Although he was fond of her, he had never imagined their relationship would have any long-term consequences. She had a tendency to pepper her speech with foreign phrases co-opted into the language, a too desperate sign of her erudition, and had a laugh that grated, forcing him to keep witty remarks to a minimum. Ultimately, he’d decided to end the liaison but, a few days after the break-up, she’d phoned, asking for one final roll in the hay and, being weak, he’d succumbed to her erotic invitation, which, in time, had led to today’s meeting in a Kensington wine bar, where she’d delivered the news by placing her hand over her glass when the waitress tried to pour, saying, ‘I can’t. Je suis enceinte.’

‘I don’t want anything from you,’ Angela insisted now, taking a compact from her handbag and dabbing at her face with a powder puff, another habit that aggravated him. ‘You can be a part of this baby’s life or not, exactly as you wish. If you’d prefer to have nothing to do with him, then naturally, I’ll understand. But there’s no changing things. It’s a fait accompli.’

‘Him?’ asked George, a small twinge of paternal pride asserting itself over the dismay. ‘It’s a boy, then? You’re sure?’

‘Well, not sure, no,’ she admitted. ‘But a mother can sense these things.’

‘Nonsense,’ he replied.

‘You’ve never been a mother, George, so you can’t know.’

‘Perhaps not, but I don’t hold with old wives’ tales.’

‘I’m not an old wife,’ countered Angela. ‘You’re confusing me with Beverley.’

‘I mean, it’s all very well to say that I can be as involved as I like,’ he continued, ignoring the barb, ‘but it’s not quite as simple as that, is it? If I throw myself into fatherhood again, which I’m loath to do at my age, then I’ll almost certainly lose Beverley, and the children will take her side, as they always do, so I’ll lose them too. But if I don’t, if I just walk away, then I’m a scoundrel and, twenty years from now, when I’m in my dotage, he, she or they will show up at my front door complaining of abandonment and blaming me for everything that’s gone wrong in their life. I’ll be eighty years old by then and, frankly, I won’t need the grief.’

‘They?’ asked Angela, frowning. ‘Is there a history of twins in your family?’

‘No. Why do you ask?’

‘You said they?’

‘I understand that some people prefer the third person plural for a pronoun,’ he replied, having recently interviewed a pop singer on his show who’d insisted upon this, leading one of the cameramen to be fired for calling them Sibyl, after the Sally Field movie about the woman with multiple personalities.