As they arrived at the clinic Candy felt a moment’s reprieve as she looked around at the pregnant women all sitting waiting for their turn to be seen.
She was overreacting, she told herself.
This world didn’t apply to her.
‘You might as well come in,’ Candy said to Louise as they arrived at a door that had a sign with Anton Rossi written on it. ‘He’ll only tell you what’s happening anyway.’
‘God, no.’ Louise rolled her eyes. ‘Unfortunately for me Anton’s all ethical like that. If you tell him not to tell me, then wild horses wouldn’t drag it from him! You don’t have to worry about that.’ Louise gave her a lovely smile. ‘But if you do want to tell me then I’m dying to know!’ She gave Candy a cuddle just before she went in. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Candy really hadn’t had anything to do with Anton before this. She just knew him by reputation and had seen him occasionally when he’d come down to Emergency to review a patient there.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch break,’ she said. ‘Thank you for seeing me so quickly.’
‘Louise said that you were very upset.’
Candy nodded. ‘I know that everything is confidential but the thing is, this is terribly delicate and—’
‘First of all,’ Anton interrupted, ‘you are right—everything you tell me is completely confidential. I never gossip.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m not even taking notes. Do you want to tell me what’s happening?’
‘I think I might be pregnant,’ Candy said. ‘The thing is, my partner...’ She didn’t even know if Steele was that but she pushed on. ‘It can’t be his.’
‘Because?’
‘He’s infertile.’
‘Have you been seeing someone else?’ Anton asked gently—he was used to that being the case—but Candy shook her head.
‘I’ve only been with my current partner for a couple of weeks. We weren’t supposed to be serious, but...’ It sounded so terrible put like that but Anton’s eyes were sympathetic rather than judgmental. ‘I had a one-night stand with my ex a couple of months ago.’ She thought back. ‘Three months, maybe. We used condoms.’
‘Nothing is fail-safe,’ Anton said.
‘I went on the Pill afterwards,’ Candy said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anything to happen again but I just decided I wasn’t coming off it. I have had my period.’
‘A normal period?’ Anton checked.
‘It’s been light but I thought that was because the day I got it I started the Pill.’
‘The first thing we need to do—’ Anton was very calm ‘—is to find out if you are indeed pregnant.’
He gave her a jar and a few minutes later she sat in his office and she knew, she simply knew that she was. A few moments later Anton confirmed it.
‘Candy, you are pregnant.’
He let it sink in for a moment.
‘How do you think your partner will react?’ Anton asked.
‘I don’t think I’m going to find out,’ Candy said, and she just stared at the wall. ‘There’s really no point telling him. We both agreed from the start—’
‘What about the father?’
Oh, that’s right. Candy’s brain was moving like gridlocked traffic. It was like telling a joke and forgetting the punch line, because she hadn’t told Anton the good part yet. ‘You know Gerry, the head of nursing in Emergency...’
‘Oh, Candy.’ Immediately he took her hand. Anton didn’t gossip—in fact, he had been in this office all morning—but he had seen the email twenty minutes or so ago informing everyone that Gerry had passed away while on holiday in Greece and that Emergency was on bypass.
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Of course you don’t know what to do at the moment,’ he said. ‘This is all too much of a shock. How long have you been worried that you might be pregnant?’
‘Since yesterday,’ Candy said. ‘A patient said something. I know I’m a bit overweight, it just...’
‘Hit home?’