I didn’t allow Samuel to watch the next part. I barely wanted to see it myself. Connor and I locked ourselves in the ensuite. I laid garbage bags on the floor and handed Connor a pillow that he could rest on while the enema took effect. I wore gloves and a mask, and I tried to be gentle as I parted my husband’s buttocks and saw the thick, pasted down whorls of hair in there, and the aperture at their centre.

‘It’s all right,’ Connor said, when he thought I wasn’t applying sufficient pressure. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’

I prodded harder; then I squeezed as hard as I could. When the bulb was empty I sat with him for the requisite time stipulated by the websites. Connor lay on the pillow, naked and groaning. When the timer went off I left the room so that he could evacuate his bowels in private.

‘What do you think?’ I asked when he emerged, still unsteady, from the shower. ‘Do you think it worked?’

His smile was like weak tea. ‘I feel better already,’ he said.

Samuel was glad to hear how much he’d helped. I never asked him about Luna again; I didn’t need to. She undertook the counselling and returned to Blossomings, and if she was seething with anger, anger that would last the rest of her miserable life, that wasn’t my problem.

Besides, there was nothing to ask. I already knew the truth. I knew what I’d seen in Luna’s face. But I was not appalled at my son. I’d go for walks with him and Connor, and watch him surrounded by cranky, grasping gulls. I’d watch how he tempted them with a soggy chip and then chased them all away, giving them nothing. In a moment they’d come back, gathering around him, their eyes on the morsel he held. Their violence, their displeasure, was all directed at one another.

The game delighted him. He smiled at me and I smiled back, finally feeling it, that glow of love I was supposed to have for my own flesh and blood.

Ah, my little starling. He wouldn’t be the kind of person who seemed particularly talented, or beautiful, or charming, or forceful. He might not leave much of an impression at all. But when the time came – and it always came, always – he would be the one to push the button.

Blood Bag

It was like pouring out bottle after bottle of expensive wine. Only it came out of bags rather than bottles. And it was thicker, more viscous. And only on occasion did I let it touch my tongue.

O-negative, A-positive, even AB, the rare stuff. I used it all.