‘I’d thought … because …’ Well, because she was an activist for natural birth he had always assumed she had given birth to Eva. He’d wondered about the father – been jealous of the father. It was good to let go of that jealousy. Perhaps there was no man in Avigail’s life. But he knew that didn’t mean she wanted him.

‘I was writing an article about how the pouch was changing our society, looking at the change in abortion rates. You’ll know about that, of course. FullLife love to use that one, don’t they?’

He waited for what was coming next.

‘Who needs to have an abortion when they could just transplant to the pouch? But there’s another side to that, isn’t there?’

And he knew that there was. Of course, they all knew about the care homes, about how adoption rates were decreasing as well. The homes were overcrowded already. No one knew what was going to happen to all those children.

‘They have no parents,’ she said. ‘No family. My God, the younger ones don’t even have names.’

He looked down at his hands, thought how to phrase his belief that society was still in the process of change – and that society would work it out. He was a scientist, not a politician. But when he looked up, Avigail was crying.

The sky was darker now, a velvet texture to the evening, and her skin looked luminous. Her expression was sadder and more unveiled than he’d ever seen it. He knew, for the first time, he was looking at the real Avigail. He didn’t think about what he wanted, he just reached out with his fingertips and didn’t touch her cheekbone where it was glistening. She closed her eyes. His hand moved around to the side of her face and gently rested on her cheek, as he reached in and kissed her eyelashes.

It overtook him, all the things he didn’t know, all the ways she was out of reach and all the ways she was here beside him. He let his hand run through her hair as he had imagined doing since he first saw her, since that moment in the lift to the museum. What he was doing and what he was imagining collided as he moved closer to her, unaware of the chair toppling over behind him, kissing her neck, her lips. Her hands were holding his head now and she said his name. It sounded both distant and close, formal but their own form of intimacy, his surname, ‘Quentin’, with a hint of kindness and a hint of laughter. His eyes opened, and he was kneeling in front of her on the grass. Had he kissed her? She smiled at him. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Get up. This isn’t real, you know.’