Page 132 of Don't Believe A Word

‘Yes, I can see that at the end of the message, but why isshesending emails to your father telling him what’s going on when you should have told us this yourself?’

‘Well, I kind of guessed you’d go off on one, and there’s this …’

‘This what? Baby? Is that the word you’re looking for?’

‘It wasn’t, but hey …’ He glanced at his father who was listening quietly, seeming to have nothing to say.

‘For God’s sake,’ Cristy shouted. ‘What’s the matter with you two? First you,’ she shot at Matthew, ‘and now you …’

‘Hey, hey!’ Matthew interrupted. ‘For the record, I’m married and I wasnotunder age when …’

‘Isshe?’ Cristy raged at Aiden as a whole world of other horrors suddenly rose up from the chaos.

‘Is she what?’ he asked.

‘Under age?’

He screwed up his nose as he thought. ‘I think she was sixteen a couple of weeks ago, so technically not any more.’

‘But she was when you … Oh for God’s sake, I don’t even know what to call it.’

‘Shagged?’ he offered helpfully.

Certain Matthew smirked, she rounded on him again. ‘Sothis is the kind of parent you are, allowing your son, who’s only fifteen …’

‘Sixteen now,’ Aiden reminded her.

‘But fifteen when the child was conceived, if this girl is six months along.’

‘No, sixteen,’ he insisted. ‘It happened last August.’

Finding herself dumbfounded she turned back to Matthew. ‘Have you been allowing him to sleep with girls in your house?’ she demanded. ‘Knowing you, you encouraged it …’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ Matthew objected. ‘I’m every bit as furious with him as you are, so I’m not the one you should be attacking here.’

‘He’s your son …’

‘And yours. Maybe they got it together here, in this flat?’

Cristy glared at Aiden. ‘Did you?’ she demanded, desperately shutting out the image of it.

He shrugged. ‘Maybe, once or twice, but it was no big deal …’

‘No big deal?’she echoed incredulously. How the hell was she supposed to get through to him, when nothing ever seemed to faze him, not even the fact he could be guilty of statutory rape, and facing at least eighteen years of child maintenance, not to mention a lifetime of fatherhood, when he wasn’t even an adult yet? ‘Did it not occur to you to use a condom?’ she demanded. Talk about horses and stable doors!

He grimaced. ‘I kind of thought I did …’

‘How can you notknow?’ He was beyond belief.

‘Well it happened a few times,’ he said, ‘and maybe for one of them I just kind of forgot, or ran out …’

Not sure if Matthew was laughing again, she turned her wrath back on him, still wanting to blame him in spite of knowing it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to anything. ‘Have you met this girl?’ she demanded.

He held up his hands defensively. ‘The first I heard of her was when I got the email,’ he assured her. ‘I rang you straight off andyou…’ He stopped as her eyes narrowed – if he tried to blame her … ‘And now we are where we are,’ he finished lamely.

Aiden was texting.

‘Put that damned thing down,’ Cristy snapped at him.