He goes to the bar to order and I notice an elderly couple staring over at me as though I’m someone to be studied. I feel like giving them a wave as if to highlight this is what a scarlet woman looks like, because they look like the sort of people who would be friends with Deborah.

Stuart returns with a pint of Guinness and a watered-down G&T.

“It’s not even a unit, I promise,” he says. “I got them to tip some of it out.”

“Marie?”

A woman interrupts us. She’s smiling and looks friendly, but I just can’t place her.

I smile back, she must be someone from the school.

“I can’t believe it has been five years!” she says. “How’s your little one doing?”

Sickening dread, the worst kind, hits as I realize who she is. I need to get her away from Stuart.

“Darling, do you think you could order me a peppermint tea please?” I say to him. I pat my stomach when he doesn’t react quickly enough. “I’m feeling a bit sick all of a sudden.”

“Of course,” says Stuart, smiling what can only be an apology at the woman, seeing as I’ve not even tried to introduce them.

As he stands up, she points to my stomach. How rude! Admittedly, I did start wearing maternity clothes as soon as I could.

“You’re brave going for another one!” she says. “We stopped at one. It’s so hard juggling work and—”

“It’s lovely to see you,” I say. “And I really don’t mean to be impolite, but I must find the ladies’.”

She does look hurt, but I really had no choice.

I lock myself in the end cubicle, praying she doesn’t follow me. I lean against the tiled wall. Shit, shit, shit.

It was such a stupid thing to do. I knew it, even at the time, but I felt utterly compelled to do it. I was beyond desperate. Nothing seemed to work; I just couldn’t fall pregnant. I even spent over two hundred pounds on some supposed fertility herbs: a brown paper bag full of twigs and leaves, which I had to boil twice a day into a liquid that looked like tar. The noxious smell permeated the house.

I’d found an article on infertility that suggested that if I immersed myself in the world of babies I would automatically draw children into my life. In desperation, I went to a prenatal meeting—that’s where I know her from. Only twice. I wore baggy clothes and pretended I was earlier on in my pregnancy than the other attendees. It backfired. It was torturous because I wanted to be there for real and I felt even more wretched than I did already. The worst was when someone asked me to hold their one-year-old baby while they went to the toilet. I felt murderous, rather than maternal, that she was having a second shot at motherhood so soon.

I left the group, made up some excuse about moving away from the area (it was in a town on the other side of the forest, I wasn’t that careless) or lied about being too busy with work, I forget the exact details.