suzy forced herself to look at the little woman. ‘Hello, Briony.’

Doreen, overcome with awe as usual, left the two and went to make the tea.

Briony sat down on the chair Doreen had vacated and smiled.

‘How you feeling?’

Suzy lit a cigarette and smiled wanly, blowing out the smoke in a large cloud around her head. ‘All right I suppose.’