‘It’s not good for the baby.’

‘You’re the one who isn’t good for the baby,’ he said.

I pressed my eyes into the crook of an arm.

‘Look at me.’ He pulled my arm away. He knelt on the thick carpet at my feet, blocking me in. He nodded slowly. ‘You provoked me. What do you expect if you hide from me all day?’

I played dumb. ‘I don’t understand.’ His hands moved onto my thighs, digging in. ‘Can you not hold me so tightly? I want to look in my bag.’

He grabbed the bag from the floor and shoved it at me so hard I nearly toppled backwards. ‘Look, then.’ He watched as I did.

‘My phone isn’t here.’ My fear of him was so real that it coloured my performance of alarm and surprise, which felt strangely real too.

‘I’ve been calling you all afternoon. My pregnant girlfriend disappears in London and I’ve been fucking having a heart attack worrying about what might have happened to you.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I’d repeated those two words so many times I’d lost count. ‘It was an accident. I’d never mean to upset you. Please don’t be mad at me. I went for a walk, sat in the park, that’s all. It was a beautiful day.’ I was desperate for him to calm down, for him not to start shouting again, for him not to hurt me and the baby.

‘You don’t mean it. You’re trying to make the problem go away.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ I pulled his head towards me, kissed him, fought off my gagging reflex at the taste of beer on his mouth, realised that I used to find this alluring, and noticed for the first time I could remember that he didn’t respond.

‘Everyone around you is fucking terrified about what you’ll do next.’

I whispered that it was pregnancy brain, I must have left the phone in the baby shop like he said, and we could ring them in the morning to ask them to send the phone along with the things that would be delivered on Monday.

‘Look.’ I pulled out the babygrow he chose. ‘I managed to remember the most important thing.’

‘It’s my baby. You don’t walk away whenever you choose.’ There was a pulse in his temple. His whole scalp seemed to move with it.

‘I’m not. I don’t want to walk away.’

‘Do you think I’d let you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you glad of that?’

How could he think anyone would be glad to be a prisoner? The lie was absurd, but I still said it. ‘Yes.’