Seconds collected themselves reluctantly into minutes, while the babies fed on and Lauren tried to think the word “contented” and not the word “bored”. As time drained from the day, the shadows shifted so that the sun glared aggressively into Lauren’s eyes where she was trapped under the suckling infants.

“Pat-rick,” she shouted again, making the sound grow slowly so as not to shock the babies. This time there was a shuffling, a muttering, and finally two feet thudded down the stairs. Her husband appeared in the doorway, hair sticking up, shirt held together with one button matched to a wrong buttonhole, exposing the upper part of his chest, smooth skin interrupted by a small central island of honey-coloured hair.

Lauren said, “Can you shut the curtains, please?”

Patrick huffed barefoot across the room and did as she asked.

“Was that all?”

He stood, legs apart, hands on hips, looking down at her. Shards of sun cut through the gaps in the curtains, but Lauren’s eyes were in blissful shade at last. Patrick was back-lit in beams of light, a halo of golden curls, a bad-tempered nativity angel.

“Would you put the kettle on, please?” she said, keeping a careful neutral tone, “I can’t get up.”

Patrick went back across the room and up the step into the kitchen. She heard the tap running as he filled the kettle.

“I was asleep, you know,” he called, through the doorless arch between the rooms.

“Sorry.”

Baby Riley unlatched himself and started crying, an engine that took a while to catch and then roared with impressive power. She had to raise her voice to make herself heard. “Can you just take him for me a minute, please?”

Patrick came back through, stepped down into the room and took the baby with a gentleness that made her ache with love for them both. He held him over a shoulder and jiggled up and down, pacing back and forth the length of the kitchen, one eye shut against the raging shrieks at the side of his head until the kettle joined in with the screaming and he flipped the whistle back and the gas off while he kept on bouncing on his heels because it seemed to be working; there were breathy silences between the wails, each longer than the last. By the time the tea was made, all was peace. Riley tongued and gummed his own fist, hiccupping while Patrick draped a muslin cloth between the boy and his own neck, to soak up the drool.

“Hey, Morgie-moo,” he said. “Better now, mister?”

“Patrick.”

“What?”

“That’s Riley. Green for Riley, yellow for Morgan.”

“Oh,” he laughed, “yeah, I knew that. Sorry, baby boy. You do look kinda similar to your brother, though. And ever since Mummy took your name tags off, I keep getting confused.”

“Can’t you tell the difference?”

“Well, of course, mostly. The colours help, when I don’t get them mixed up, ha ha. But, I mean, come on—they are identical.”