‘I’m . . . I’m sure I’m fine . . . Please don’t get upset.’ It was then she looked at me with those huge brown eyes and I realized what you must have fallen in love with. The same eyes you would have stared lovingly into when you came inside her, made this baby, this thing I instantly hated, this thing I was terrified I’d hurt.

‘How . . . how far gone are you?’ I tried to appear normal. Conversational. But she was perturbed by me, I could tell. Humouring me.

‘Nearly four months,’ she said.

Four months. I stepped back. Dizzy. More lies.

‘I’m fine,’ she continued. ‘It was a shock, that’s all. Please . . . you really don’t have to worry.’

Did she have to be so bloody nice? Perfect and nice and pregnant.

‘Have . . . have you got far to go?’ I asked.

‘No, not really, but I should probably get a lift, I think.’ She reached in her Mulberry bag for her phone.

I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Merely stood, wide-eyed as she made the call.

‘Hey, sweetheart . . . Look, I’m on Tilbury Terrace. Are you far? You couldn’t come and get me, could you? I had a bit of a fall . . . No, no, I’m fine . . . A little shaken, that’s all.’

I couldn’t hear your voice, but I imagined it. Loving. Caring. Like I’d experienced once. Almost.

‘It was an accident . . . I wasn’t looking where I was going . . . I’m with a lady . . . What’s your name, sorry?’

‘Angie,’ I said.

‘OK . . . OK . . . Thank you . . . Love you too.’ She returned the phone to her bag. ‘He’s only round the corner. He’ll be here in a few minutes.’

‘I have to go. I’m . . . I’m sorry. You will be OK, won’t you?’

She nodded. Utterly confused.

A bead of sweat fell from my nose.

‘Are you OK, yourself?’ she said.

‘Yes . . . I . . . I have to go, though. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ I turned and walked away, jelly-legged, spinning with vertigo.

I stopped at the main road. People everywhere. But I was in a different world to the one they inhabited. In and out of focus, they scurried past. My scarf hung loose to the floor, asymmetric. I swayed on the edge of the pavement. Looked across the road.

It was then I saw her.

Beautiful and smiling.

Just as I remembered, in real life, not photographs. She looked just like me. I waved. She beckoned me across with her hand. I didn’t question it. I couldn’t wait. To see her. To hold her. I missed her. Oh God, I missed her.