‘There are means of support for women in your situation.’

‘But I tell you, I don’t want it. It—it was forced on me.’

‘Surely not.’ He allowed himself to show a measure of distaste.

‘I can’t—I can’t have it, care for it.’

‘You can decide all that when the baby is born. And you’ll change your mind. Children are wonderful things. Special.’

‘Not to me.’

‘Well, Miss Day, I’m sorry but I see no excuse to recommend you should opt for a termination. Of course we need to go into your history. But judging by what I’ve seen and what you’ve told me, I see no reason why you shouldn’t square up to this and assume your responsibility. Think of all those women who long to bear a child and are unable.’

‘I don’t care about that. I care about my own body. I want my freedom.’

‘Then I’m sorry, Miss Day. I can’t help you.’

Then where do I go?’

‘You’ll have to find that out for yourself. I’m not here in the position of a butcher. Life’s important to me.’

‘I’m desperate,’ she said.

He flushed. He said, ‘You people make me sick.’

He rose. Rachaela got up too.

She struck him violently across the left side of his face dislodging all expression. He gawped at her, his left eye watering, and the imprint of her hand bright-pink across his clean-shaven, aftershaved cheek. So he would have to confront the next patient.

Heavy as lead, she walked from the room.

The main chamber was ten feet by fourteen. The walls and ceiling were white with a hint of peach, and the carpet dove-grey. She had known all this before she moved into it, from the estate agents’ sheet.

The bathroom was boxed off, giving a tiny entrance lobby as you entered the flat. The suite in the bathroom was white and the floor black-and-white tiles. There was a frosted window. The kitchen area also opened off the room, without a door. It had a black floor, white cupboards, and a stainless-steel sink and drainer. The one window in the kitchen and the two in the main room were on the same end wall. They looked across the lines of houses and the blocks of flats towards a distant handkerchief of park with tall bare trees. In summer they would be green, as the agent had cunningly pointed out.

Rachaela had expensively rescued her furniture from store. She spread the bed with a blue and crimson Indian blanket, put up lampshades, hung blue curtains.

The flat was not unpleasant. For one. It was only for one.

The radio stood on the kitchen work-top.

She turned it on. Haydn, clipped and safe, with only the passion of melody.