Heaven's Promise by Paolo Hewitt Page B

cost. It was time to get into one.
    â€˜So what are you going to do about this mess we’re in?’
    â€˜Jesus,’ she angrily shot back, ‘do you have to be so off all the time? I am pregnant, you know.’
    â€˜Yeah, I heard. Someone told me. Congratulations. I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
    â€˜Don’t be sarcastic, it doesn’t become you.’
    â€˜Well, as far as I remember you were taking certain precautions. That’s what you said, yes? Or perhaps I heard you wrong.’
    Sandra leapt off the sofa.
    â€˜You calling me a fucking liar? Eh? Is that it? Think I’m trying to trap you do you? Don’t flatter yourself, sugar. I’m only dealing with you because of an accident. OK? It was an accident. Shit. You think I want a baby by you? Cha! I’d find better men than you living off the street.’
    â€˜Well, why don’t you fuck off and find them?’
    â€˜Don’t you dare use language like that in front of me. Or my baby.’
    â€˜Oh, so it’s your baby now, is it?’
    â€˜Well you don’t want it, do you? You got what you wanted and now look at you running a mile. Men! You make me sick, the lot of you.’
    By now, we were standing up, facing each other in a red hot war of the words and it was getting us absolutely nowhere.
    â€˜Shit,’ I said, sitting down for we both needed to cool it and try another way. Sandra must have thought so as well because she resumed her position on the sofa.
    â€˜Have you got any cigarettes?’ she asked. I reached into my bag and we lit up.
    â€˜What does your mum think. Have you told her yet?’
    â€˜This morning. She’s actually quite pleased. She’ll stand by me.’
    â€˜Have you thought at all about not having the baby,’ I asked in a quiet voice, sensing that the time was right.
    Sandra sighed.
    â€˜Of course I’ve considered it. I’ve thought about a lot of things ever since I found out. That’s why I came to see you. See if we can’t find a way through.’
    â€˜What do you think? Is that a possibility?’
    â€˜I really don’t know if I can do it. Just after my dad fucked off, my sister got pregnant and had to have one. She said it was the most painful thing she’d ever been through mentally as well as physically. It’s human life we’re talking about here.’
    â€˜I haven’t got any money, you know.’
    Sandra kissed her teeth in disgust, her expression changing to one of pure frustration, like a teacher talking to a child who simply refuses to listen and has now used up all the tricks of the trade to get through.
    What depressed me about it all was that throughout the whole bitter exchange, I had discreetly, against my wishes I must add, been checking out Sandra’s form, just as I had on the fateful night we met, and although my gaze kept returning to her shapely legs and pretty little face, I have to say that I felt nothing.
    It made me sad that I could not tap into my first feelings towards her for that would have at least helped me understand better the wild dilemma I found myself in.
    It was not to be. All I wanted at this precise moment in time was Sandra out of the flat and out of my life but that kind of scene is for the movies and the movies only.
    â€˜I have to be somewhere soon,’ I said nonchalantly.
    Sandra looked at me for a good five seconds, stood up, crossed the room to where I was sitting and said, ‘I came here to try and reason with you but as you seem incapable of doing that, perhaps this will make you understand that you cannot treat people like throwaway rubbish.’
    Then she pulled back her hand and gave me the hardest slap on the face that I have ever received. Then she walked, slamming all doors on her way out.
    A red hot fire spread across my face and a buzzing sound started up in my mind, getting louder and louder and louder until I could stand it no more. I