Still, the birthing centre was a building you couldn’t ignore. It dominated. She turned the corner and hurried away from its shadow, into the shadow of other, lower, more mundane buildings that housed grocers and a flower shop and the cafe where she was headed. She was early. Once inside, she chose a table near the front windows and ordered a coffee. He was going to stay ‘Quentin’ in her mind. ‘James’ was saddened by her mother’s death, a man she felt sympathy for already, but ‘Quentin’ was someone she needed to get information from.

A couple were sitting in the back, fussing over their pouch. Eva didn’t mean to stare, but it was one of the oldest pouches she’d seen for a while – and instead of the colourful soft fabric covers most people had nowadays it was coated in its original, synthetic pale green. She still found it creepy that the pouch’s bio-membrane could heal itself after birth; that it could naturally re-form. The couple can’t have had any kind of health-care plan if they were carrying one of FullLife’s used pouches. It must look, she thought before she could stop herself, just like the pouch she was in, before she was in the outside world, before she was Eva Goldsmith. But the comparison ended there. They might not have been able to afford a new pouch, but they clearly wanted their child. They were telling it a fairy tale, whispering directly through the surface of the pouch itself since there was no audio adapter. A story about castles and magic and bravery. She wondered where they lived. Perhaps they’d be raising their child in one of the out-of-city shelter homes.

Eva held the end of the scarf she was wearing, which had been her mother’s. She’d watched her make it when she was little, amazed at what she could create – soft silk and rich colours, home-made swirls of indigo dye and delicate gold leaves. ‘Will you teach me?’ she’d asked, and her mum had nodded, made room for her to stand up at the table on her plastic steps and help. ‘Did your mummy teach you?’ She hadn’t expected an answer so her mum’s reply had stayed with her. ‘My mum didn’t teach me much of anything.’ It had made young Eva feel sad, but also grateful. Even now she often wore her mother’s old clothes, used her expressions.

The bell above the door announced a new customer, and there he was. James. Quentin. She stood up, found herself walking towards him, clasping his hand in hers.

‘It is good to meet you,’ she said.

‘I am so sorry …’ He placed a cautious hand, briefly, on her shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’