The nausea comes again and this time I am sick for way, way longer. I stand up, dig around in the bathroom cabinet for a sachet of Dioralyte. I tip the contents into the toothbrush mug and fill it with tap water, too knackered to go to the kitchen for a fresh glass, and I try to force down the salty-sweet liquid.

When I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror, I hardly recognize myself, my eyes wide and my complexion deathly pale.

But there’s something else that’s different about me.

I can’t catch my breath.

Because I realize what the imaginary Elaine was trying to tell me, something I must have realized subconsciously but not been able to admit to myself until now.

I board the train, knowing I can’t wait till the weekend to talk to Tim. I tried to call him but his mobile was switched off, and the phone is no good for this kind of news, either. He’s smarter now. Thanks to the work we’ve done together to help him read emotions he can usually locate the most appropriate thing to say in the majority of situations. But his face can’t lie and I need to be with him to know how he really feels about us having a baby.

A baby.

Even as I peed on the test stick I bought from the chemist at Seven Dials, it felt like a cliché from a soap opera. The feckless woman, the unwanted pregnancy.

Except I’m not feckless. I’m on the Pill, though there were times last year when I wondered why, because Tim and I pretty much stopped having sex.

The last time we made love was New Year’s Eve. We celebrated surviving the year, as individuals and as newlyweds. As the fireworks went off over the city, he clung to me and I clung to him and we made love noisily; we don’t have to keep quiet anymore.

I was drunk, too, a rare thing for me. Did I forget my Pill? No, that’s not something I’d do. My stomach was upset for a day or two over Christmas, because of all the comfort food we ate, but could that really have stopped the Pill working? I sigh: looking back is pointless, now. It’s the future that’s the bigger issue . . .

The train isn’t that busy but there is a mother with a small baby, sitting diagonally across the aisle. I stare at them now with the same intensity Marilyn had when she was trying to get pregnant.

But I’m not coveting the baby, I’m studying his mother. She looks tired, yes, but not out of her depth. The paraphernalia she’s brought seems manageable and she still looks capable of conversation.