If you had answered my letter, I might have been able to help. Did you ever think of that? You wanted nothing to do with me because of what I had created but now – now – I want nothing more to do with what I have created. That’s not true though, because deep down I still think … Well, I still hope. Do you see? It wasn’t because of you that I invented the pouch, and it wasn’t to get away from you that I worked so hard to complete it. I remember the way you looked at me, just after the first baby was born, and you said, ‘You must be proud of yourself now.’ As if you thought I was never proud of you; never proud of being a mother to you. It hurts to remember it.

But the numbness in my fingers is spreading. It is the cold, perhaps, but it’s moved up over my wrist and my elbow and now my arm is almost frozen with it. The cold … So cold I can hardly move at all. I would put the fire on but with dizzing … No, I … With the dizzy feeling I mean. With the dizzy feeling I am not sure I want to get up. This is my final audio log and I want to finish saying what I am saying. I don’t need my arm to be not numb.

And I don’t believe any more that my Asda man will ever return, but if he did, I think I would tell him about my arm and how I can’t feel this … about how the numb feeling is gone now but that … Maybe I won’t tell him.

It would be nice to have the option to tell him.

Now I want him to come, and I know that he is not …

Have I done everything wrong?

I am so sorry, if I have done everything wrong.

Science is not perfect, you know. I never really tried to claim that it was. Sylvia was the one who wanted perfection – she stole my work. She set up her company and stole my ideas because of my doubts.

Sometimes I imagine what would have happened if … had I chosen differently. If I’d walked away, left his hand un-shook … never become a scientist … but sooner or later, the pouch would have been invented anyway. All the pieces were … Well, I tell you … If men had been having babies for as long, they would have invented it generations ago … it would have preceded the bomb!

Though I pushed things forward.

Oh. Just wait …

One person can make a difference.

One person.

I made a difference.

But it would have happened, eventually … without me. Walking away would have …

Slowed things down …

Would some extra time have helped?

… made any difference?

Perhaps I am still not ready to admit that I was wrong.