"A Different House"

By Carly

Disclaimer: The characters and incidents portrayed in this story are fictional. Neither Tariton nor Farinstan exist; Irbil in Iraq does, but when the civil war occurred there were definitely no aid worker flights. The details of Trisomy 18 are fairly accurate, but the hospital procedures would of course vary as to which country or state you lived in. The process Olivia went through to adopt internationally was meant to follow that of NSW, but not strictly. EAC, Lowell's, Beit Amala, Two Hands and C-AID were invented. Thanks very much to Tanya for all her help.

Summary: An uber novel: WARNING HIGH ANGST

The story is that we met in a cafe, but the reality is that we'd known each other forever, intimately, closely, like sisters born less than a year apart. I'm not sure who was meant to be the elder. Once I think I would have said, easily, that she was my elder in every way, but now I'm not sure. Again I think that is the way it is with sisters.

I say, "think" because I don't really know. I never had sister or brother, just two intense parents working hard to put me through school, and expecting me to work hard, too. I did; at least, I worked hard to appreciate it in the way I was meant. It's hard for a child to understand that a mass of facts is supposed to mean and be everything, to be worth everything. I became the kind of stressed, highly-strung workaholic that I was raised to be, and at least pleased my parents that way.

Olivia, on the other hand, was not like that, not at all. Nothing like me. She was part of a huge chaotic Greek family, wild, loud, moving between furious anger and hilarity. I was thin and neat and blonde, careful about my business-like clothes, careful about everything. She seemed utterly carefree. She didn't worry about weight, didn't shriek about her large thighs, her hips, her frighteningly voluptuous body. It seemed frightening to me, anyway.

We fell to living together through circumstance, the way it often happens. I needed a place to stay and knew a friend of a friend of hers; she needed to share the house due to finances and didn't care who had the spare room. For a long time it was a fairly perfunctory relationship, we had our own friends and barely needed to see one another. I think someone I knew asked me about her once, and I told them that she was . . . nice, I think I said. A nice person, but I didn't think we'd ever be good friends.

Funny. At that time I was desperately seeking lovers the way you are supposed to do in your early twenties, but it's only now that I've realised that some people don't need lovers, not really. Friends provide enough intimacy. Olivia isn't like me, that way. The whole time I knew her she had a love/hate relationship, full of passion and fury and real bitterness, with a single man; but then she isn't like me in most ways.

So, the story is that we met in a cafe. Well, that's true in one way. We hadn't seen each other for five years and when we met this time, we really did see one another, exactly who we were, the good and the bad, for perhaps the very first time. With eyes open.

I was sitting inside, just near the door, because it was summer and light and out on the street there was the holiday feeling of excitement, as though the nights there would just go on and on in a kind of half-light. I liked going out, and I liked eating out at nice places, so I was determined to have a good time, even though I didn't think very much of the man who was sitting at the small round table across from me.

I had dressed neatly, with a light-coloured jacket, silk blouse, and tailored pants, and I'd had my hair cut recently, in a kind of cropped way which was meant to be easy to do in the morning, although the ends never seemed to flip the right way and always tickled the edge of my face uncomfortably. He was still dressed in his suit from work; he hadn't changed and it seemed overly formal on that summer evening. His hair was parted wrongly. I hated myself for noticing, mostly because I realised if something so small could annoy me, I wasn't going to enjoy much else about him.

First we ordered, and I deliberated a little, deciding, and then looked up to see a supercilious half-smile on his face. "It never fails to amuse me, the way you women obsess over food. You pretend that you don't want much, and pick over this and that, when really all you want is a big plate of meat, and to eat it all yourself. Why don't you just order it?”

I think I actually stared at him in silence for a minute. Fortunately the waiter approached then, and we gave our orders, while I was frantically going over and over what he'd said. Did he mean it in the lewd way that it sounded, or was that accidental? Even if he hadn't, what he'd said was quite simply rude. I loathed rudeness.

