March 1995 (sixteen years old)

Mum wanted me to wait a couple of weeks, leave time for me to change my mind if that was what was meant to happen, but I didn’t want to risk it. An odd, arctic calm had descended on me, a permafrost of self-preservation. Doctors were seen, forms were signed and now I was a day away from my body being vacant again. It sounds cold, but the truth was it had started to feel like an alien continent. I was nibbling food without tasting it, walking to school like I was walking on the moon, air-sprung feet barely landing on the pavement. Lorcan had raged and shouted, told us he’d go straight back to New York, and then slumped into a disconsolate silence. He wouldn’t look at me, would stay in bed until I’d left the house, and then disappear in the evenings.

But Jim made up for it. He was so utterly lovely to me, coming home the next weekend and taking me to a proper Italian restaurant in Primrose Hill, his hand never leaving mine throughout the meal. He even fed me a forkful of spaghetti. ‘You’re being so brave,’ he kept saying. ‘We’ve just got to hang in there.’ On the Monday, he sent me roses and I tried not to think about Valentine’s Day. Mum took delivery of them, hiding the vase in my room so Lorcan wouldn’t see it. Love you, Jim xx, said the card, and I Pritt-Sticked it into my diary, reading the sparse, precious words again and again. Logically, this didn’t have to be a disaster. I would survive it, and life would go on – there would be other babies, babies we could parent properly. I just had to protect myself from the volcano of Lorcan’s rage erupting again.

Lysette was loyal but tongue-tied. We were inseparable at school again, apart from when I went to my Oxbridge classes. I’d had a surge of motivation, aware of how much I’d been taking for granted. I wasn’t going to be a problem-page cliché, my future ruined by a stupid mistake. My teachers stared a little too hard at me, but I ignored them. We’d had to tell the head of year, who had been suitably, Catholicly, horrified, but they’d decided not to suspend me. For now, I was a purposeful robot. How odd that that never struck me as dangerous.

English was our last class of the day on the eve of my abortion. I was back in the desk where it began, but at least now Lysette was smiling at me. I could see the worry in her eyes, and I gave a brittle, uncertain smile back. She linked her arm through mine as we left the classroom.

‘Do you wanna go to the Coffee Cup,’ she asked, ‘or do you want to go straight home?’

‘I’m meeting Jim in Camden,’ I said, and a look swept across her face. What was it? Pity, disapproval? I was so weary of getting that look from her and Mum. It was none of their business. ‘Did I tell you he sent me roses?’ I said, my voice tight and haughty. ‘Ten of them. Big, fat pink ones.’

‘That’s . . . that’s nice.’

Now it was Lysette’s turn to go robotic, her words clipped and sterile.

‘Why do you have to be so negative about us?’ I said, anger surging up. ‘Fuck’s sake, is it so bad that we love each other? What have we actually done wrong? We made a stupid mistake, but . . .’

Lysette’s face was white, her jaw clenched.

‘You don’t want this baby, do you?’ she said, her voice a strangled whisper. ‘It’s not because he’s persuaded you . . .’

I couldn’t look backwards, revisit moments that I’d burnt through. I’d overcome the useless sentimentality that had dogged those first few days.

‘We’ve made a decision.’

‘As long as it’s your decision. It’s your body! You know I don’t think you should have it, but I don’t want him manipulating you.’

‘Manipulating me?’ I said, puffing up with righteous indignation. ‘He’s your brother, Lysette. Why are you always so shitty about him?’

‘I’m not!’ she said, almost desperate. Lysette was always such an open book, but right now she was fighting to keep the pages tightly closed. Our eyes locked – she broke. ‘He’s not faithful. He can’t be. All the things that make him fun – he’s spoilt. He doesn’t mean to be a bastard.’ She saw my stricken face, tried to hug me. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it. Not today. But I had to, in case . . .’

I was as stiff and straight as a pencil. I felt as though I might topple clean over, the blood rushing to all the wrong places, but I forced myself to regain control.

‘I’m going now,’ I said, shaking her arm off me. ‘I know you’re only trying to help,’ I added mechanically, guarding against us falling out again.

He lied of course: he lied and lied. And I lied too. I pretended to him, and to me, that I believed him. I used my favourite trick, the one where you can choose not to know something that will be too ruinous to your happiness. He dropped me home and I kissed him goodnight obediently, like a puppy who has finally learnt how to get a treat. But I was cleverer than him, I always had been, I now realized. I was cleverer than most people. I’d decide when to defrost myself.

Mum insisted I ate breakfast, a soft-boiled egg that made me want to gag. She made me soldiers, like I was a little girl again, and watched me anxiously as I nibbled at them. I loved her so much in that moment, and I nearly broke, asked her to take me, but I couldn’t risk going off course. Lorcan wouldn’t come downstairs, his heavy footfall making the house reverberate with anger. Jim was early, a state of affairs that was unheard of. My God, he wanted to make sure this was in the bag.

‘Hello, Mrs Cosgrove. We finally meet,’ he said, putting out a polite hand. Mum made the briefest contact with it.

‘We do,’ she said, her eyes like slate, ‘and it’s Claire.’ She turned her back on him, hugging me close. It was so warm there, her heartbeat so unexpectedly comforting. I lived inside that body once. ‘Darling, are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. I stayed where I was.

‘We should go,’ said Jim eventually, and I could feel Mum’s glare, even though I couldn’t see her face from my vantage point in her arms.

‘You’re right,’ I said, pulling away. He put out his hand for mine, and I looked at it. It was like a dead fish. I opened the front door.

‘I’ll be here when you get home,’ Mum said, and I smiled gratefully, then walked down the path towards Jim’s car.

Lorcan came out of nowhere. He must’ve gone out the back door and lain in wait. He barrelled into Jim, taking him completely by surprise, pushing him down on the pavement.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he shouted. ‘That’s my grandchild!’ He was gripping him, pinning him to the ground, Jim still too shocked to fight back.

‘Get off him,’ I screeched. Yet again, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. We were trapped in a cliffhanger from a bad soap opera. ‘Mum!’

Lorcan turned his face towards me, his eyes wild and staring.

‘You’re no child of mine,’ he said.

Mum came running out, and started trying to pull Lorcan off him, but it was like Lorcan was possessed. I hated it when he got like that, unreachable and terrifying. He could do anything in this state.

‘Lorcan, stop. Stop!’ I pleaded. Jim was trying to push him off, but Lorcan’s skinny body seemed to have supernatural strength. Jim was slight too, a lover, not a fighter.

‘You trying to get away from me?’ Lorcan screamed. ‘Don’t you fucking dare. You’re a murderer!’

I looked down the suburban street, desperate for help. Curtains were twitching by now, but no one had come out to help us. Mum was pulling at Lorcan, as Jim aimed punches.

‘Get the fuck off me!’ he shouted. ‘You fucking lunatic!’

I felt a deep wave of dread. I could see Lorcan’s face, his rage reaching boiling point.

‘Don’t you fucking dare,’ he said again, grabbing Jim’s head. As the police car screeched to a halt, he was hitting it against the pavement. Jim screamed, then stopped screaming, blood pooling around him. I was screaming too, but I didn’t even know it.

By the time the ambulance pulled up, Lorcan was already in handcuffs. I was on the ground, kneeling next to Jim, but he couldn’t hear me. ‘I love you,’ I said, again and again, the last twenty-four hours an irrelevance. And then, as they put him on the stretcher, I felt a deep pain inside my belly that was more than shock.