Awkwardly, David moved his hand. “I don’t mean to be rude, Veronica, it was a lovely evening, but actually, I’m not sure you’re the best person to be around Sarah right now.”

“Oh?” Veronica flinched. She’d been sensing this reluctance all week, but people usually had the manners to pretend otherwise. She wondered if the hostility was Sarah’s, or David’s, or both. Surely it wasn’t David. She’d always been able to magnetise men. “Did she not like my question about kissing George?” she recovered, winking with, she thought, just the right amount of sass. “Sarah always was a bit straitlaced you know, I shouldn’t have teased her. You can tell her I’d have kissed you too though, in that situation of course.” She smiled irreverently now, with a daring openness she hadn’t employed in years. David took a step back.

“I think it’s best just to give her some space.” He shuffled his papers, then half-turned towards the vast room behind him. “I’d better get back. Not long till pick-up, as you know.”

“Of course.” Veronica smiled, but inside her, rejection raged. And mingled there with something else. Suddenly, her stomach throbbed more acutely than ever, her head pounded, her legs itched. She scratched at them and wondered if through the thin cotton she had drawn blood. She wanted to sit down. Desperately. And, she wished George was there – old George, the George who had loved her irreverence and learned her heart and was the only person to whom she had ever been able to unfold everything. And had not yet told about the pregnancy. Or lack of it.

In George’s stead, David hovered. “Are you alright?” he asked her.

Veronica flapped her hand dismissively, but she felt her face draining of colour. David would think it was his effect on her. Or her failure to affect him.

Perhaps it came with infertility, this inability to enchant men, perhaps they could sense it. Perhaps Sarah could sense it too, the waning of her power. Clearly the woman no longer felt compelled to court her friendship. That was, if she had even courted it when they were children. Maybe it had been Veronica all along. Contrived from the very start.

Veronica’s stomach throbbed harder.

David began to back away.

You can’t force somebody to want you, Veronica reasoned. You can’t force love into existence, or something to love, or something to love you.

But, you can force some things. Words spilled.

“Sorry, David,” Veronica began, regaining her composure and raising her hand to halt his departure. “Before you get back, there is something wrong actually. I was trying to downplay it before, I didn’t want to make it a thing, knowing you and Sarah of course. But actually, there was a reason I came. Amelia is not quite fine. She was rather badly behaved today. I had to take away some of her Golden Time.”

“Oh,” David frowned, looking at her suspiciously. “Okay. Isn’t this something you could have told me at school?”