Blood Sisters: Part 2 of 3: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death?. Julie Shaw

had never been one for horoscopes or fate or other such spiritual nonsense. There was a girl at the solicitors – an articled clerk, so no doubt pretty clever – who read her stars in the paper daily, and, since she’d begun there, Lucy’s too. And Lucy (wondering how someone who had letters after her name could take any notice of such nonsense) would smile politely and agree that it would be nice to ‘come into some money’, or ‘see a welcome shift in a special relationship’, or whatever other guff was in the paper that day. And yet this morning – she’d taken the afternoon off for her appointment – astrology had warned her to be ‘braced for bad news’.

      ‘Though your natural Sagittarian optimism will help you overcome any obstacles,’ Marie had continued brightly, before dumping the paper and returning to her work.

      Lucy had picked it up and re-read it, trying to see it for the rubbish it was. And yet, was it?

      It had been such a strange and disconcerting few weeks. Vicky pregnant. Vicky pregnant. Vicky going to have a baby. As her mam had commented when she’d told her the astonishing news, it seemed only yesterday that the pair of them were babies themselves. ‘Running round the garden in your pants and vests,’ her mam had finished. She’d sighed then. ‘Where did all those years go?’

      And it did feel exactly like that, despite everything. Despite the fact that they’d both been with their boyfriends for ages. Despite the fact that they’d both been having sex. God, was it really so astonishing that Vic should fall pregnant? That was the way nature had designed humans, wasn’t it? To have sex and make babies while they were young and fit and fertile. Well, at least in Vicky’s case, anyway.

      ‘I’m so jealous,’ Vic had wailed to her when she explained about the GP having put her on the pill.

      ‘You know, Vic,’ Lucy had said, feeling chippy about it all. ‘There’s nothing stopping you from going to the family planning clinic, you know.’

      ‘Er, how about my mam?’

      ‘Vic, you’re sixteen. She doesn’t even need to know.’

      ‘Yeah, but you think I’d manage to keep it from her? Not a chance, mate. She’s like bloody Sherlock!’

      Which struck Lucy as a bit of a ridiculous thing for Vicky to say, since her mam could barely rouse herself enough to get off the sofa, much less start ferreting around in her daughter’s sex life. No, the truth was much simpler: she just hadn’t got around to it. That and the business of being brought up Catholic. And the ‘fact’ – if fact it was, and Lucy’s doctor had said it wasn’t anything like a given – that if you went on the pill you immediately put a stone on, and might get a thrombosis as well.

      But it was that stone – that was the main thing. Lucy knew how Paddy’s mind worked. He monitored Vicky’s size like it was a project he was micro-managing. If she put on so much as an ounce he’d be on at her that she was letting herself go.