She closes her laptop and lies down on her bed, scans her body for any signs it’s starting to feel different. What if nothing happens? What if it is too late? The thing is, you find out and you think, ok, nine weeks, that’s ages. But then you do the online calculator and realise with a horrible rush that it’s already more than six weeks, coming up to seven. It doesn’t feel fair, the way they count it. Nine weeks is nothing. Nine weeks gives you little more than a fortnight. She found the website that night, Sunday, and by the Tuesday had made up her mind and placed the order. But it still might be too late. If she hadn’t found out until a few days later. Or if it had happened while she still lived at home, or before she had a credit card or a PayPal account. It doesn’t bear thinking about but the thoughts keep marching back, a fortnight’s well-worn grooves. If you were in England, the GP would have prescribed it to you, the exact same thing. You’d have taken it already, under 14medical supervision. It would already be over. If this doesn’t work she still has options. London, or Manchester: she’s researched the clinics online. She wonders will she tell her mum, if it comes to that. Her mum would make the appointments, book the flights, pay for the hotel. Hold her hand in the waiting room and hug her afterwards. Her mum wouldn’t rage at her, or weep, like mothers do in films. Her mum would be pragmatic, calm: her mum would handle it all. Why hasn’t she told her mum? Her mum has raised the three of them to believe that they can do whatever they want, that they’re as good as men, that it’s a woman’s right to choose. Her mum would help her. Her mum would be here, now.

She aches for her.

Another memory: the Junior Debating Club, fourth year or maybe fifth. Kerry Ferguson passing round A4 pictures of babies smiling in the womb, sucking their thumbs. The women should just have them, Kerry Ferguson says. They should have them and give them to people who want them. Almost nobody voted For. Afterwards, when her mum asks how her day was, she’s too ashamed to mention it.