been she who had pressured him into seeing Jane again, into finding out

the truth about the child. Folding her hands in her lap, Bev stared

into the dusty marble fireplace. "You've known her a long time."

"She was the first girl I ever slept with. I was barely thirteen." He

rubbed his hands over his eyes, wishing it wasn't so easy to remember.

"My father would get drunk, go on one of his famous rages before he

pa.s.sed out. I'd hide out in the cellar of the flat. One day Jane was

there, like she was waiting. Before I knew it, she was on top of me."

"You don't have to go into all this, Bri."

"want you to know." He took his time, drawing in smoke, letting it out.

"We seemed a lot alike, Jane and I. Somebody was always fighting at her

house, too. There was never enough money. Then when I started getting

interested in music, I spent more time with that than her. She went

crazy. She threatened me, threatened herself I kept away from her.

"Then not long after the guys and I got together, when we were

struggling so hard to get a break, she showed up again. We were playing

in dives, barely making enough for food. I guess it was because she was

someone I knew, someone who knew me. Mostly it was because I was an

a.s.shole."

Bev sniffled, gave a watery laugh. "You're still an a.s.shole."

"Yeah. We got back together, almost a year. Toward the end she was

outrageous, trying to start trouble between me and the others. She'd

break up rehearsals, make scenes. She even came to the club and went

after one of the girls in the audience. Afterward, she'd cry and beg me

to forgive her. It got to the point where it stopped being easier to

say, sure, fine, forget it. She said she'd kill herself when I broke it

off with her. We'd just hooked up with Pete and had a series of gigs in

France and Germany. He was working on the first record deal. We got

out of London, and I put her out of my mind. I didn't know she was

pregnant, Bev. I hadn't even thought of her in over three years. If I

could go back-" He broke off, thinking of the child in the next room

with her crooked tooth and little dimple. "I don't know what I'd do."

Bev drew up her knees and leaned over them. She was a young, practical

woman from a stable family. It was still difficult for her to

understand poverty and pain, though those were the very things in

Brian's background that had drawn her to him.

"I guess it's more to the point what you're going to do now."

"I've already done it." He stubbed out the cigarette in a

nineteenthcentury porcelain bowl. Bev didn't bother to mention it.

"What have you done, Bri?"

"I've taken Emma. She's mine. She's going to live with me."

"I see." She took a cigarette. She'd cut out drinking and her dabbling

with drugs since her pregnancy, but tobacco was a harder habit to break.

"You didn't think we should talk it over? The last I heard we were

going to be married in a few days."

"Are going to be." He took her by the shoulders then, shaking her,

afraid that she, like so many others, would turn awqy from him.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Bev, I wanted to talk to you. I couldn't." He released her

to spring up and kick at the sample books. "I walked into that filthy,

stinking flat intending to do no more than threaten Jane if she didn't