Sitting there, the two of them agreed that they should, sometime soon, introduce each other to their respective families. There was much discussion over how to go about this. The Delgado and Mehta families presented different issues, requiring different manoeuvres. Rohan’s strategy would be to introduce Anita to his sisters first, then allow them to talk her up to his parents, before the eventual parents/new girlfriend presentation. With the Delgados, Anita’s favoured tactic was the surprise meeting—bring Rohan to a large family gathering unannounced. All her relatives would be smitten by him and fall over themselves to be the one Rohan liked best. Thereafter, Anita’s mother would take credit for having identified him as a much better man than the usual losers her daughter chose.

On the ferry back across the harbour, Anita stuck her head over the side and let the chilly salty air cuff her around the face in a way that felt wonderful. She was slightly windburned, full of food, pleasantly weary from walking on sand and talking earnestly and having a lot of sex in the last few days.

Anita headed back to her own apartment, alone, in order to get a decent night’s sleep. As she flopped on the bed, she made a mental list of bushwalks she and Paula should do together, music gigs they must book, restaurants they could try. She wouldn’t allow her relationship with Rohan to create any separation from her friend, not ever and especially not now.

SIXTEEN

PAULA HAD A MONDAY MORNING OF TREATING THE VERY old and the very young.

She placed the stethoscope on the ribcage of a three-year-old girl with bronchitis, apologised to her for the coldness, then listened to the air sighing in and out of the tiny lungs.

She examined the raw, vulnerable toes of an eighty-year-old man with peripheral vascular disease, then talked through the management options with him as gently and candidly as she could.

She swabbed the perfect, almost translucent skin on the arm of fifteen-month-old baby having his MMR booster. Paula let the baby wail and glare at her, so the infant’s sense of betrayal about the needle was directed at the doctor rather than his own mother. He quickly settled and glued his little body to his mother for protection. By the time they left the surgery, Paula did manage to elicit a wary smile and a finger-scrunching wave from the baby.

When Paula slipped out to the kitchenette to make tea, she noticed two missed calls from Anita. As she waited for the kettle to boil, the phone vibrated again, with Anita on the caller ID, and this time Paula answered it.

‘Hi, lovely,’ said Paula. ‘You okay?’

‘What’s a placental abruption?’ Anita asked urgently, garbled. ‘If a pregnant woman has an abruption, what does that mean? That’s bad, isn’t it? Does it mean—fuck …’