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How can she keep this from him? It feels impossible—but then, asking him whether he knew and concealed something so momentous feels equally impossible. It would be like asking him whether he has lied to her all their relationship—and admitting to him that she thinks he may have done so. How do you ask someone something like that? And what if he tells her—
Her phone pings and she looks down, realizing that she is still frozen in the middle of the aisle, holding it out like a compass. It’s a text from Will.
Han, I’m sorry I hadn’t remembered about the antenatal appointment. I’m a horrible husband. Please don’t stress—I’m sure it’s all fine. Our baby is fine. I love you x
A wave of guilt washes over her as she realizes what she has just done—she has used this appointment, used their baby, as an alibi for her own stress over Geraint.
She is just trying to think what to reply when her phone buzzes again.
Why don’t you take a day off so you’re properly rested? Really put your feet up xx
You’re a LOVELY husband. And good idea, Hannah texts back. Love you x
She puts the phone away, picks up the rice, and goes across to the queue for the checkout, but the sinking feeling in her stomach tells her that this isn’t over. She has to find out if Geraint is telling the truth, if April really was pregnant, or she will spend the next ten years stressing about it. And only one person knows for sure.
She will take the day off tomorrow, as Will suggested. But not to put her feet up.
She will go to the appointment. And then she will go and see Ryan. And she will ask him about the rumors. But that means… that means she has to tell Will.
* * *
IT’S LATE—OR WHAT PASSES FOR late for Hannah these days. They are in bed. Will is scrolling through his phone, and Hannah is reading a dog-eared copy of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. She picked it up because she wanted a familiar comfort read, but she knows the clock is ticking and that she cannot put this conversation off any longer. She owes to it Will.
She puts the book down on the bedside table.
“Will…”
“Mm?” He barely looks up. She can see he’s on Twitter. He doesn’t tweet under his own name—they’ve both learned the hard way that’s not a good idea—but he has an anonymous account under the name Two Wheels Good where he retweets indignant blogs about poorly designed road junctions and articles about vintage motorbikes.
“Will… did you…” She swallows. Stops. Tries again. “Did you… did you ever hear a rumor that April was… pregnant?”
“What?” Will sits up straight, turns to look at her. The lazy postsupper, two-beer contentment is suddenly gone from his face, and his expression is wary and watchful. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I… I heard a rumor… something on the internet—” Oh God, there it is, the actual lie she was trying not to tell, but now she’s said it she can’t take it back. “Someone said that April was pregnant when she died.”
“Ugh, what absolute bullshit,” Will says, and his face twists into something so shocked and unhappy that she wishes she had never brought it up, even though there’s a kind of comfort in seeing his surprise. “Of course she wasn’t. Where do people get this poisonous shit? More to the point, why are you reading it?”
“I don’t know—I wasn’t trawling conspiracy forums, it just cropped up,” she says, and that’s true in a way. Geraint did just crop up, out of the blue, like an unwanted Google Alert. “So you think it’s crap?”
“Of course it’s crap. Are they saying it came up at the autopsy but the coroner just—what—decided not to mention it to anyone?”
“No,” Hannah says, but Will’s words have cleared her head, blowing away some of the fog of stress and worry, because of course he’s completely right. If it were true, then of course it would have come up at the autopsy. “No, it wasn’t anything to do with the autopsy it was just this rumor, something about, she took a pregnancy test right before she died—but you’re right—that’s so unlikely.” She should have talked to Will about this earlier. She is feeling better already. She rolls over and puts her arm over his middle. “I mean, she would have told one of us for sure, wouldn’t she?”
“Of course she would. And anyway, it makes no sense. The idea that April would ever have touched John Neville with a barge pole, let alone had sex with him, God, people are fucking imbeciles. They’ll believe anything, however unlikely, if it makes a good conspiracy theory.”
Hannah says nothing. She only squeezes him tighter, and he hugs her back, and now he is the one who is tense, but not with stress and fear. As her arms tighten around him she can feel his anger, feel the sinews in his arms and shoulders as he strives to simmer down so as not to upset her. In a strange way, though, his fury is comforting. Because he has missed the point completely. He has failed to understand what Geraint was saying, the narrative of guilt and revenge that the pregnancy theory implies, and that somehow is more reassuring than almost anything else.
* * *
“WELL… IT’S STILL A BIT high.” The midwife unstraps the band from Hannah’s arm, and Hannah feels a sharp pang of disbelief. She had been so sure that it would be fine. She had gotten the bus, arrived ten minutes early, sat there taking deep breaths in the waiting room trying to calm herself down. And now this? It feels like her body has betrayed her.
“How high?” she says in an odd, strangled voice.
“It’s hovering around the one-forty over ninety mark. Which… isn’t ideal. Have you noticed any swelling in your ankles? Any unusual headaches?”
“No, and no.” Hannah feels her cheeks flush with annoyance. “But hang on, one-forty over ninety, that’s not that high, is it? I thought anything below that was normal.”
“Clinically, yes, but pregnant women are a bit different.” The midwife’s voice is gentle, but there’s a slightly patronizing note that makes Hannah’s hackles rise. I’m not stupid, she wants to say. I know I’m pregnant. But she knows that she won’t be the first person to have had this back-and-forth with the midwife, trying to argue away figures that are right there on the dial in front of her, and that her anger isn’t really at the woman sitting opposite, it’s at herself.
