‘You have a child you hoped was aborted?’ I close my eyes to block out his face and try to make sense of the words on their own. I open them again. ‘Start at the beginning. Who with?’

‘One of the girls I used to hang out with. Zoë.’

Something clicks into place. ‘Was she at the beach that time? When the pier burned down.’

He nods.

I can vaguely picture her. A junkie: skinny and lost. Not the kind of mother I’d wish on any child, however much I understand about addiction now. ‘How old?’

Joel looks down. ‘The kid was born three days ago.’

‘Shit.’

I want to stop the world before it closes in on me but Joel’s talking.

‘Me and Zoë, it only lasted a couple of months. I’d got clean and so had she and it felt like we were enjoying life again. We always used a condom but . . . accidents happen, I guess.’

I stare at him.

He exhales. ‘She was excited when she told me, like we were going to live happily ever after. I’d never talked about us having a future or anything. Hadn’t even told her about my history, the ICD, anything.’

I take a gulp of wine and it tastes off, like rotten egg. ‘How could she not know? You had sex with her!’

‘Only a few times. I kept my T-shirt on. I didn’t want her to know. It was meant to be a bit of fun . . .’ He looks at me, his eyes appealing for understanding that I won’t give. ‘When she told me she was pregnant, it was still early days. I explained about how I never want kids because of the risk of what I have being genetic.’

‘You don’t know what caused it.’

‘No, but even the smallest chance of passing it on is too much. You see that, don’t you, Kerry? I thought she agreed that ending the pregnancy was the right thing. I paid for the abortion, but now it turns out she changed her mind at the last minute.’

I’m doing the calculations in my head. ‘So this was when? March? But if you were clean, how come I found you in a squat two months later?’

‘It was April. And I spiralled down fast after that because I knew I’d hurt her, just like I’d hurt you. She was vulnerable and I took advantage.’

I need a moment to process this. My urge to fix things is kicking in already. I didn’t plan to become a stepmother, but if that’s the deal, I love Joel too much to reject him for something he had no control over. ‘When did you find out?’

‘She called me yesterday afternoon. She told me the baby had come four weeks early, so it’s in special care but it’ll probably be OK. He, I mean. It’s a boy.’