Page 51 of Days You Were Mine

I see him gazing at me intently, trying to read my reaction, trying not to say the wrong thing. Neither of us says the wordabortion; that’s for the clinic nurse to mention when she confirms my pregnancy, Rick sitting beside me like an anxious husband.

‘Nine weeks, I’d say, maybe ten. Does that make sense?’

‘None of it makes sense. I’m on the pill.’

We’ve had this conversation already, the nurse and I, the fact that the pill is only ninety-nine per cent effective and it’s always recommended to use condoms as well, but no one ever does. I think, but do not say, that neither have I been as diligent about taking my daily pill as I might. I’m a fool. I have no one to blame but myself.

‘There’s still time for an abortion,’ the nurse says. ‘But we need to get you booked in. Come back tomorrow if that’s what you decide and we can sort out the paperwork.’

Rick shepherds me out of Marie Stopes, arm around my waist.

‘Want me to come back to the flat with you?’

‘No. You’ve been amazing. I need to tell Jake on my own.’

‘He loves you, Al. It’ll be fine whatever you decide.’

The new Disciples album is finally finished, and to celebrate Jake is roasting a chicken and has a bottle of cava chilling in a makeshift ice bucket, bucket being the operative word, though he has filled it to the brim with water and ice.

He unwraps the foil hood and slides the cork from the bottle with a triumphant pop, and I watch as the wine fizzes right over the top of both our glasses. Jake raises his to mine and we clink.

‘To us. ToApparition. To your debut show.’

He is feverishly happy today, almost too much. There is a craziness to him as he talks and talks and paces around our tiny flat. And while I listen, I am thinking: how am I ever going to tell him?

According to his label, Island Records, Brian Eno has transformed what was already a great record into a ‘smash’.

‘They think it’s going to be huge,’ Jake says. ‘They actually said that and normally they don’t forecast. So Island are pushing for an earlier release. They want to get “Cassiopeia” on the Radio 1 playlist at the beginning of February. We might need to do the launch sooner if you can manage it.’

I follow him out into the kitchen, leaning up against the counter, watching as he takes the chicken from the oven and bastes it, my head full of the things I cannot say.

‘You’re quiet,’ he says, sliding the bird back into the oven, and I tell him, ‘Just tired,’ though the words scream through my brain. Pregnant. Abortion. Abortion. Baby.

I watch Jake flipping through his box of records, as he does every night, sitting back on his heels, pulling one out, considering, replacing. It is part of our daily routine, this; it can take him five minutes or more to make his choice. In Italy, Tom and Eddie christened him ‘the vibes master’, but sometimes he took so long to choose, all three of us would shout at him, ‘Just play something!’ For Jake, though, it always has to be exactly right. So when he selects Leonard Cohen,Songs from a Room, opening track ‘Bird on the Wire’, an anthem of freedom we both love, without warning I find myself crying. So much of our time together has been about freedom and liberation, aboutfinding ourselves and proving ourselves, and now there is a tiny fragment of human that could change everything for us. And in some crazed way, I want it to.

Jake catches me brushing the tears from my cheeks and is across the room in moments, kneeling before me. He takes my hand.

‘Is it the pressure of the show? If it’s too much, we can delay the launch, I’m sure. I forget how young you are sometimes, Alice. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not that. I’m excited about the show.’

‘Then what, tell me.’

‘It’s hard.’

‘Alice, whatever it is, you need to tell me.’

Give it to him straight, just like they did at the clinic.

‘OK. I’m pregnant. Ten weeks pregnant. Almost three months.’

Shell-shock words.

‘Pregnant?’

‘Yes.’

‘But how?’

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