That’s when, as I was waiting for her, some guy who must’ve been fifty to fifty-five years old, poorly shaven, wearing crotch-hugging jeans that showed off his bulging bits, a bomber jacket and red Converse sneakers came into the bar with his whingeing kid stuffed into some sort of hiking backpack and sat down at the counter. The child was wearing a mini puffer jacket and an enormous beanie that was falling down over her eyes and she was whining because she was too hot. Her father was trying unsuccessfully to bring his cup to his lips as the kid wriggled around on his back, her face flushed . . . waaaaa . . . waaaaa . . . It was unbearable! He knew perfectly well, the idiot, that he was irritating us with his kid . . . waaaaa . . . waaaaa . . . He was even more aware of the fact that before her birth he wouldn’t have tolerated the situation for a second either.

With that kid carrying on just a few metres from my ears, I thought of my fatherless pregnancy and the fact I would be facing the ordeal entirely on my own. I knew nothing about children. I was an only child, raised by an abrasive and impatient old aunt. I didn’t know where I’d find the resources to give a child the attention and love it deserved.

‘Is that going to go on for much longer?’ his neighbour at the bar asked.

‘She wants to get down —’

‘Well, get her down!’

The guy undid his back contraption and put it on the floor with the kid still in it, squeezing her between his legs and the counter, amid all the sugar packets, the old metro tickets and the losing scratchies.

Waaaa . . . waaaa . . . And she was off again, even louder now.

I stared at the little girl, who was busy pleading for her father’s attention. She was tugging on his jeans, and without even lowering his eyes he responded with little patting gestures like those you’d give your pooch. At one point he even picked up a copy of Parisien and started to read an article as he reached down with a piece of croissant, feeling around, trying to stuff it into her ear, thinking it was her mouth.

And suddenly I had a vision of my father and a sort of bitter bile rose up within, filling my mouth.