‘I see. Well as you’re here, we’d better take a look at you.’ He pressed at the intercom. ‘Mrs Beatty, come through please.’ He said, ‘Just slip off your under-things behind that screen. Keep your slip on.’

Rachaela did as she was told, and came out to the examining table, very white with something on it like a large paper towel.

Fat Mrs Beatty entered and sat down in a corner beyond the screen.

‘Knees up, please, ankles together. Just relax.’

The last time a man had touched her it had been a pleasure, a miracle of sensation. This one was rough, knowing how tough the female body had to be, how much it could take.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘um.’

And he poked and prodded at her vagina and her belly. He stared in behind a light, like a miner.

‘All right. You can put on your things now.’

He washed his hands, soiled by her, at a sink, and Mrs Beatty slunk back out of the room.

‘Well, Miss—ah, Miss Day. I’d say you’re definitely pregnant.’

‘I know.’

‘Everything,’ he said, ‘seems very healthy. Let’s have a look at your blood pressure.’ He attended to this, checking his gauge. They waited in silence. ‘That’s excellent. You’re a very healthy young woman.’

His congratulations did not thrill her.

‘I want an abortion.’

‘There’s absolutely no reason that you should. You’re what—’ he consulted her statement before him, ‘twenty-nine? That’s not too late. There are tests that can be run if you’re worried the baby—’

It’s not a baby. It’s a thing, a parasite, lodged in me.

‘I don’t want it.’

‘But, Miss Day. It’s not as simple as that. You have a responsibility. The child has been conceived. A life, Miss Day, which you are carrying.’

‘It was an accident.’

Could she say that? She had not taken any precautions, nothing had been further from her mind. The gate left open, and the fertile Scarabae seed, better at inbreeding, sown in one of five vortices of ecstasy. Yes, she was responsible.

‘I’m afraid, accident or not, the child is a fact.’ He ran his eye over her. He smelled of disinfectant and aftershave. ‘Do you have any family?’

‘No.’

‘And I take it your boyfriend isn’t interested.’

Boyfriend.

‘I left him.’

‘I see. An awkward situation. But people come through worse. You must be brave. In this day and age things are made quite easy for a young mother, a single parent. I see you have an address in quite a nice area.’

She had just gained the small flat via the proceeds of the compensation for the other. It had taken weeks to sort things out. Thus her delay in coming to this man. This man who believed in the sanctity of life, its life, not hers. Hers was immaterial.

‘My address doesn’t matter. I don’t have any money—’