This book has a total of 21 chapters. This page is to provide you with a "taste" of what the actual book is like;
therefore I've only typed a very small portion, if you like this book, please buy it!
FEATURING P. 145 ~ 147 OF CATHY KELLY'S "WOMAN TO WOMAN"
'Oh for God's sake,' he muttered, turning away from her in the bed. 'It's no big deal. I'm just going for a couple
of weeks to see what it would be like working there. I'm not emigrating.'
'Not yet, maybe, but you will. Ireland's too bloody boring for you, isn't it, Richard?' she demanded. 'You want
excitement, don't you? The world would end if Richard Kennedy actually had to settle down for more than five
minutes! All I want to know is where I fit into all of this? Or have you forgotten that I'm carrying our baby?'
'Don't be ridiculous, Jo!' He sat up in the bed, raked his hair out of his eyes and looked at her warily. 'I haven't
forgotten. I just thought you might have given the subject some more thought. You know what it'll mean to your
career or whatever, and maybe even changed your mind. We don't have to do this now.'
Jo stared at him angrily. She couldn't believe what he was saying. If she hadn't wanted an abortion on Friday,
she damn well wasn't going to want one now.
Richard pushed the duvet back abruptly and got out of bed. He strode into the bathroom and slammed the door
behind him.
'I'm afraid we do have to do this now,' she shouted through the door. 'The baby isn't going to go away, Richard,
I'm still having it.'
The toilet flushed. Richard marched out of the bathroom, wiping his face on a towel. He didn't speak.
'When you turned up last night, I thought you'd changed your mind,' Jo said fiercely. 'How can you do this to
me? Is this your party piece, running away from woman when you get them pregnant?'
It was as if she'd flicked a switch. His face changed in an instant, becoming dark like thunder. Jo had never seen
him like this and she was stunned, afraid almost.
'I didn't do anything,' he snarled. 'You wanted to trap me, didn't you? Well it's not going to work.'
Almost absently, Jo took her old pink fluffy dressing-gown off the hook on the bedroom door and wrapped it
around her. It was sunny outside. The weather forecast on Sky had promised balmy weather, but Jo still felt cold.
She stood beside the bed and stared blankly at the dressing-table mirror, not seeing her reflection at all.
He picked up his watch from the dressing table and strapped it onto his wrist. She followed him into the sitting
room where he picked up his clothes and dressed silently, barely contained rage in every movement.
'Richard,' she said tentatively. 'We have to talk...'
'No, we don't. You've made your bed, you lie on it' he spat.
That did it. 'Don't talk to me like that, you arrogant pig!' she yelled. 'We both did it, do you think I got pregnant
on my own?' She faced him angrily.
'Yeah, well I don't want it,' Richard said, venom in every syllable. 'I'm leaving.'
'You can't,' Jo said. 'How dare you talk to me like that, you're all the same, bloody men terrified of commitment!'
'And you're all the bloody same,' he answered harshly way to get a ring on your finger. Well it's been tried
before, sweetie, and I didn't bite the bullet that time either!'
'What do you mean?' asked Jo, stunned.
He said nothing, just continued buttoning his jeans calmly.
Jesus, he couldn't be saying what she thought he was saying. 'Beate. She got pregnant, didn't she?'
'So?'
'Why did you ever tell me?'
'There was nothing to tell,' he said flatly.
  'Did she have the baby?' Jo asked.
  'What is this?' he demanded. 'Twenty fucking questions?'
  She hesitated at the anger in his voice. 'I just wanted to know.'
  'Yes, all right? She had the baby and I have never seen it and she probably wouldn't let me even if I wanted to,
which I don't!' he slid his feet into his Italian suede slip-ons and picked up his jacket.
  'Oh, Richard, why?'
  'Look, just because you've always played happy families doesn't mean that everyone else does, right? You don't
know what it's like to have a father who couldn't give a shit whether you lived or died, a father who'd kick you
rather than say a kind word. I do,' he hissed. 'I know just what that's like and I'll tell you something, it turns you
off the idea of having kids. I don't want any fucking kids. I decided that a long time ago. That's my choices. If
you're so fired up about a woman's right to choose why don't you ever think about a man's right to choose, eh?'
  Jo said nothing, silent in the face of Richard's fury and anger, an anger which had lived inside him for thirty-
seven long years.
  'All that feminist stuff about a woman's body being her own, that all sounds great when it's about women,' he
cotinued angrily, 'but let a man say what he really wants, and that's different! I don't want kids. Simple as that.
That's my decision,' he hissed. 'I gave you the chance and you didn't take it. So you do what you want. You will
anyway.'
  With that he picked up his jacket and car keys and walked to the door.
  'Call me a bastard or whatever you want, I'm sorry. It's over.'
  The front door slammed. She was alone.