It was a perfect June evening that began with hope and ended in despair. Every detail is tattooed on my brain, as if the movie of my life stopped midframe, frozen in time. It was twilight, that enchanting part of a summer’s day when it feels as if the light will go on forever, as if night will never fall. Margaret and I had just finished tea in our new house on St Mark’s Road and we were sitting by the French windows that opened onto our orchard, watching the blue haze of dusk begin to settle over the trees. A flurry of wings and a murmuration of swallows flew above the apple and pear trees in splendid unison. A moment later they were gone.

Margaret was knitting another matinee jacket with matching bootees in the palest lemon wool, her needles clicking away, while I sipped a glass of aged French Armagnac, a gift from a grateful patient to her even more grateful doctor. The cognac warmed and softened every part of my body and a rare sense of contentment flooded over me. We had bought our dream home, my practice was growing, and in two more months our family would be complete.

For the second time in my life I was seized by wild excitement. The first was when I held Margaret in my arms on our honeymoon. I could hardly believe that the girl whose delicate beauty had made my heart turn somersaults from the moment I first laid eyes on her was mine at last. The enchantment hadn’t faded, and now I couldn’t wait to meet our baby and look into its eyes. I’m certain she felt the same excitement, but she was more reserved, and said less. While she knitted, we discussed names as we did so often. She liked Vivien for a girl because she had recently seen Gone with the Wind. Her choice for a boy was James. ‘Not Rhett or Ashley?’ I teased.

As we waited for the BBC News on the wireless, I marvelled at how fast the tiny jacket grew under her nimble fingers. The last of the daylight filtered onto the polished timber floor and lit up Margaret’s hair, which fell across her cheek as she bent to pick up the skein that had fallen from her small basket…

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