YOU'RE PREGNANT

For now she enjoyed having those extra hours a week not having her hair yanked and blown smooth.

She stood at the font, looking at Alora's dress as she and Miguel juggled the twins, and wondering who on earth she was to offer guidance as a godmother, while knowing if that day ever came, then she would.

Oh, she doubted she would ever Marry but she did believe in the sanctity of it and to think about what had happened made a curl of Shame inside her that meant it was something she wouldn't be discussing with Alora.

She loved Alora and Miguel and their little family and she remembered Thomas's christening and when they had been there for her.

Alora must have been thinking if it too, because she gave her friend the nicest smile and later pulled her aside.

'My parents are driving me crazy,' Alora said. 'They want to know when we are having the cake. I'm sure they want to go home.'

Kylie smiled. Alora's parents loathed any change to their routine.

'Are you okay, Kylie?'

'Of course.'

They told each other everything and she could have come up with some airy excuse, that today was hard because...

Only, she wouldn't use Thomas as an excuse for not being able to meet her friend's eyes.

'What are you up to, Kylie?'

'I'm not up to anything.'

'Is there something you are not telling me?'

For the first time since they'd been teenagers she lied properly to her friend.

'Don't be dumb.'

And she got on with smiling and enjoying this very special day.

But over the next few weeks Kylie threw herself into her work and studying for her exams, which were tough but no tougher than expected. It was meant there was no time to catch up with Alora.

And even when three weeks' annual leave stretched ahead of her, she still avoided her friend.

Though she was starting to realise that she wouldn't be able to avoid her for long.

Alora texted.

Is everything okay?

Kylie didn't answer.

Alora persisted.

Did we have an argument that I didn't notice?

Finally Kylie texted back.

Can I tell you when I'm ready?

Because she wasn't just yet.

Of course.

No, she wasn't quite ready, so she stripped walls sanded back a mantepiece and tried to face something she was avoiding.

When it proved too hard, she took herself to her favourite shop and spent a morning turning pages of wallpaper samples.

'I think a silver grey,' Kylie said to Eva, the owner, who was obsessed with wallpaper as she was. 'Perhaps with one wall in a silver and the rest in a matt finish...'

Silver moonlight hues had appealed but as Eva went to clear some space so they put together sampled she moved a book and suddenly it wasn't those colours that Kylie wanted.

'I haven't seen this,' she said.

'It's only just in...'

'Oh, my, Kylie said. She could almost feel the pulse from the sample book as she turned the pages. It was like being walked blindfolded and then having it removed and finding herself standing in a spring park. Birds, buttetflies and tree branches that stretched and flowers, endless flowers...

It reminded her of Collserola and that one magical morning and she certainly didn't need such a constant reminder, expect...

'Would this be a feature wall?' Kylie checked, and then almost winced when the assistant pulled½ up some images on her computer screen.

Every wall was covered. In some of the images even the cellings were papered. It was a sort of cross between a cheap Paris hotel and an enchanted wood.

'This is so far removed from what I was planning,' Kylie said, and Eva nodded.

'You don't want to know the price.'

'I don't,' Kylie said, and tried to get back to silver grey. 'Have you got it in?'

'I do, though it's incredibly hard to get hold of. It was on a special order but the buyer couldn't wait and went for something less...'

'Less what?' Kylie asked. 'Less migraine inducing, less...?'.She let out a breath. 'Less sexy...?'

Yes, somehow it was sexy.

'Just less,' Eva said.

It was sold to the guilty conscience that just wanted to revisit that gorgeous morning over and over again.

A time when the world had been absolutely beauitful.

Magical even.

The strange thing, Kylie thought as she stepped back a full week layer and surveyed her handiwork, the world still was.

Magical.

Instead of the muted tones for the bedroom she had chosen colour. And now, in autumn, she stood in the middle of summer and imagined this being her haven when winter came in.

Yes, that weekend had changed her in a way she was finally accepting.

'Hey, Alora.' Kylie called her friend, who had so patiently waited for the morose mood to pass by. 'The bedroom's finished.'

Alora really was a brilliant friend. She came over within an hour, clutching a bottle of champagne and two glasses, and they did a walk through the house. Kylie had a photo in each room of what it had looked like before she'd set to work and it was hard to believe now just how bad it had once been.

As she opened the bedroom door she watched her friend's jaw drop in absolute amazement as she stepped in.

'I want to live in your bedroom for ever,' Alora said.

'Miguel's not going to be pleased.'

'He can come too,' Alora said. 'Oh, my, it is beauitful. It's just stunning.I can't believe you've finished the house.'

'I haven't yet.'

'Well, it looks pretty perfect to me. What do you still have left to do—the garden?'

'No.'

Alora followed Kylie out of the master bedroom and down the hallway that no longer creaked when you walked, and she frowned as Kylie opened up the guest bedroom.

'It had a dark wooden bed that was dressed in white linen. There was a gorgeous bookcase next to the open fire. On the mantepiece were beauitful ornaments. Every last piece had been chosen with care.

' But it's already perfect,' Alora said.

'I'm going to make it into a nursery.

'Will it sell better if you do?

'No, I've decided against selling.

'So why are you making it into...?' The penny was slowly dropping and rather stunned Alora halted and turned to her friend.

Yes, there was magic in nature.

'You're pregnant?'