2

Rush hour found me leaning against the map on the wall of the Underground, eyes closing in exhaustion. Frank had texted to tell me he had a client meeting and couldn’t drive me home, so I had hauled myself along to the Tube. I willed the train to arrive; all I wanted was to sink into a warm, comfortable place, drift on the soar of hormones like a pleasure boat on a holiday sea, feel the turn of the baby like a porpoise in the waves. Nicholas was with his friend Louis; Frank ended his text with a promise to cook something delicious tonight to compensate for not picking me up. On the surface, all was well. But as the day played back over my half-closed eyelids, I worried that perhaps I had gone too far.

The train arrived, and gratefully I crumpled into a vacant seat.

How marvellous it would be never to disembark from this train, I thought; instead, simply pound drowsily back and forth along the Northern Line forever. In that way I could remain the timeless orb of possibility I was now. I was full of love for this baby. It was a love more direct and simple than that for my son, conceived and experienced in a very different time. I could say this to myself, because I had not always been suffused with love for the baby. I wasgrateful for the baby, because I had come to feel our lives were no longer enough for Frank and me, and we desperately needed a fresh start. That’s how it began. But love can begin in all kinds of ways, can’t it, and evolve into something else? It can begin incomprehensibly, wrongly, and yet become something that defines an entire life.

As the various risk points of pregnancy passed, and scan after scan showed a perfect foetus gazing kindly back at me, my love for the baby grew. It grew as we told people and imagined our family having this new person in it. And it grew as we talked about the baby to Nicholas, whose eyes lit up as he realised he would no longer be alone.

I love my baby. I smiled to myself, leaning back in the seat, imagining the day this new life would be out in the world and safe in my arms.

But my pleasure was interrupted by unease about Sindi’s Intervention. Though I am a scientist by training, life is painful and I believed that sometimes the only defence against it was radical metaphor. And I’d found it was a strong defence, as strong as anything science or society could throw up. But not everyone is strong enough to be reminded of their broken heart. I unpicked Sindi’s intervention, trying to find where I might have slipped up.

These rituals took the form I had developed over several years. It took place in a corner of the block completely out of view, which I had decorated with candles and lights. Dwayne produced an oil drum and wood to burn, as it was a December evening. No matter the cold, there was always an excellent turnout for Interventions. No truancy for such theatre. Chalmers was master of ceremonies, stooped and half-smiling with the photocopied schedule in his hand. Over time the interventions had become quite elaborate, though never exceeding the hour of a detention. I encouraged this sense of occasion. I grew excited myself as the day approached.

In the centre of the space, supported on some bricks, stood an open coffin. This was lovingly made from plywood by Dwayne and Carol, whose woodwork skills were enthusiastic, and painted black with gorgeous silver curlicues by Petra, who was on track for an A at GCSE in art, but clinging by her fingernails in science. The space inside was lined with sheets in different colours. They had been lifted from different homes – including mine – then carefully pleated and upholstered with scraps of m