The doctor, who had been staring at his notes, looked up sharply. ‘Bertie?’

Irene smiled, and pointed to her stomach.

‘You play the baby music?’

Irene nodded. ‘Yes. I take it that you’ve read about the benefits of in utero musical training?’ She waited for an answer, but the doctor said nothing. ‘Well,’ she resumed, ‘there is plenty of evidence that the unborn child can hear music and will react accordingly.’

The doctor stared at Irene wide-eyed. ‘So Bertie, if I may call him that, may not be kicking – he may be conducting?’

Irene pursed her mouth. This was not a subject for humour – particularly heavy-handed medical humour. ‘There’s a very interesting book,’ she continued. ‘It’s called Your Own Pre-Natal Classroom and it has a great deal about how the foetus reacts and how the baby can be given a head start. The man who wrote that book said that he witnessed a thirty-three-week foetus synchronise its breathing with the beat of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Can you believe that?’

The doctor wanted to say no, but did not.

‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘Quite astonishing. But perfectly credible, if you begin to think about it. So I have introduced an educational hour for Bertie each afternoon. We listen to music together and then I play him a tape of a reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In Italian.’

The doctor picked up a pencil and played with it. ‘I wonder if Bertie appreciates this. You don’t think that perhaps he’s a little young …’

‘No,’ said Irene. ‘I do not.’

The doctor was silent. He was remembering something else that his professor had told him about how patients often themselves provide the answer to the questions they raise. Irene had told him exactly why Bertie kicked so much; he objected, as any unborn child might be expected to do, to this early in utero education. If there were school refusers – children who objected to being sent to school – then why should there not be unborn babies who objected to attempts at pre-natal education? But even as he reached this conclusion, the doctor thought it highly unlikely that Irene could be persuaded to leave Bertie alone to enjoy his last few months in the womb without a programme.

‘You don’t think that he might be …’ the doctor began, but stopped. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Just a thought.’

Irene had now reached her own conclusions. ‘I’m rather coming round to the view that this child is very keen to get started,’ she mused. ‘Yes, that’s probably it. He wants to get on with it. He must have a natural curiosity about the world.’

‘Very possibly,’ said the doctor. ‘Let’s wait and see. Some babies kick, and some babies don’t. Perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into the situation.’