She makes a face. ‘When the other girl on my team told our partner in the firm that she was pregnant, his response was, and I quote, “Oh fuck.”’

Eek. ‘I think he needs to go on some kind of training.’

‘I don’t think it will help. What’s worse is that he’s seen to be one of the good ones – he’s even been nominated as an advocate for women returning to work. He says he knows what it’s like because he has two children of his own. He has no idea. He works away from home during the week and then plays golf half the weekend.’

‘Well then, make sure you bring in the baby and hand it over to him when he/she/it is about to drop a load. Feed it spicy beans in the run-up.’ I give her arm what I hope is a loving squeeze. ‘Is Mark excited?’

She smiles a very genuine smile. She always has been easy to console.

‘That is the one great thing. Mark is over the moon. He would have had babies years ago if it was up to him. But I don’t know what it is – like I said, at the moment he’s really pissing me off. He’s trying not to, but that pisses me off even more. It’s probably the hormones, but honestly, everything he does is annoying me.

‘For example, last night he was cooking me dinner – a fancy fish-finger wrap with thick-cut chips.’ She gets her love of a fish-finger wrap from me; I used to make these for her when we lived together. ‘And as I was watching him, I couldn’t help but look at him and think, “No. I love you, but right now I find you so unattractive I don’t know why I ever let you touch me, let alone knock me up.” And he’s got this bloody obsession with bowls at the moment, those big bowls that they serve ramen in. And let me tell you, bowls are really hard to store. They take up a lot of room in our kitchen cupboards. I swear, every time he leaves the house he comes back with another bloody bowl. And he only ever buys one at a time. He says he’s testing them out, but it just means we’re now the owners of a really large collection of mismatching bowls. If he brings another one home I might whack him over the head with it.’

‘Do you hate him a bit? Have you told him?’

‘I’ve tried, but every time I start, I burst out crying. Anything will set me off. It doesn’t have to be a sad emotion. It can be any emotion. Too happy? I cry. Too funny? I cry. Too gassy? I cry. I haven’t cried for years and now I can’t stop.’

I didn’t know ‘gassy’ was an emotion, but I let it slide.

‘Well then, maybe try to remember that you won’t always hate him and this is merely a phase.’