So I gave it to him straight. I could have told him it was that time in the Rod Room, when it wasn’t safe and he shushed me, but I didn’t. No more lies. It was no messing about, this time, with no Dr Ashburton droning on about viruses and contact with animals and completely failing to understand that I only have to leave my wellies next to Ralph’s in the boot rack to miss a period.

‘Ralph,’ I said, ‘I’m still having the baby.’

After having staggered about greyly, clutching his head and groaning indistinctly, as if he had been asked to act as an infantryman taking a fatal bullet at Passchendaele in an after-dinner game of charades, he had rallied. He’d lifted his chin, and said, ‘Well done, darling. You always get your own way in the end.’ Since then, he’s appeared almost pleased (i.e. glumly resigned). This time, after the whole Clare catastrophe, he owed me. It was my turn to get my way, although I don’t think it’s about winning or losing. It’s about love and compromise. I honestly think – and here’s the weird thing – that this time, Ralph would accept the baby even if it wasn’t his. I admit, I thought about pretending it was someone else’s, just to twist the knife, to get my own back, but I decided I was now too mature and grounded and dismissed the temptation as unworthy of me.

So things are looking rosy – well, fairly rosy, and much rosier than they were just a few weeks ago. As even Ralph – whose Scottish blood does manifest itself from time to time – acknowledged with a heavy sigh, when it came to the money side of things, an area of life in which I have always tried not to involve myself too much: ‘Never mind, darling. Let’s hope that the Dominus will Providebit, in the sense that the Lord will provide, if only a bit.’

∗

Ralph disappears upstairs, to relegate his morning suit to the depths of his wardrobe until its next, infinitely dreaded outing. When he reappears, he’s wearing green cords, an old navy jersey, a tweed cap, and a pair of green thigh-high waders. I love functional uniforms – white medical coats, hunting pink, camouflage – anything that immediately discloses to the observer the exact activity or pursuit or service in hand.

‘Are you, though?’ I ask, taking a big bite of toast, buttering my chin, gazing at him.

‘Am I what, my darling wife?’ Ralph asks, distractedly sorting through the fly box and dropping it into the pocket of the Barbour he has disinterred from a pile of outdoor coats in the hall. He clearly has no idea what I’m talking about, but is prepared to humour me in my current state.