When I met him at lunchtime, his face was pale but set. He took my hand and we went to sit at a private table in the corner of the dark cellar bar. He couldn't bear the thought of me getting rid of it, he said. Could I? I hadn't really thought. I'd just panicked. I thought now. He made me, as we sat, holding hands across the gingham tablecloth, him in his suit, me in my paint-spattered jeans. No, I agreed slowly, after a long pause. It wasn't good. Wasn't a nice feeling. We'd been together so long. Think about it, he urged me. Just think about it. We've got a bit of time. But I had thought about it. If he'd thought about it and was happy — well, resigned — I jolly well was too. If he could put another girl who he'd literally just met, to the back of his mind, so could I. Heavens, it would be odd not to have the occasional attraction, wouldn't it? It meant nothing. Hugo and I were as strong as ever. And a baby would strengthen that bond, naturally it would. In reality, of course, I wasn't thinking straight at all. Not properly. Just reacting to my emotions, which were tidal. I remember nodding in agreement at the Toulouse-Lautrec poster on the brick wall behind him, but being unable to look at him: wondering if he even knew himself.

We had to tell certain people quite quickly, obviously. Mum was good and supportive although she did ask me a few searching questions, and Belinda, dreadful. I don't know exactly how dreadful, but Hugo, white-faced and shaken when he came off the phone, said she'd said some terrible things. I could imagine. But he didn't change his mind; if anything he became more resolute. I wondered later, if, in some complicated way, it was precisely because of her reaction that he didn't budge. That she'd unwittingly backed him into a corner. In some other bizarre way I began to feel like a spectator at my own execution.