I’m running down the beach. It’s dark, but for some reason I don’t slip. I want to turn to Aoife and call back, but Alf is standing on the wall and I know he wants me to come to him.
‘Mary,’ she calls again and this time I stop. I look at Alf, then back to Aoife. She’s so far away I can hardly see her, but in her arms I notice a blanket clutched to her chest, and the kitten-like mew from the child wrapped within it carries itself to me on the wind.
‘Mary!’ Alf’s voice is next to me and I jump. ‘She’ll ruin it for us. She’ll always put the baby first and when she does, you’ll be left all alone. There’s no turning back, Mary.’ His breath hits my cheek. ‘It’s Aoife or me.’
I wake with a start. I have no air in my lungs and I start to panic, hunched over, clawing at the blanket on my bed as I try to pull in a breath.
‘Hey, Mary, what’s the matter?’ Aoife looks over from her bed, my desperate noises having woken her, and she’s up and over to mine when she sees I’m in trouble.
‘Come on now, just calm down.’ She’s stroking my back and I try to focus on the rhythmic movement. It helps. I feel slivers of air run down my throat before I take a huge breath and then two more. I collapse back on the bed, panting.
‘Jesus, I thought you were dying.’
‘So did I.’ I try a laugh but it doesn’t come. Aoife lies down next to me.
‘Bad dream?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Want to tell me?’
I shake my head. The residue of the dream hangs between us. I look at her stomach, growing bigger by the week. ‘It’s all going to change, isn’t it? When it’s born.’
She follows my eyes and puts a hand on her stomach, something she’s been doing more and more. ‘Well, there will be a baby, that’s definitely a change.’ She laughs, but when she sees my face she stops.
‘I meant between us. Things will change between us.’
Aoife shakes her head, red curls emphasising her point. ‘No. Nothing will change. This baby is as much yours as mine. We got into this together and we’ll get out of it the same way.’
She gets up to dress and I watch her scoop clothes off the floor and I try to ignore the feeling that’s recently started tap-tap-tapping in my head. I bury my face in the pillow and mumble the words just to get them out. ‘I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish we’d made it go away.’
But it turns out, Aoife is more Catholic than either of us thought.
In the evening we go to Alf’s flat. We get ready together with the same excitement we would for a party, hair and nails done, creases on our best dresses smoothed out. Because for all the bits we don’t like, we can’t help but like the way our time with him makes us feel; it takes us from a world where we are a problem to be solved to one where we are princesses and told we are something special. Time stands still when we are with Alf. We have no past, no rejection, and no one expects our future to be full of failure. We are just two girls living a life we’ve chosen rather than the one given to us.
But tonight, as soon as we open the door, we know something feels different. Alf is on the sofa where he always is, but there is a man to his right and one at the table. We pause by the door.
‘Come in, girls,’ Alf calls. ‘My friends have popped over.’ He grins at the men. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’
He’s in full-on Alf mode and we get swept up in his enthusiasm. We sit and watch as he jokes with his friends, take every drink offered to us, and feel the room fill with laughter and fun.
Then Alf looks at Aoife and things seem to still. His smile remains but it’s changed in a way you can never point to, but you just know what lies behind it isn’t good any more. He gestures to her to go to him and she obeys. He pulls her down on his lap and she laughs as he pushes her down and kisses her.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ I hear him whisper. ‘The perfect fit for me.’
The men are watching this, their eyes fixed on Aoife; they don’t smile or laugh, just watch, and the way they are looking at her makes my stomach feel like it’s full of bees.
Alf looks up and catches the eye of the man on the sofa, then he looks to me. I sit dead still. I don’t want him to say what he’s going to.
‘Come and sit down over here, Mary.’
I walk across, wishing my dress was longer and my lipstick less red. The man on the sofa next to Alf smiles and suddenly I’m so relieved to see he has nice eyes just like Alf, warm and friendly. I sit next to him and smile back.
‘Wow, that’s a pretty smile you have there.’
I smile a bit more and he laughs.
‘A right proper little Cheshire cat.’
I relax back into the sofa and look up at him. He strokes my hair and I almost close my eyes, and then I finally do when he carries on for what feels like hours.
Alf nudges me. ‘Hey there, sleepyhead. Drink this, it’ll perk you up.’
I sit up and take a mouthful. Knowing the acrid smell will make me gag, I concentrate on not breathing. I take another and another and within five minutes the world starts to slide away from me: I am happy and a giggle comes out of nowhere.
I struggle to focus on Alf, but I see him nod to the man next to me and I swing my head round to him. He smiles, I return it.
‘Come on, you sweet, sweet thing.’ He stands and helps me off the sofa. I feel his arm round my waist and I laugh because it tickles. He moves me towards Alf’s bedroom and I try to turn round to see Aoife, but the man stops me.
‘Come on now, you don’t want to disappoint Alf, do you?’
And of course, I don’t. I’d never want to do that. So I just smile again and follow him inside.