"You"ve ditched hairdressing and you"re switching to plumbing?"
"Shut up, Jo, you can be such a b.i.t.c.h." Mel swung her feet off the chair and grabbed her stubbie of beer from the table.
"Melanie," snapped her father in his headmaster"s voice.
"What is it?" Their mother"s voice still held a tinge of annoyance.
"I"m pregnant."
"What?" "How?" "Oh mon dieu." Three equally outraged, amazed voices shattered the peace of the night.
"I"m pregnant, the usual way," said Mel enunciating clearly. "And no I"m not going to marry the father or live with him and I am going to keep this baby. I think."
"Do we know the father?" asked Joelle"s mother carefully.
"Don"t think so."
"Can we have his name?"
Melanie studied the bottle in her hand. "I don"t see why that will make any difference."
"Should you be drinking beer?" asked Joelle.
Mel shrugged. "Probably not."
"Does he know?" asked her father. "He should be taking some responsibility in this, Melanie."
"He doesn"t know and I"m not going to tell him." Her face took on a familiar, stubborn expression.
"Doesn"t he have a right to know?" asked Joelle. "It"s a pretty big secret to keep from him."
"You don"t know anything about it, Jo, so just keep quiet."
Joelle retreated from the anger in her sister"s voice. "Sorry." She looked at her parents hoping they could say or do something to help but they looked as stunned as she was.
"Have you any idea of the size of the task you"re taking on?" said her mother. "This is a child you"re talking about, this is forever." Her voice rose and she sat up straight. "How will you support it? How will you provide for this baby? You have no income, no career, no...anything. You can"t bring a baby up in that share house you"re in."
"Don"t worry, Mum I won"t expect you to look after it if that"s what you"re worried about." Melanie leapt up, her feet thudding onto the tiled surface.
"I just don"t understand, Melanie, how you could you allow this to happen." Her father stood as well, his expression angrier than Joelle had ever seen it. "Have you no sense at all? Haven"t you heard of contraception? What on earth was going through your head?"
Melanie gave a scornful laugh. "Do you really want me to answer that, Dad?"
He ran his hands through his hair with an exasperated sigh.
"I"m...I don"t know what to say," said her mother. She slumped back against the recliner cushions.
"I"m sorry I spoiled your birthday," said Melanie sarcastically. She groped about with her foot to retrieve a sandal, slipped it on and searched for the other.
"Mel, how are you feeling? How far along are you?" asked Joelle. Was Mel as sick every morning as Susan? She looked all right, paler than usual perhaps but well.
"I"m fine." Melanie stared at her. She bit her lip and her voice was softer when she said, "Three months."
"Sit down, Melanie," said her father. "We need to talk about this."
"Why? So you can tell me I"m irresponsible and stupid? I don"t think so, Dad."
Joelle sprang to her feet and grasped her sister"s arm. "Stay, Mel, please."
"No, I think I should go. You can discuss me when I"ve gone."
"Do you need a ride home?" asked Joelle. "I"ll drive you." Melanie didn"t own a car. She cadged lifts, took the bus or very occasionally as a last resort rode her bike about.
"Thanks. I was going to call a taxi."
"I"ll take you."
Their mother"s voice cut through like a knife. "I"m so disappointed, Melanie. I thought I"d brought you up to have more sense. This will completely ruin your life. You won"t have any chance at establishing any type of career now."
"Hah, like I had before? No career, Mum, in case you hadn"t noticed."
"What will you live off? The single mother"s pension? You"ll be poor and you"ll struggle and so will your baby. Children are expensive," said their father.
"I"m nineteen, I"m an adult and I can take care of myself, Dad. I"ve never asked you for money before and I won"t now."
"I wouldn"t call being single, pregnant, unemployed with no prospects and hardly any money in the bank the situation of a capable adult," said her mother harshly.
"I take it that means you won"t be helping Mel?" asked Joelle, shocked.
"We didn"t say that," said her father.
"She thinks she can cope, let her," said her mother. "Let her take responsibility for her actions for once."
"Natalie, there"s a child involved. Our grandchild."
"Can we go, Jo?" Melanie stalked across the terrace and yanked the sliding door open.
Joelle looked from one angry face to the other. "I"ll look after her," she said quickly.
Her mother snorted and turned away furiously, her fingers clenched in fists clutched to her breast. "How could she be so...idiotic?" she hissed. "Bringing a child into the world like this."
"Mum?" Joelle took a step toward the rigid figure but her father placed a restraining hand on her arm.
