I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. I knew where this was leading. I could recognize the tell-tale sounds and movements. Suzi’s tunic was not zippered where it was only to make for ease of changing in weightless conditions. At any second it was going to be required of me to treat as perfectly commonplace and unremarkable the materialization of something I had wasted nearly half my life trying to get a look at. I suppose it’s possible that my discomfort communicated itself to the others, but I don’t think so. I believe my expression remained immobile. The trouble seemed to lie within Suzi herself. For some reason she couldn’t finally bring herself to do it. Perhaps she hadn’t known Fitzpiers long enough. Or perhaps she didn’t want to enter a competition with Sharon she could only lose. Anyway, something caused her to dither and look distraught. And the baby to cry.

Sharon wondered if there was anything she could do, if there was anything she could provide, if there was anywhere quiet that Suzi would like to go.

The girl rose and smiled and said thank-you and then suddenly changed her mind. Hitherto hidden lines appeared on her face. ‘I am not used to visiting people who expect me to nurse in another room,’ she said, in her quavering little voice. ‘Or who hold back dinner on our behalf. Of course I understand that your childlessness makes you prudish. And I am sorry for you. It’s a great shame to miss out on the absolutely glorious aura of peace that babies bring.’

All the time she was speaking she was gathering together her things. Despite the glorious aura of peace in which she was bathed both her hands shook violently. Fitzpiers, like Sharon and like me, stood with his mouth open. Suzi was already at the front door when she delivered her final sentence. Nobody could be quite certain, afterwards, what it was that she’d said, but a rough guess, doing scant justice to the original, was ‘You are not alone in a world that doesn’t love its children.’

A moment later she was gone, and a moment after that Fitzpiers followed her, distraught, into the night.

I consoled myself, for the rest of the evening, with lasagne and chianti sufficient for four – there is more than one way of finding peace in this world – and by repeating, ‘Prudish? Us? She ought to hear some of the things you’ve been saying you’d like to do to her boy-friend.’

But Sharon wasn’t saying anything just now. Nor was she eating or drinking. She didn’t even finish off Suzi’s Guinness.

‘Cheer up,’ I told her, encouragingly. ‘Who cares anyway?’

‘I do,’ she said. But she wouldn’t say about what.

And she wouldn’t join in our usual nightly rehearsal either – no matter what I threatened her with.

[2]