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    Before going home, Millie knew Ryan would want to take her, as he usually did, to what he called ‘our special place’. She would tell him there, she had to. She walked through the dark back streets with his arm round her; it didn’t comfort her. He unlocked the door, took her by the hand and led her into the warm dark stable smelling strongly of horse. They always took time to pat and stroke Orlando before they threw themselves down on his meagre supply of hay and straw. Ryan was already unbuttoning her coat when she made herself say, ‘There’s something I have to tell you but I’m scared . . .’
    He laughed and his lips came down on hers. ‘No need to be scared of anything,’ he whispered, ‘not with me.’
    He was unfastening the buttons on her blouse when she got the words out. ‘I think I’m pregnant.’ She heard his intake of breath as he drew away from her. It was too dark to see his face. ‘Ryan?’
    ‘You can’t be! I mean, I’ve been using French letters. Well, most of the time.’
    Terror had her in its grip. ‘I’m afraid I am,’ she choked.
    ‘When? When will it be born?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’ It had taken her a long time to accept that she really was pregnant.
    ‘You haven’t been to the doctor?’
    ‘No!’ It was an agonised cry, tears stung her eyes again. ‘He knows me, he comes to see Mum, he’d tell her. I can’t pay the bills he sends for her, I can’t add to them.’
    ‘Oh God!’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’re making a mistake. Perhaps you’re not having a baby at all. Perhaps it’s all in your mind.’
    Millie shuddered. This was what she’d feared most. ‘I can feel it move inside me,’ she said quietly. ‘Sometimes it kicks me. There’s no mistake.’
    He was sitting up, putting distance between them. ‘What are you going to do?’
    Millie was horrified. He hadn’t said, what are we going to do. She could see only one way out of her difficulties and made herself say, ‘Couldn’t we get married?’ She held her breath waiting for his answer while tears ran down her cheeks.
    ‘I’m still on a learner’s wage,’ he protested. ‘What would we live on?’
    Millie began to do up her buttons, there would be no love-making tonight. ‘You could move in with me.’ She desperately wanted his ring on her finger and his assurance that they’d face this together, but she hated begging for it. ‘It wouldn’t cost any more.’
    ‘You’ve only got two basement rooms,’ he said, ‘and your mother’s there.’
    She scrambled to her feet and made herself say, ‘She won’t be with me for much longer. I’d better get back to her.’ Normally, Millie couldn’t bear to think of it but her mother now spoke of death in matter-of-fact tones.
    ‘I hate the thought of dying and leaving you on your own when you’re so young,’ she’d said, ‘but the McCarthys will look after you.’ Now even that looked unlikely.
    They walked home in silence, though Millie held on to his arm as she always had. She knew now that he wouldn’t willingly marry her. She had ignored the disquietening rumours she’d heard at work about Ryan – that he was frequently late for work and not so highly thought of by management as he’d led her to believe. He’d given up going to night school though she had not.
    He usually came round on Sundays to see her and chat, but the next day he did not. And he usually called for her in the mornings, but on the following Monday he didn’t, though she saw him at work. They would wait for each other so they could walk home together but that evening there was no sign of him and she eventually gave up and went home alone with a heavy heart. She knew he was avoiding her and that filled her with dread.
    On Tuesday she looked for him in the office but his colleagues said they hadn’t seen him since yesterday morning, that he’d disappeared at lunchtime and hadn’t turned up for work today. Millie had to hold on to the door for a moment, the