I’m also beginning to question whether, just because I can’t produce children naturally, I really have the right to ‘create’ one? What did infertile couples used to do before all this jiggery-pokery was invented? Did they lie down and die, bemoaning the infringement of their human rights, or did they just get on with life and contribute to society in other useful ways? How many Guide leaders are childless? I wonder. Someone must have statistics somewhere. I’ve no longer got the drive to struggle on with absurdly high expectations, paying out thousands to fertility clinics, which, all studies seem to show, have relatively low success rates. Plus, I’ve been very good at avoiding the complex moral issues that donor sperm might involve, so I’m not going to start now. Except to say that it’s all very well handing over a few anonymous tadpoles when you’re short of a few bob at university, but do you really want that same tadpole knocking at your front door when it’s grown up into a strapping eighteen-year-old with, ‘Who’s the Daddy?’ tattooed on his arm? See? Who am I trying to kid? One morning back at My Baby and I’m forced to confront these issues all over again. My head is already spinning round of its own volition rather like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist.

Pip is unaware of my inner turmoil as we make our way down towards the footpath by the river, mingling with the City-types as they eat their snatched lunchtime sandwiches on the move. We pass the smart, red-brick building of the City of London School and hear the high-pitched trill of boys’ singing drifting from the open windows, along with the noise of a violin being tortured by inexpert hands. There’s a semicircle of wooden benches set among a small, walled garden of dark green shrubs that are thriving healthily even in the polluted environment of London—and I guess some things will flourish wherever they are. Me? I’m not so sure now. Pip steers me towards the benches and we sit down, still arm in arm.

‘Jake’s floundering without you,’ Pip says plainly.

‘Good.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

I soften. ‘No,’ I say, ‘you’re right. I don’t.’

‘He wants you back, Lyssa,’ his friend entreats. ‘But he has no idea how to go about it.’

‘Then perhaps he shouldn’t have given me up quite so easily,’ I point out.

‘I’m sure with hindsight that he’s well aware of it.’

I turn to Pip. ‘And what about me?’ I watch the grey gulls wheel soundlessly over the white-tipped water. ‘What if I’ve realised—with hindsight—that Jake was a pretty crappy boyfriend?’

‘Is that what you really think?’