‘Yes. Come on, we’re going home.’
ALISON
‘OK?’
It was a different way of looking at the world, flat on your back. Alison felt pleasantly helpless, her clothes left back in the ward with her purse and ID and phone and bag. She was wearing surgical stockings and mesh pants, a gown of much-washed cotton with a gaping back, a hairnet. The anaesthetist asked her the same questions she’d been asked a dozen times – her name and date of birth. If she had any loose teeth or crowns. If she had allergies. Someone was fiddling with her hand, attempting to get in a cannula; she knew she’d have bruises when she woke up. This was it. Like taking a deep breath and diving in, unsure if you’d surface. Such an act of trust, giving herself up to the doctors and nurses, the unseen hands that would touch her and undress her and open her up to the air, the secret parts of her.
‘OK, Alison. Start counting down from five.’
The bed was moving, and she had the impression of dazzling overhead lights. When she woke up, with her laparoscopy done, she might be able to have a baby. Or it might be bad news, it might never happen, an abrupt end to a road that had already been so much longer than she’d thought. Tom would be there to take her home. Her life would be waiting for her, but at least she had solved the case. At least she knew now what had happened on the balcony on that hot summer’s day, though there would be no charges brought. Chloe Evans would get off, given her youth and the circumstances, the two small babies present, the fact that Nina had tried to kill Jax. Most of the crimes of the group had, it turned out, not been illegal ones, just ones of the heart, which are so often harder to forgive. But at least she had . . .
By the count of three, she was unconscious.
BOOK GROUP QUESTIONS
The Push is about a group of new parents who meet at an antenatal group and are quite competitive with each other. Have you ever experienced rivalry like this within a group of friends?
Alison feels as if women without kids are being pitted against those who have them – would you agree this is sometimes an issue?
Jax’s partner, Aaron, is considerably younger than her. Do you think an age gap is more of an issue when the woman is older than the man?
Kelly sadly loses her baby before the end of the group. What do you think the other mums should have done in this situation? Was she right to go to the party anyway?
Did Nina have the right to interfere in the lives of the group members, if she thought it was for their own good?
Monica is obsessed with her image and will do anything to protect it. Do you think that Instagram and social media make this attitude more common?
Is Jax right to feel some guilt about what happened with Mark and Claudia Jarvis? Should she have told Aaron about it?
Most members of the baby group are hiding something. Which of the group members do you think has the worst secret?
Who did you find to be the most sympathetic character in the book? And the least?
Who is really to blame for the death?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to everyone who shared their stories, good and bad, about antenatal groups. Thanks to everyone involved in the making of this book, especially my amazing agent Diana Beaumont and brilliant editor Jack Butler. Thanks to Graham Bartlett for checking the police bits and to all my writing friends for continuous support, encouragement and gifs. And finally, thanks to everyone who’s read my previous books – I hope you enjoy this one! If you’d like to get in touch with me, do drop me a line on my website, www.ink-stains.co.uk, on Facebook or on Twitter @inkstainsclaire. I promise I’ll reply.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 Jamie Drew
Claire McGowan was born in 1981 in a small Irish village where the most exciting thing that ever happened was some cows getting loose on the road. She is the author of The Fall, What You Did, The Other Wife and the acclaimed Paula Maguire crime series. She also writes women’s fiction under the name Eva Woods.
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