‘We have brand new nets now,’ he said, a familiar bristle in his voice. ‘In excellent condition.’ So quickly defensive. She remembered the effort of circling him, humouring him, mindful of stepping on his toes. All this she had done with goodwill, without complaint. Full of energy she had been, optimistic and hopeful, flexible as only the young could be flexible. Photocopying past exam papers for him, queuing so he didn’t need to, allowing him to win every card game and every tennis set, yet, at the end, she had completely floored him. But they would not talk about that today, not yet the reproach. That would be too intimate, too close and revealing. Safer the banter.

‘You haven’t changed at all, Salma.’

‘That profile picture you’re seeing is old.’

‘How old?’

‘Last summer.’

‘See, I’m right. You haven’t changed one bit.’

She liked hearing this. Of course she did. ‘I don’t play tennis any more, but I do keep fit. Then I’m on my feet all day, always busy.’

He understood straight away that ‘on her feet’ was a reference to work. He said, ‘I was so sorry to hear about your PLAB exams.’ There was warmth in his voice, a genuine understanding of that loss. No one else in the world had really cared. Not her parents far away, unable to comprehend that their daughter, the doctor, was not considered a doctor in Britain. Not David for whom her choices were her choices, who asked her questions and innocently believed her every answer. Do you want this badly? Are you sure? What could she be sure about with baby number two on the way by the time she had already failed the exam twice? He would cook so she could study, babysit so she could nap, but it hadn’t been enough. To pass the exams needed too much of an overhaul, a surge to join an altogether higher league, and she was not able enough, not prepared enough. Sometimes she felt that David did not want to dirty his hands with her complications, specifically these complications that arose from that other continent, the guts and terrain she came from. But then he would be generous and considerate; so open and trusting that she would regret her complaints and find herself flooded with gratitude.

‘Salma, you are a doctor and these exams were just an obstacle.’

‘That’s life,’ she said on the phone, the bitterness surfacing through. ‘People here complain about the health service being strained, doctors working long hours and yet they make it incredibly difficult for medical graduates from abroad to qualify.’

‘You should have persisted,’ he said. ‘You should have cracked these exam requirements whatever it took. Made sacrifices. Got help. Come on, it’s not like you to give up.’

She liked this reproach, his unshaking belief in her. But he hadn’t known her as a mother, hadn’t seen what pregnancy and sleepless nights did to her, time and again. It almost submerged her once and for all, but it didn’t. She wouldn’t be on the phone now with him if it had. Motherhood hadn’t enslaved her, but it did dent her resolve, put her in her place.