‘Matthew. And yes, we used a surrogate.’

‘You’re awfully young to have children, don’t you think?’

‘Not really. I think it’s better to have children when you’re young enough to enjoy them.’

‘And when you share a similar mental age.’

‘Exactly. And then, by the time they’re out of the house, we’ll be middle-aged and, hopefully, solvent and we can see the world.’

‘No one who has allowed themselves to become a parent is ever solvent,’ said George. ‘You’ll be spending money on them for the rest of your lives. Children are an endless drain on the finances. My three still live at home and don’t show any sign of wanting to move out.’

‘We’re teaching Harry and Bess to be independent,’ said Ben. ‘Neither of us has travelled much and we’re determined to make it part of our future.’

‘People always say that,’ said George. ‘But in reality, does anyone actually enjoy travelling? The packing, the airports, the food, the hotel rooms. Having to talk to your significant other all day long. When it comes to it, wouldn’t we all prefer to stay at home?’

‘But I’ve always wanted to visit Australia,’ protested Ben. ‘And Canada. And Japan. I never did a gap year, you see. Mother wouldn’t let me.’

‘You should have stood up to her.’

‘Oh no,’ said Ben, frowning. ‘No, that wouldn’t have been possible. Mother was a woman of very determined views.’

‘So go on holiday, then. You don’t have to have children, rear them and exile them just to feel that you’ve earned a trip abroad. I was almost thirty-eight by the time I had my first child, did you know that? Then Elizabeth arrived exactly a year later, and Achilles four years after that. The funny thing is, each one was born in February. I must have been at my randiest, and Beverley at her most fertile, in April.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Ben, who didn’t sound in the least fascinated.

‘The second, the ninth and the fourth. That’s their birthdays.’

‘May,’ said Ben.

‘May?’

‘February minus nine months is May. You must have been, you know, at your most amorous in May.’

‘No, that’s a common misconception,’ said George, shaking his head. ‘The average length of human gestation is two hundred and eighty days, or forty weeks. Which is ten months, not nine. Why we always talk about nine months has been a mystery to me my entire life.’

Ben looked down at his iPad.

‘Hey, Siri,’ he said. ‘How long is the gestation period for humans?’

‘The duration of a pregnancy for humans is forty weeks,’ replied Siri, which had been programmed to replicate the voice of a sexy young Australian surfer with blond shaggy hair and washboard abs.

‘Told you,’ said George, irritated that the younger man could not take his word for this without consulting the Internet. Ben was the eleventh producer he’d worked with over thirty-one years of Cleverley and they’d almost all been in their mid-twenties. The host kept growing older, but the producers remained the same age, a little like Leonardo DiCaprio and his girlfriends.