‘What if they did something?’

‘Like what?’

‘Took Jo away?’

‘No,’ Kay said. ‘That won’t happen.’

‘This is such a mess,’ Alice said. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Don’t panic,’ Kay said. ‘That’s the main thing. And nothing bad has happened yet.’

‘Yet,’ Alice said. ‘But it wasn’t far off tonight. How can I leave her with him after that?’

PART TWO

The Baby

You hate this thing. It is shocking to you how much.

How much you want to dismember it. Take it to pieces and break it forever. You cannot help but see it as an automaton. A clockwork device designed to irritate you. It has no soul. No inner life. No value.

But you cannot do that. However pleasurable it would be, it would bring more problems. So you must content yourself with pinches and prods with a sharp finger.

You have rarely hated anything as much. Your parents, maybe. Your interfering parents, always trying to save you from yourself.

It wasn’t the interference you hated. It was the idea that they thought you needed saving.

Saving from what? A future in which you became like them? Tiny little people living tiny little lives like everyone else?

No – you have seen more. You have tasted what life can be, and you cannot – will not – be denied it.

You look at the baby. It smiles.

You laugh.

That will not work on you.

You grab its fat little thigh. It will not be smiling for much longer.

Carrie Sanchez

She’d heard about the serial killer, of course she had, and her mum would give her so much shit if she knew she was walking home alone, but what were the odds she’d be attacked really? Not very high, but just in case, she walked quickly and stuck to well-lit streets, even if it made the walk that bit longer.

And the alternative would have been to stay with Mike, which she was not going to do. She was sick of him, sick of his stupid jokes about her appearance – about her weight, specifically – and sick of him shrugging her off when she asked him to stop.

Don’t be so sensitive, he’d said, when they got back to his flat from the pub, it was a joke.

I’m not being sensitive! she shouted. It hurts my feelings!

Exactly my point. You’re letting your feelings get hurt over nothing. That’s the definition of over-sensitive. You should be more like me. Have no feelings.

She knew he had feelings, everyone did, but sometimes she wondered. He could be so mean. Even if it was a joke, it was still unpleasant to be the person everyone was laughing at.