‘Keep your hands on the wheel where I can see them while I signal them to come out. Want no trouble, got that?’

‘I want no trouble either.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

He all but walked backwards to the clinic entrance, his eyes on me nonstop. He signaled to someone inside. Elise came out. He pointed to me. Elise gave him a confirming nod. She went back inside and returned moments later with Jackie. Elise was guiding her slowly down the stairs. She was subdued, lethargic. I got out and opened the door and helped Elise position her in the back seat.

‘Where to?’ I asked.

‘A fucking disco,’ Jackie said. ‘I feel like dancing.’

She laughed a bleak laugh. She shut her eyes. She started to sob. Elise put her arm around her.

‘I don’t want your comfort,’ Jackie said.

‘Okay,’ Elise said, taking away her arm, then telling me: ‘Get her back to her house. Do you still have the address?’

‘It’s on the GPS,’ I said.

We headed out of the parking lot in the direction of the highway.

‘Want some music?’ I asked.

‘Because you think it will calm me down?’ Jackie asked.

‘I could put on the classical station,’ I said.

‘Because I am falling apart?’

‘Are you?’ Elise asked her.

‘Did I fall apart when they spread my legs and gave me the local anesthetic and shoved a vacuum up my twat?’

‘It wasn’t a vacuum,’ Elise said.

‘Details, details. Want to know something, Uber Man? Want to hear my philosophic overview of this shit of a day? “The things we do for love.” Let me say that again in a nice shouty voice: “THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE.”’

In the rearview mirror I could see Elise tense as the woman roared that last line. But she decided to pull back and say nothing.

Jackie went on:

‘I’m glad it’s behind me. As you promised, it only took five minutes. Outside of the local anesthetic they gave me which hurt like hell – that nurse should take lessons in administering a needle – it was painless. Five minutes to end any chance of having a second child; a child with the man I love.’

‘You must stop this,’ Elise said, her voice quiet, but absolutely firm.

‘Listen to Madame Do Gooder telling me to calm down.’

‘I am not telling you to be calm. I am telling you: you explored all the options. You did what you had to do. You still have Anton. You still have the opportunity to fall pregnant again.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s it.’

Silence. I’d come to hate this woman up until this moment. Now I felt terrible for her.

We were back in Los Feliz forty minutes later. Little in the way of words passed between us. Jackie shut her eyes and kept them shut all the way back. When we reached her house Jackie got out without saying a word.