"Leave it, Jo," he said softly. "Take your sister home. I"ll talk to your mother. She"s...we"ve all had a shock. Don"t worry. We won"t abandon her."
Joelle looked again at her mother"s stiff back. "Bye Mum."
Melanie was waiting at the front door, her face a blank, expressionless mask. They went out and down the steps in silence. Joelle indicated to the right. Her Beetle glimmered softly under a streetlight further down the now deserted street.
"Thanks for sticking up for me," Melanie said.
"I"m amazed they were like that. I never expected Mum to be so furious."
"She likes things to be done her way. Hadn"t you noticed?" Mel continued without waiting for a reply, "I suppose you wouldn"t, you were always Miss Perfect."
"Me? You were the one who got away with everything. I wasn"t allowed to do half the things you were."
"I haven"t got away with this, have I?"
They reached the Beetle and Joelle unlocked the door. She climbed in and opened the pa.s.senger side. Melanie slumped into the seat beside her.
"Are you going to keep the baby?" Joelle asked. The engine roared, burped and roared again.
"Too late for an abortion if that"s what you mean and I didn"t even consider that."
"Really?" That pleased her in a way she hadn"t expected, hadn"t ever seriously thought about in terms of herself but in terms of Mel and her general att.i.tude, she"d made a.s.sumptions.
Melanie nodded. "I can look after this baby."
"You"ll need help." Jo steered across the nature strip and they bounced down the kerb onto the road.
"I know."
"Are you going to tell the father? He should help you."
"Maybe. Later. I don"t want him thinking he has to marry me or anything. Move in."
"So he loves you?"
"Maybe."
"Do you love him?"
Melanie didn"t reply and when Joelle glanced across she was staring blindly out the window. "Mel?"
"Since when have you been interested in my life?"
"You"re my sister."
"So? That doesn"t mean..."
"There"s no law that says you have to love your family?" asked Joelle wryly. She glanced across to find was Melanie staring at her.
She said in a strained, hurt sounding voice, "No I wasn"t thinking that at all. I was going to say it doesn"t mean you have to approve of everything I do or vice versa. Of course, I love you."
"Do you?"
"Just because we used to fight a lot and don"t see each other much and-"
"Don"t have anything in common and want completely different things from life," added Joelle. She laughed softly. "I love you too, Mel. Despite all past evidence to the contrary."
"I know that." She sniffed and to Joelle"s surprise dragged a hand across her eyes quickly. "Stupid-being pregnant makes me cry at anything."
"Susan told me she"s really teary too. In between throwing up."
"I haven"t had that, thank G.o.d, but I can"t stand the smell of tea or coffee any more. And I get very tired."
"Do you want to stay with me tonight? It"s late and my place is closer."
"No thanks, Jo. I don"t want to get in your way."
"You wouldn"t. Who"s your doctor? Are you going to Doctor Davis?"
"Hardly. I never liked him even when I was a kid. He scared me. His hands are all hairy."
Joelle snorted with laughter. "Those eyebrows-like a hedge. G.o.d knows why Mum and Dad still go to him. He should have retired years ago. I switched to Doctor Ceely. She"s good. I much prefer having a woman peer at me than a yeti."
Melanie gave a little chuckling laugh and Joelle was pleased by the sound.
Mel said, "I haven"t been to any doctor yet."
"I"ll give you her number. You make sure you go to see her. It"s important. I want my niece or nephew to be in good hands."
"Thanks."
"Mel, call me if you need help. Any sort of help, I mean. You will, won"t you?"
"Sure. You know, I thought it would be the other way around-that Mum and Dad would be okay with this and you"d be the disgusted one."
"I don"t think they"re disgusted. Shocked is more like it."
"Mum was furious."
"She"ll come round. She loves you too much to desert you. Dad will calm her down."
"He wasn"t very happy either."
"What made you think I"d be the disgusted one, anyway?
"You"re so perfect. You don"t make mistakes the way I do. I thought you"d look down your nose at me and say it"s what I deserved."
"Jeepers, Mel. We don"t know each other at all, do we?"
"No."
A new delivery of liliums arrived at the shop on Monday morning. The heady perfume reminded Joelle of her mother"s comment and the questions surrounding that mysterious customer who was also a mysterious visitor. *He" she"d said, perhaps inadvertently letting slip a clue. How many *he"s" had bought bunches of flowers with liliums in them on Friday? Only one sprang to mind immediately. Doctor Shay Brookes. Why would he visit her parents?