When she closed her eyes she felt like she could will herself back to the pivotal moments of her life. That moment when she decided – no, it wasn’t a decision, there was nothing else she could have done – that she would leave the flat she shared with Piotr and move back in with her mum. The moment five years before when she had stormed into his office, her anger, her attraction; the feel of his hair under her chin as they lay in bed and she felt an overwhelming urge to protect him, to forgive him. Don’t think of Piotr, she willed herself, and instead she heard her mum telling her she had cancer. Sitting beside her as she shivered and sweated and vomited. Seeing her pull on a wig of wild, orange hair and turning to her. Eva, do you think this needs some extra blue streaks?

Eva looked up as Holly leaned over the table to get her attention. She noticed, for the first time, that the old lady appeared to be dressed as a spy – a long trench coat was wrapped around her body, tied with a brutal double knot. She was reaching a hand towards her but Eva pulled away. It was too much intimacy.

‘Tell me,’ Holly said. ‘Why don’t you like the baby pouch?’

There was no venom in her voice. If anything her eyes looked sad. It was the first time in a long time that anyone had asked her such a straightforward question, and it was phrased in such simple language Eva wanted to give an equally simple response. Not simplistic – but honest. Why didn’t she like the baby pouch?

At fourteen years old, sitting in a school classroom with the spring rain making a rhythmic backdrop to the emphatic words of her biology teacher: We have found a better way. They were taught about natural birth, they were even shown a video – screams of pain, the red-faced woman, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, and that man telling her to push, push, push, as if she could move the horror show along by just trying harder. And then they were shown a pouch. Encouraged to try it on. So clean, so soft that it was hard not to want to cuddle with it. And the video for that, the parents smiling serenely at the camera, the neat birthing process as the pouch was delicately cut open, the fluids drained away, and a baby introduced to the world with calm orchestral music. In the Q&A afterwards they were told they could choose their own music, they could even write their own. It was impossible not to think that the whole process was far better – far healthier – for the baby as well. Because the struggle was gone.

‘It’s fake,’ she said to Holly. ‘I think it’s … fake.’

‘No, it’s real. Just like the people who are born are real.’