‘Ooh, if you don’t mind?’ Lucy brightened quickly. ‘Sumi came to the first one but she’s so busy I hate to ask. Adrian came last time but they asked me not to bring him again, he was dicking around with a speculum and broke it.’

‘Dave didn’t go with you?’ I asked, although I wasn’t nearly as surprised as I should have been. That man did not deserve her.

‘He was ill when I had the first one and away working for the second one,’ she explained. ‘And you know how much he hates hospitals. It’s honestly easier to do it without him.’

Because scheduling work trips around your wife’s hospital appointments for your first child was entirely unreasonable. I deeply disliked Creepy Dave.

‘I’d love to be there, text me the details,’ I told her, standing outside the pub and peering through the dirty windows. ‘Right, I’m going in.’

‘Call me if you need me, I mean it,’ she said, blowing kisses down the line. ‘I’ll be asleep in half an hour but I have to get up for a wee seven times in the night so I’ll probably be able to reply before you do anything stupid.’

‘Thanks, Luce, love you,’ I said as I ended the call and checked Patrick’s last message one more time.

The Fox and Crown, seven thirty, can’t wait

I was outside the Fox and Crown, it was seven thirty-four and I didn’t have to wait another second.

The day had been hot and humid and Patrick’s pub of choice was all the more disgusting for it. Close and dark was the best description, but at least it was a proper pub, unlike Good Luck Bar. This was the kind of pub where we’d made all our mistakes growing up: dark wood, red velvet and a squishy carpet underfoot, perpetually sodden with a century of spilled pints and not-so-empty threats. Classic London boozer.

I couldn’t see him when I walked in but my heart stuttered with every step, knowing any second now, he’d be there in the flesh. Suddenly my hair felt wrong, why had I taken it down when it was so sticky out? I pulled it up into a ponytail and then immediately let it back down again. Patrick loved my hair up. I was trying too hard. My midi dress was another mistake, the synthetic fabric was soaked through at my lower back. What was sexier than an incredibly sweaty woman with too much hair on the verge of an anxiety attack? I fished around in my bag for a Polo to give my brain and my body something to do. You could always rely on a Polo.

A man stepped onto a small stage at the back of the room and tapped a microphone, causing a squeal of feedback that made everyone jump.