He could say every one of those words correctly, and he had a list of questions on his telephone for every consultation, and he asked them in the proper order even when the consultant was visibly running late, which is a kind of courage.

And when I could not face the pharmacy counter, he went to the pharmacy counter.

Ten years of that.

A hundred and nineteen months of a man turning up.

I would not have got through it without him, and I say that now, knowing everything I know, without taking a single word of it back.

Part Five: Two Lines

And then, with no warning at all, the impossible thing happened.

I was pregnant.