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had known the air wasn’t clear between us, but Nicky made it sound
practically opaque.
    “You argued with him all night! How the hell did you get
from thatto …” she paused and pointed at my belly, “…  that !”
    “I wish I could tell you.”
    “What, you can’t remember?”
    “Yeah, I can remember. I just don’t know how it happened.”
    “Well you must know something. People don’t just
spontaneously start making babies.”
    “Actually … that’s pretty much exactly how it
happened.”
    * * *
    I felt somewhat foolish for thinking that watching Shaun
of the Dead with a former lover was awkward. Exchanging stilted small talk
was nothing compared with what I had to do now.
    Thankfully, the café had air conditioning. The summer was
getting boastful. It bombarded us with wall-to-wall sunshine day after day,
with warm breezes that lured pollen from plants everywhere. It wasn’t the ideal
climate for a flustered woman in her second trimester.
    The fact that I knew so little about Simon was disturbing.
There was a baby growing in my tummy – half his, half mine – and the only
things about him that I really knew were that he made an extremely annoying
dinner guest and was particularly rough in bed (or in kitchen, as the case may
be). Who was this stranger who had gatecrashed my womb?
    Every time the café door opened, my insides spun. Or was it
the baby kicking? How soon could you feel a baby kick? I was ridiculously
unprepared. In fact, this whole situation was ridiculous. I kept expecting to
wake up and find that it was all a dream, or discover that I was the victim of
a hidden camera show. I mean sure, I’d heard of women who didn’t know
they were pregnant until they were spitting out a baby, but I’d never imagined
that I could be one of those. Surely a pregnancy would have exacerbated my
health problems, but I hadn’t noticed any change at all.
    I could still run away, I told myself. I could sneak out the
side door and send a text reporting a change of heart. I could do this myself,
without this stranger. Yet petrified as I was, I knew that it would be
unforgivable not to tell him.
    The door opened again. There he was – the father of my baby
just casually strolling in. I’ll never forget how he looked at that moment –
both completely alien and entirely familiar.
    I was struck by how square he looked – square shouldered,
square jawed, even his hands looked square. Could my round, curvy body be
harbouring a square baby?
    “Well, this is unexpected,” he said, with a smile.
    Oh crap, he thinks this is a date.
    “Sit down,” I told him, and then realised that he’d already
taken a seat.
    “Are you all right?” he asked, trying to peer into my eyes,
which were fixed on the saltshaker.
    I wasn’t aware that I was crying until a tear landed on the
cloth beneath me.
    He placed a finger gently under my chin and tilted my head
towards him. I didn’t recognise his touch at all. If I hadn’t seen him walk in,
I’d swear that was the back of somebody else’s finger kindly pressing against
my chin. I couldn’t bear to make eye contact.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked. I noticed that there was a
sympathetic quality to his voice now, which I’d never noticed before. He
sounded almost … nice. This troubled me even more than if he’d been
condescending – it reminded me that I didn’t know him at all.
    How was I going to do it? How was I going to tell this
stranger that there was a member of his family hanging out in my womb? I knew
that ‘there is a member of your family hanging out in my womb’ was the wrong
choice of phrase, but was there a right one?
    “I’m pregnant,” I whispered.
    “I can’t hear you,” he said. Then he held my hand. “It’s
okay, take your time.”
    I couldn’t believe he was being so patient. If a woman with
whom you’ve had a one-night stand calls you and then bursts into tears, there
are only two probable causes.
    Finally, I managed to make