her lovely soothing voice that she understood completely because that had once happened to her too.
‘Believe me, I know how you feel,’ Nancy was saying now to a tearful woman who had just discovered her husband had a bit of a predilection for lacy underwear. ‘Tell me, is it just the undies or does he wear frocks too?’
He did, he did, confessed the woman, between sobs. She’d found a flouncy yellow chiffon dress in the back of the wardrobe and wondered what on earth it was doing there. It was horrible, not her taste in clothes at all.
While Dulcie bit the chocolate off a jaffa cake, Nancy suggested to the woman that shopping together for clothes might bring her and her husband closer, and could also help to avoid costly mistakes.
The next caller was more up Dulcie’s street.
‘... the thing is,’ pleaded Greta from Scarborough, ‘I really love him, Nancy. If he left me I don’t know what I’d do, I just need someone to tell me how I can keep him ... I’ll do anything ...’
Dulcie ate another jaffa cake. She knew that feeling all right.
‘Right, Greta. I understand completely how desperate you must be feeling,’ said Nancy cosily. ‘I can hear it in your voice. But first of all I have to tell you what you mustn ‘t do.’
‘What mustn’t she do, Nancy?’ enquired one of the show’s presenters.
‘Yes, Nancy,’ said Dulcie, ‘what mustn’t we do?’
‘Please, please don’t be tempted into thinking all your problems would be solved if you had a baby.’ Nancy sounded sorrowful. ‘Because believe me, Greta, that would be the biggest mistake you could make.’
The jaffa cake was melting. Dulcie licked chocolate off her fingers and conjured up a mental picture of a tiny baby, the image of Liam, wearing tennis whites and waving a miniature racquet.
This was a possibility that hadn’t so much as crossed her mind.
‘It’s crossed my mind,’ admitted Greta from Scarborough. ‘Don’t let it,’ Nancy said firmly.
This was like being told not to think of pink elephants. Dulcie promptly imagined Liam showing off his new son, driving him around in the Lamborghini, proudly telling everyone how fatherhood had changed his whole life .. .
‘I know,’ said Greta, beginning to sound a bit desperate, ‘but it worked for my sister. She got pregnant and her bloke stuck by her. And she did it on purpose,’ she added defiantly. ‘He thought she was still on the pill but she stopped taking it.’
‘Deceit and trickery,’ Nancy looked sad and shook her head, ‘deceit and trickery. Trust me, pet, this isn’t the answer. Getting pregnant – when all you’re trying to do is hang on to a man – is a recipe for disaster. You’re just grasping at straws.’
Dulcie lifted up her white sweatshirt and gazed down at her flat stomach. Then she shoved the biscuit tin under the sweatshirt and surveyed the odd-shaped lump. Nancy had got rid of Greta now. She had moved on to John from Norwich who was forty-four but his mother had never let him have a girlfriend.
Dulcie knew from the tone of Greta’s voice that she would go ahead and do it anyway. You could always tell when people were going to ignore Nancy’s sound advice.
Dulcie pulled the biscuit tin out from under her sweatshirt, opened it and thoughtfully bit into a bourbon. There was no doubt about it, getting pregnant accidentally-on-purpose might not do the trick — but then again, what if it did? It could be a risk worth taking.
What a shame there wasn’t a Predictor pregnancy kit for men, a just-pee-on-this type of thing that would reliably inform you whether the prospective father of your child might actually be quite keen on the idea.
Or, on the other hand, if he was a fully paid-up member of the run-a-mile club.
Minutes later, it came to her.
Brilliant, thought Dulcie excitedly, amazed that a solution so perfect and simple hadn’t occurred to her before. Or, indeed, to Nancy.
Who needed a pre-pregnancy test? All she had to do was bend the truth a bit.
It wasn’t even fibbing, it was ... well, it was research.
Chapter 28
‘You’re what?’ said Liza, horrified, when Dulcie announced her momentous news the next day out in the back garden. ‘You’re kidding!’
‘I found out last week. Isn’t it terrific?’
Dulcie beamed at them both. Pru, sitting cross-legged on the grass, looked dazed. Liza, frowning, swirled the ice cubes around in her tall glass.
‘I don’t know,’ Liza said finally. ‘Is it terrific? How does Liam feel about it?’
Feeling quite pregnant already, and weirdly protective of her nonexistent child, Dulcie decided Liza was jealous.
‘I’m telling him tonight. I bet he’ll be chuffed.’
Pru was shielding her eyes from the sun, peering at Dulcie’s stomach.
‘How many weeks are you?’
‘Six.’ Dulcie was firm. She had consulted her diary and committed the necessary dates to memory. She had learned her lesson from the Bibi fiasco, the lesson being: If you’re going to lie, be thorough, be convincing and above all be consistent.
All the same, she was glad she had her RayBans on. It wasn’t so easy fibbing to your friends.
‘Morning sickness?’ said Liza, giving her a slightly odd look.
