Just the idea of it filled Sylvia with the same sense of freedom she’d felt that day on her old school’s lawn. Some more time in Switzerland, in summer, when the air would be bright and clear, with people who would understand her worries about her pregnancy, her job prospects and her new husband’s suffocating desire to stop her doing anything interesting. In recent days she’d felt a clawing sense of claustrophobia, which was reflected in the news making it to her paper’s front page. It hadn’t rained enough in recent months; the dry winter had morphed into a drier spring, there was talk of drought and empty reservoirs and water rationing, farmers harvesting early and animal feed tripling in price. And then there was the doom and gloom over the economy: inflation, spending cuts and debt. She would love a brief respite from all that, a chance to get away from it all. Yes, she had Copenhagen coming up, but why not Switzerland too? She very much doubted Roger would let her write another article on such a similar subject, but she could go anyway, just for fun. Of course, she and Jim were meant to be saving, not spending money on flights. They’d need the cash for rent and furniture for the new apartment, plus all the equipment for the baby. And then there was Jim’s aversion to her travelling whilst pregnant. But the more he acted like her protector, the more she wanted to break free, because wasn’t now the time? The time for her to do as much as she could, to pack it all in, because how long would it be until she could go abroad again, once they had a child in tow?

She picked up a pen to write to Evelyne straight away, to say yes, she’d definitely come, but had to put it down again as a wave of nausea socked her in the stomach. She stood up and with careful steps walked through the open plan to the ladies. She pushed the door open, went into a cubicle and sat on the toilet, waiting for her body to decide if it needed to throw up or not.

What was she, about four months gone? She’d expected this to be over by now. That’s what Jim’s mum had said, if she’d remembered correctly, because she had trouble concentrating on the reams of baby-related information Pamela continually spouted at her down the phone every time she called – which was often. The first trimester is the worst, after that it gets better, that’s what Sylvia thought she’d said. Well it hadn’t. Just her luck.