Is this it? Is this when I’ll feel that shift inside me, is this when I’ll know it’s this, this is what I can’t miss out on, this is too great a miracle to put off any longer, it’s not enough just to have eggs in a freezer somewhere, is it now that a sense of absolute certainty will force its way to the forefront, so much so that I put Olea down and go inside and find my phone and book an appointment at Stork in Denmark and set off at once to be inseminated with the product of some Dane who’s had a wank in a room somewhere, telling people afterwards: I just knew I had to do it? Someone at work did it last year, a woman in accounts, she’d looked ancient 45for years and it wasn’t difficult to imagine her being a single mother. She pushed a pram into work one day to show off her baby, skilfully placing the infant over her shoulder for winding, she didn’t look as if she needed anyone else. I can’t imagine being alone and pregnant and proud and lonesome as I meander through the city, to work, around my flat, giving birth with Mum or Marthe or a friend by my side, never missing the company of a man, it being enough simply to be that child’s mother, just them and me, always, the greatest thing of all.