‘Don’t fuss,’ she said when Jim called her at the office, as he’d taken to doing daily.

‘I’m not fussing, I’m just checking in.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. He’d been smiling ever since she told him she was pregnant. She swore he looked taller, walked with a bounce in his stride. It was endearing and horrifying at the same time.

‘You don’t need to call me here. I’ve told you I feel perfectly fine.’ She lowered her voice and turned around in her chair to face away from Max. She didn’t intend to tell anyone at work about her situation just yet. Not until she had to. She needed time for it to sink in herself, to make sense of the decision she’d made at the clinic. It had been so sudden and yet so definite. An almost physical urge not to abort. As though the baby itself had prevented her from going through with it. And then she told Jim and suddenly it was completely out of her hands. Her mother’s wavering voice down the phone, delighted and disapproving at the same time. What will the neighbours think? Her sister Susie, already planning to drive over with a drawer-load of cast-offs. And Jim, taking her hands and saying with glee, We’d better just do it then, let’s get married as soon as we can. And then there was a registry office and a pub in Wandsworth booked for two weeks’ time, so everyone could pretend it didn’t happen in the wrong order and Sylvia could become a respectable married pregnant woman, just like they all wanted.

‘Will I see you tonight?’

‘I said I’d spend it with Maggie. We’re going to go to that new Indian place at London Bridge.’

‘Right.’ Jim paused. ‘Can you eat that sort of stuff?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘All those funny foreign spices, perhaps they’re not good for the baby.’

Sylvia suppressed a sigh. Sit down and put your feet up. Can I make you a cup of tea? Are you eating enough? That was how their interactions went these days. Not office politics and Fleet Street gossip and juicy news stories. They had a new prime minister, for goodness sake, but all Jim wanted to talk about was which foods she should avoid. Maybe it was just the shock of it; maybe it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t, surely. She wasn’t suddenly fragile and weak – and she certainly didn’t intend to let him or anyone else treat her that way.

‘I’m sure it’s fine, Jim. Don’t fuss,’ she said again.

‘I just want to look after you both.’

‘I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself.’