It was hard just getting to the hospital building. I had to push my way through a crowd milling outside the Irish Embassy, where at least a hundred people were clamouring for entry. I asked a young woman in a pinny what was going on and she said everyone in the scrum had an Irish parent so they were applying for Irish passports – apparently applications had just reopened after a couple of years, so there was a lot of pent-up demand. I wished her luck. I could understand their attempt, although anyone trying to get out of the country that way would have to endure months of harassment from the authorities. They would lose their job, and if they got another at all it would be the dirtiest in the city, kilometres from where they lived, just to teach them a lesson. After that, of course, the government might still refuse to grant an exit visa.

The scene at the hospital reception desk was almost identical to last time – a mass of people pushing and shoving, some demanding to be dealt with, some begging. Dr Clement was in his cubicle, writing on a card as he bid goodbye to a woman who was buttoning up her blouse. She left and he motioned me to a wooden chair opposite his that had been broken and shabbily bolted together again.

‘Hello, Mrs Cawson,’ he said. ‘I have read the results from your blood and urine tests.’ He rolled his lips over his teeth and bit down on them thoughtfully. ‘They were to check your hormone levels. The reproductive hormones that you produce.’

‘I see.’

‘Yes. There is one that we must talk about.’

‘All right.’

‘It is called oestradiol. It is one of a group we call oestrogens that are vital for pregnancy to occur.’

‘And?’

He cleared his throat. He seemed uncomfortable. ‘Please tell me: what first said to you that you were pregnant?’

‘How did I first realize, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘My periods stopped.’

He noted that down. ‘Yes, yes. That is the way most women first believe they are pregnant too.’

‘Well, obviously.’ He avoided my gaze. There was something he didn’t want to tell me. ‘What is it?’

‘Mrs Cawson.’ He looked at a form on his desk. It was divided into sections, each with a few words of black type above red handwritten words and numbers. ‘The tests we did. There was something we found.’

‘What was it?’ I said, now very worried – had losing the child meant I could never fall pregnant again?

‘I am sorry to tell you that we find your levels of oestradiol are low. Very low. Too low for you to have ever been able to conceive a baby, I must say. Too low for you to have been pregnant before.’

I was dumbstruck. It was impossible, what he was saying. ‘But I was pregnant,’ I stuttered. ‘Before. That’s why I’m here.’