“Darling!" she said, eyes shining, as if we were the best of friends. "I have the most wonderful news."

For an insane moment I thought she was pregnant too, and glanced down, but all looked normal, and anyway, she was sweeping on.

"I've found you the most marvelous maternity nurse."

"A . . . sorry?"

“Maternity nurse, for when the baby comes. For the first two months. She's an absolute gem and comes highly recommended from Cynthia Palmer's girl, who says she simply couldn't have done without her. She's a complete treasure by all accounts and has a year-long waiting list -imagine? But by sheer luck a baby didn't quite go according to plan and so she has a gap."

I couldn't help thinking the poor mother of the baby that didn't go to plan wouldn't see it as luck, but I was still trying to get my befuddled pregnant head around the general concept.

"A nurse? Oh – but Hugo and I thought we'd manage, actually. And Mum's going to come up and help."

"Oh nonsense, your poor mother has more than enough to do with all her work and I absolutely insist. You'll be exhausted. It's our present to you. Roger's and mine."

She squeezed my by-now quite clammy hand which I hastily extracted, and smiled delightedly. Belinda, that is, not me. My head was swimming.

"But . . . so expensive, surely. And – and I'm honestly not sure I really want a-a—"

"Not a bit of it. I told you. Our present." Her hand went up like a traffic policeman. Her eyes almost closed and then flickered, another unnerving habit. I'd mentioned money, too, of course, which was vulgar.

"And – and where will she sleep?" I said desperately. But I already knew.

"Why, in the spare room, of course. We'll clear it out."

My painting room, she meant. My studio. Which she'd already communicated, via Hugo, she considered a health hazard because of the oil paints, not good for a tiny baby, even though I always kept the door shut and the window open and it was at the far end of the corridor. Dangerous, she'd even said on the phone to him once, which had alarmed Hugo and he'd repeated it.

I knew then I'd been outmaneuvered and there was no point arguing. Hugo would agree with her because he did pretty much anything to keep her happy, principally because he was the only one who did. Roger appeared to but didn't, and Etta, by then, had moved to Australia, I was convinced, to get away from her mother. I'd run into Etta once, working in a wine bar in Covent Garden, and since I knew she worked in an advertising agency by day, had been surprised. “I’m here every night. It's my running away money,” she'd told me, before returning briskly, tightlipped, to the kitchen.