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Amsterdam. I’d found a good dope source and a bicycle lock that worked. My apartment had pictures on the walls and I was beginning to feel that I might have a life here rather than just another job. It still didn’t mean I was ready for anything. I didn’t quite take it in when she first said it. I suppose it’s a question of hearing what you want to hear. Or not.
    â€œYou still there, Estella?”
    â€œYeah. I’m still here. When did you find out?”
    â€œI did the test last week.” She didn’t say anything for a moment. “But I think I’ve known for a while.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me?”
    â€œI suppose I didn’t know what to say.”
    And the way she said it made my mouth go dry. I already knew who the father was, of course. That was the reason she hadn’t told me. It had to be. “What happened? Did Christopher find he’d left a couple of videos at your place and come back to collect them?”
    â€œIt wasn’t like that. He’s going abroad. It was a way of saying good-bye, that’s all.”
    And how many times does that make, I thought, but didn’t say. I had disliked this man for so long by then that I could no longer work out if it was because he was a schmuck or because he had made Anna so unhappy. Every time she had stopped seeing him I celebrated; the last time must have been six months before, and because it had been such a dramatic and painful severance I had really come to believe it was the final one.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” I said at last, and the pause that followed had been so long that I remember I had had time to spoon in the sugar and stir it.
    I also heard her take the breath before she spoke. “I’m going to keep it, Stella.” She faltered. “Not because of him. I want a baby.”
    Four words. That’s all it took. I want a baby. Anna would be thirty-three next birthday. I’d known her since she was nineteen, and in all that time I had never heard the slightest ticking of a biological clock. In the silence on the other end of the phone I knew that’s what I was hearing then.
    â€œAnd how about him? He’s up for two families, is he?” And I know it was cruel, but I didn’t like the fact it had taken her so long to tell me, and I needed her to know that.
    â€œDon’t be mad at me, Stella. This is hard enough as it is. It’s got nothing to do with Chris.”
    I caved in immediately. “I’m sorry. What does he say? Have you told him?”
    â€œNo. And I’m not going to. He’s not going to be here. He got the correspondent’s job in Washington. That’s what he came to tell me. They leave next week.” And I remember thinking hallelujah. Now we wouldn’t have to watch his mug on our nightly TV screens. Instead we’ll just be spotting the jigsaw pieces of his features in his child. “I’m going to have the baby on my own. Though I was hoping you and Paul might want visiting rights.”
    â€œGod, Anna,” I said at last, because this was one of those times when you had no option but to tell the truth. “I’m not even sure I like children.”
    â€œThat’s because you’ve had no practice. You’ll like this one. I promise.”
    * * *
    And she was right. I did. We all did. Though when I thought about it later, even the glory of Lily couldn’t take away from the fact that she had chosen to keep it from me for so long. However much you love someone it is only right that you should acknowledge their failings, and I suppose it was around this time that I accepted that Anna—who had always had a particular talent for telling the necessary lies of life, to tutors about exam papers, employers about deadlines, or lovers about endings—could also be economical with the truth when it came to me, her closest friend.
    Six months later I came to London for the