The Baby Verdict by Cathy Williams

turn around. He just called out, in the voice of someone utterly indifferent to what she might or might not think of his remark, ‘Why don’t you take to your bed and think about it?’
    Then he was gone, leaving her speechless with indignation. Yet again.

CHAPTER FIVE
    B RUNO CARR was beginning to occupy quite a bit of space in Jessica’s head. But he wouldn’t be around and the change in weather would do her good.
    She kept those two things uppermost in her mind as she boarded the private jet on the Friday.
    It was cold and blustery, and, not quite knowing what the temperatures would be when they landed, she had bundled herself up in jeans, a tee shirt, long-sleeved shirt and thick jumper.
    Not everyone in the team of eleven was quite so restrained. Ronnie, the youngest of the secretaries, had braved the British elements in a short, flimsy skirt, which blew around her as she climbed the metal staircase, causing great jollity amongst the six young men behind her, and at the top of the stairs she posed, giggling, in an imitation of Marilyn Monroe until Jessica called dryly for her to get in before she caught her death of cold.
    â€˜I’m so excited,’ she confided to Jessica as they buckled in. ‘I’ve never been abroad before.’
    â€˜Never?’ Jessica asked incredulously. True, Ronnie was only eighteen, but she was still surprised that there were people left who had not had a holiday abroad at some point in their lives.
    â€˜My dad hates flying,’ she explained in a high, breathless voice, peering out of the window even though the view was nothing more impressive than the runway, barely visible in the darkness. ‘So we always took our holidays in England.’
    â€˜What happened to the rest of the skirt, Ron?’ one of the men asked, pausing to grin at the blonde teenager, and she stuck her tongue out. ‘Did it go on holiday ahead of you?’ General guffaws all round, and Jessica rested her head back and closed her eyes with a smile.
    Thank goodness she had made the effort. She would never have been forgiven by her staff if she had squashed the idea flat.
    The bonus, when it had been put to them, had been met with uncontainable enthusiasm. Even Mary and Elizabeth, after tut-tutting about short notice and wondering what their respective husbands would do for supper, had greeted the scheme with delight.
    They all needed a rest. They had worked hard over the past few weeks, and they deserved a break. And, Jessica thought as the plane slowly began its ascent, as breaks went, they didn’t really get more impressive.
    Four days of tropical bliss. They wouldn’t even need to think about cooking, because housekeepers would be there, taking care of the food, the cleaning and, from the sound of it, pretty much everything else.
    She heard the excited chatter around her as the plane cut a path through the sky, and decided that this was going to do her the world of good after all.
    Her flu was on the way out, but she still felt lethargic, and work would have been a strain had she gone back. It also occurred to her that it had been a very long time since she had relaxed totally. Over the past couple of years, her breaks had tended to involve decorating the house. Enjoyable enough, because she quite liked the mindless physical exertion of wallpapering and painting walls, but she would hardly describe it as flaking out.
    Before that, she dimly recalled a disastrous week in Portugal with her boyfriend at the time. After only nine months of going out, it had been a last-ditch attempt to energise their love life. Instead, he had fallen head over heels in love with a girl on holiday from Manchester, and Jessica had spent the week sunbathing on her own and listening patiently to his attempts at apology.
    Holidays had always made her apprehensive. She could remember going on holiday with her parents, fearfully trying to have a good time with her brother in an atmosphere