The women in the room are whispering, almost talking, so great is their excitement.

‘Who is it?’ I hear behind me.

‘Ofwayne. No. Ofwarren.’

‘Show-off,’ a voice hisses, and this is true. A woman that’s pregnant doesn’t have to go out, doesn’t have to go shopping. The daily walk is no longer prescribed, to keep her abdominal muscles in working order. She needs only the floor exercises, the breathing drill. She could stay at her house. And it’s dangerous for her to be out, there must be a Guardian standing outside the door, waiting for her. Now that she’s the carrier of life, she is closer to death, and needs special security. Jealousy could get her, it’s happened before. All children are wanted now, but not by everyone.

But the walk may be a whim of hers, and they humour whims, when something has gone this far and there’s been no miscarriage. Or perhaps she’s one of those, Pile it on, I can take it, a martyr. I catch a glimpse of her face, as she raises it to look around. The voice behind me was right. She’s come to display herself. She’s glowing, rosy, she’s enjoying every minute of this.

‘Quiet,’ says one of the Guardians behind the counter, and we hush like schoolgirls.

Ofglen and I have reached the counter. We hand over our tokens, and one Guardian enters the numbers on them into the Compubite while the other gives us our purchases, the milk, the eggs. We put them into our baskets and go out again, past the pregnant woman and her partner, who beside her looks spindly, shrunken; as we all do. The pregnant woman’s belly is like a huge fruit. Humungous, word of my childhood. Her hands rest on it as if to defend it, or as if they’re gathering something from it, warmth and strength.

As I pass she looks full at me, into my eyes, and I know who she is. She was at the Red Centre with me, one of Aunt Lydia’s pets. I never liked her. Her name, in the time before, was Janine.

Janine looks at me, then, and around the corners of her mouth there is the trace of a smirk. She glances down to where my own belly lies flat under my red robe, and the wings cover her face. I can see only a little of her forehead, and the pinkish tip of her nose.