Elspeth took the tissue that the nurse offered her and blew her nose. ‘Maybe …’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said the consultant. He now became businesslike. ‘I’ll need to see you a bit more often than would otherwise have been the case. So we’ll set up an appointment for a month’s time and see how things are going.’

Elspeth got down off the couch. Suddenly she felt very heavy. Three babies. Not one; three. Three names to be chosen, or, if they had two names each, six names altogether.

‘I’ve changed my mind about not knowing,’ she said to the consultant. ‘I’d like to know now. Are they girls or …’

‘Boys,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’re having three boys.’

33. The Implications of Boys

The nurse was hesitant to allow Elspeth Harmony to leave in a state of shock. ‘You can stay here for a couple of hours,’ she said. ‘Get your breath back, so to speak. Or get your hus … I mean, a friend …’ She stopped herself; years of official hectoring that staff should not make assumptions about marital status had had its effect. You should not mention husbands, the advice ran. Many women don’t have them.

In her emotionally charged state, Elspeth was in no mood for such scruples. ‘I’ve got a husband,’ she blurted out. ‘Some people still have them, you know.’

The nurse looked apologetic. ‘Of course.’

Having assured the nurse she was capable of getting home, Elspeth left the hospital and caught a taxi that had just discharged its passengers at the hospital door. She sat back in her seat and watched the city go past: the Dalkeith Road with its acres of flats; the Commonwealth Pool; Arthur’s Seat off to the east like a great crouching lion. Three, she thought. Three boys. Three boys.

Suddenly she felt overcome by weariness. I am tired, she thought, and I’ve hardly even started. How shall I feel when the boys are back home and crying at night? What if they wake up at different times – which is perfectly possible, indeed inevitable? Or will their hours of wakefulness be co-ordinated by some strange synchronicity, that odd biological phenomenon that made people want to march in step, or feel hungry at the same time? There was certainly something in synchronicity, even if one declined to explore its more exotic edges – those unsettling instances where events happen in such a way as to suggest a causal link. Jung talked of that, of course, and wrote about discussing a scarab with a patient, turning round, and seeing a scarab at the window …

No, this was not the time to think about such matters. This was the time to think about what she would say to Matthew. Good news, Matthew, it’s triplets! Or something less Pollyanna-ish. Matthew, we have a tiny bit of a challenge ahead of us … Three of them, to be precise.