It was all too much. My mother would have had a nervous breakdown at the very least. In the midst of all the panic, tears and organising no one noticed that I was throwing up every morning. No one questioned why the very sight or smell of food sent me scuttling for the bathroom. All the attention was on Edie and her forthcoming event—it didn’t occur to anyone that I might be having my own happy little incident.

I’d had a three-month affair with a well-to-do law student called Eamon. The earth hadn’t exactly moved, but it did quiver for a little while and I wondered briefly if he might be The One. When I told him I was pregnant he disappeared on his Vespa scooter in a cloud of dust and I never saw him again. He was never in when I called at his digs and he never answered my letters. What he did do was push an envelope containing five hundred quid under my door one day when I was out, with a note saying his family would be scandalised. He told me to have an abortion. And I did. Without questioning whether it was really what I wanted. It seemed the most sensible thing to do at the time. I had always been the sensible one.

‘More wine?’ Edie asks.

I nod. To be blindingly drunk would be nice right now.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Oh, nothing much.’ I smile at her to convince her I’m all right. Even now I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth. This secret has to stay mine alone. Edie would be mortified and blame herself entirely and then she’d tell my mother who would probably have a heart attack—or feign one—and then she’d blame everyone else but herself. ‘I’m just trying to get my head round a few things.’

The abortion was a disaster. The worst thing I have ever done in my entire life. It ripped out my heart as well as my baby. But I was twenty-two. I thought it would hurt too many people. I never considered the hurt it would cause me.