The doctor paused, and then turned to her computer.

‘OK, well if you want to make an appointment with the sexual health clinic, they’ll explain everything that’s involved and then you can make an informed decision.’

Gabriela nodded curtly. ‘Thank you. I will.’

She didn’t tell Tom. She didn’t need to make an excuse to slip away to the women’s centre one morning before work. After all, she was barely showing, certainly no more than the sort of post-pizza distension which caused her to protrude with what Tom had endearingly labelled her recurring food baby (‘We could name her Margherita’), and certainly not significantly enough to provoke any sort of unwanted questioning, either at work or at home.

The nurse at the clinic shrugged this point away when she raised it at her appointment a few days after checking in with the GP, presenting her relatively unchanged body as possible evidence that they had got it wrong about how far gone she was. ‘Different women respond differently to pregnancy, physically and emotionally. Though to be honest not all women do show this early on – it’s mainly wind that makes the belly pop out at this stage … We can get a more accurate reading on dates once we’ve done the scan,’ the nurse said, making her quiet assessment with a glance that said she had seen women like her a thousand times before.

She led Gabriela back through the waiting room, past the faces pressed firmly into phones and magazines, avoiding eye contact.

‘Have you had a scan like this before?’

Gabriela shook her head.

‘OK, so I’ll need you to lie back on the bed there for me …’

She pulled the curtain around them so that the world they inhabited was suddenly very small.

Rubbing the cold gel against Gabriela’s abdomen, she pointed to the monitor with her other hand. ‘That’s where we’ll see the foetus, which I’ll measure in various points, to give us a better indication of where we’re at.’

Gabriela swallowed and instinctively turned away from the screen, averting her gaze as the shape took form. In hindsight, she couldn’t say what changed. She didn’t know what happened between pulling up her trousers, jolting at the sensation of the cold gel rubbing against her shirt and the short walk back to the consulting room, but less than ten minutes later, she knew in her bones that she couldn’t get rid of it.

‘So, the GP wasn’t far off with her calculations. It looks like you’re almost twelve weeks,’ the nurse said, consulting her notes. ‘That’s still well within the time when you can safely have a termination. If that’s what you want.’

Her mind was distracted, doing the maths. If she had become pregnant in January, not long after she got back from Russia, then she would be due in October.

‘Which date?’