Two hours later, the brunette was gone, and an auburn-haired siren had arrived on the scene. Dora twirled back and forth in front of the mirror in her new togs, thinking that pregnancy suited very few women – Lil had looked ghastly, spotty and swollen throughout hers – but it definitely suited her. Her face glowed under the auburn mop, her sleepy blue eyes were clear. Apart from looking fat around the middle, she looked great.

Then she paused, her hands clasping the bump. The bump was carrying at the front and it was small. First glance, you could almost miss the fact that she was up the gut. Must be a boy, didn’t they all say that when the bump was neat, compact? But the kid never moved. Not so much as a kick.

Poor little dead thing. Poor little boy.

But then she stiffened as an even more unpleasant thought crossed her mind. The baby must be dead. She had accepted that already. But what if . . . oh God, oh dear God in heaven, what if the child was still somehow clinging to life but would be born disfigured? That would be awful. She couldn’t bear that. A kid of hers, a kid of gorgeous Dickie Cole’s, born disabled because of that swine Frank?

Dora felt sweat break out all over her body at the idea. She was Dora the Adored, prettier and smarter and just better than lumpen Lil and scrawny June. She couldn’t raise a disabled child. She could barely even look after herself.

What the fuck would she do then?

She tried to calm herself. She patted her stomach. Poor kid. Her back ached. She felt the weight of the baby, day after long slow day. Now, all she wanted was for it to be done, over. But it was no good getting down. She’d already come through the worst of it, hadn’t she? Getting a beating off Frank, and having Donny chasing her? All that was over now. She thought of going to a hospital, but she guessed Donny would be checking those, watching out for her. Maybe Frank too. No. She couldn’t risk it. She was going to cope, she was going to manage. She was the favoured one, used to coming first in the game of life.

She was going to come first this time, too.

Her baby was going to be not deformed, not simple. But it was going to be stillborn. She accepted that now. And once the birth was over, once that tragedy had been faced – and she would face it, she would because she had to – then she could start again. Start all over. Forget Dickie, and Frank, and Donny, and live again.

Somehow.

She didn’t know how, quite yet.

But it would come to her.

52

Dora found live-in work in a little backstreet pub. She’d never pulled a pint before, but she gave the landlady the Dora O’Brien charm offensive, smiling at her and assuring her that she was great with customers and she could learn to pull a pint, how hard could it be? She even laughed at the woman’s feeble jokes. She was a ravishing redhead and if you didn’t look too closely you could miss the fact that she was well up the duff. Behind the bar, you’d scarcely know it at all.