She lived in a flat near the Arsenal football ground and in those days I was living nearby. Neither of us knew that area and we were both lonely, though she never let on. She got her friends from the CND because she wanted to ban the bomb and we had some good arguments about that, though I was secretly on her side. But I enjoyed our quarrels;, most girls got het up about such petty things, like whether you forgot they liked Bacardi and Coke.

She wasn’t that beautiful—she was square, with brown hair—but she always had something new to tell me, even though she embarrassed me in front of her friends by talking about orgasms. She went to a psychiatrist, too, which made her mysterious. She talked about being female as if it was an ailment only she had, and nobody else understood.

Anyway, her lessons were the last in the day so I’d take her for a drink afterwards—did we need that drink!—and then sometimes we went to a film together. I only stayed the night a few times. I remember being touched because despite all her bold talk she was shy, I think she thought she was too beefy, and made me turn the light off.

The day she passed her test she told me she was pregnant. We were sitting in a Wimpy Bar in Hendon, near the Test Centre. I can remember every detail of that place—the manageress dozing, the plastic tomato full of sauce, the sun outside. It was June. I was flooded with love; I jumped up and hugged her.

She sat there, stirring her tea. Her shoulders were wooden.

She said: ‘I’m keeping it.’

‘Great!’ I paused. ‘We can get married.’

There was a silence. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said.

I sat down opposite her again.

‘Of course we can’t get married,’ she said.

Another pause.

‘You needn’t feel responsible,’ she said, ‘just because you’re the father.’

‘I do feel responsible. I feel wonderful.’

‘I mean …’ She stopped. ‘I want this baby, but it’s really nothing to do with you.’

At first I thought she was being odd because of her hormones; pregnant women are supposed to be unpredictable, aren’t they? She was looking down at her hands; she had stubby fingers, she had bitten her nails right down. Perhaps she didn’t want me to feel trapped.

‘Desmond,’ she said. It’s always a danger sign, that. ‘Desmond, I’m thirty, I want a child.’

‘Same here.’

‘I’m talking about me. I want to lead my own life.’

‘But what about me?’

‘Of course we can’t marry. We hardly know each other. We’ve got nothing in common. You and your cars and pubs and, you know … your sort of things.’ She inspected her nails but there was nothing left to bite. ‘I shouldn’t even have told you, but I had to tell somebody. I’m so excited.’

I stared at her. Her brown hair had fallen over her face.

‘It’s not fair,’ I said.