I liked Samuel best when he was asleep, though even then his drooling and the curl of his little marsupial hands irritated me. No-one had told me it was possible to dislike your child. Or at least, if you did, it was supposed to happen later, when they were bratty teenagers and then ungrateful, smug adults. I didn’t like Samuel right off the bat. Don’t get me wrong – I loved him, in the sense that I had every intention of discharging my obligations towards him – but to be frank, he was annoying.

He was fussy, for a start, fussy about temperature and sunlight and noise. He had a series of illogical phobias: he was scared of denim and windscreen wipers, and would scream if he could smell bananas. When he danced he used moves that were weirdly sophisticated, even risqué – rolling his body, thrusting his hips – things he must have dragged up out of the collective unconscious, because he certainly didn’t see me or Connor dance like that, or at all. In some ways I was looking forward to the inevitable bullying he’d receive. I was hoping that the cruelty of other children would effect developmental changes that I couldn’t seem to trigger.

Worsening all of this was the fact that Connor seemed oblivious. He took no responsibility for his part in creating a defective human being.

One night, in bed, I’d tried to talk to him about it.

‘Do you think Samuel’s a little…’

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to finish the sentence.

‘A little what?’

I rolled my eyes in the darkness.

‘What?’ Connor hissed. He still had some grit about him then. He wasn’t spending his days on forums, trying to chat up faecal donors.

‘You know. You know what I mean.’

‘You’re talking about our son here.’

‘I know that.’

‘And there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s perfect just as he is.’

‘Okay, geez,’ I said. ‘No need to get defensive.’

I rolled over.

Maybe I was able to view things more objectively because I’d thought Samuel was off since he’d been a foetus. He’d felt like an alien in there, wriggling around, eating my lunch, kicking my organs. Connor wouldn’t understand. Tapeworms are less intrusive.

It was a relief to get to work in the mornings. I made excuses about having to be in early, about my boss being demanding, but the truth was that my boss was a sanguine, paunchy man with a lunch budget of a hundred thousand dollars a year, who sauntered around humming Ravel’s Bolero or selections from the musical Chess. My name is Fiona but he called me Fifi. He had twelve grandchildren and was the one I ended up confiding in about Samuel, about my suspicions that I disliked him as a person.

‘Don’t worry,’ he’d advised. ‘You’re allowed to have favourites.’