However, it was a beautiful summer evening, and frankly I lacked the courage to get up at that point and leave, so once the waiter left I simply smiled, leant forward, and asked him about his work.

This time his expression was scornful. "Oh, you wouldn't understand it even if I could be bothered explaining it. It's to do with numbers, you see, and I bet you're bored already," and then he laughed, a real hee-haw.

I stiffened a little, then gritted my teeth. "Sounds like you haven't had much of an appreciative audience before. I'm the finance manager over at Lowell's, so a few numbers won't scare me off.”

He snorted a few times with laughter, and answered, shifting in his seat, "You really don't know how that sounded . . .”

If there was something I loathed even more than rudeness, it was the kind of over-grown adolescent who tried to make everything you said sound sexual.

He leant forward now, uncomfortably close, and began talking insultingly about how I'd probably got the job, about how some woman had got his job due to the unfair equal opportunity laws, although she'd really got it by sleeping with the boss, and in any case how she didn't really do her job, he did all the real work, just as, of course, whoever was my inferior probably did my job too . . .

It seems extremely odd, now, that I didn't throw my glass of water into his face, or at least stand up and excuse myself. I think I was frozen by disbelief. It was such a strange thing to do, to go out to dinner with a woman and then insult her to her face. He then put his hand over my own, and as I snatched it away, shuddering inwardly, I couldn't help but think of that strange courtship in Richard III. This was stranger.

However, he reached for my hand again, and I think this time I would have woken up from the mesmerised disgust he'd placed me under, except that I didn't have to. Someone else grabbed his hand and pulled it away from mine.

"Get up.”

I thought she was talking to me, but her hand was still with iron grip on the revolting man in front of me.

"Get up and get out, now." Her lip was curled in utter disgust. "You won't be served here, not tonight, not any night. Get out.”

This time he was frozen. Then he thought to use some kind of intimidation against her, standing up suddenly; but she was taller. She flung his hand down and swung the door open, picking up his briefcase and actually throwing it out onto the pavement. "Do you want to be thrown out, too?" she asked, her voice low and disgusted. She moved her head curtly, and two large men in the doorway turned their own heads attentively. He saw he had no choice, then, and simply spat out "slut" towards me, then picked up his bag and left.

I was still sitting at the small round table by the door. I blinked a few times, then looked up. "Olivia?" I asked disbelievingly.

She laughed, then, and sat down, then got up again, hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. "That fucking bastard," she said, shaking her head, "he thought I was the manager, didn't he?" And then we both laughed and laughed, especially when the waiter came out with food and we told him to take it all away. So that was how we met again, after five years.

~*~

I nearly cried seeing her sitting there, all neat and tidy, staring at the filth in front of her as though he was a figment of some nightmare or other. She often had nightmares, I'd heard her call out occasionally, seen her dark-eyed in the morning and known why, so maybe she thought she was stuck in another one. At least she moved her hand away. I was truly scared that she was married to the bastard, but then I saw she wore no rings. She never did wear jewellery, but she would have worn a wedding ring if she'd got married - she was traditional - and so I was free to throw him out. Although I probably would have thrown him out anyway and stuffed the consequences.

I felt victorious after that, like I'd killed a dragon to get to the princess. One of the things I loved about Hannah was, sadly enough, the fact that I was one of the few who really knew her or appreciated her. I felt proud of it, although I was mature enough to realise that it was a bad thing that she kept herself so closed. She'd had far more lovers than I'd ever had, but none of them lasted and few of them knew much more of her than a work colleague. It was why they never lasted, I supposed.

It was wonderful seeing her again. I'd missed her horribly and as soon as I saw her I remembered how much I'd loved her. She asked about bloody Tarek and when I told her that I hadn't seen him in two years, I saw her shock. No one else would have been able to hide their relief at that news, or would have even bothered to hide it (they'd have congratulated me, actually), but I loved the way she reacted. "Bloody Tarek," she said, and then "I've missed him!" in the perfect disbelieving tone. I knew exactly what she meant. It was hard to believe, but it was always true. I think I loved her partly because she knew as well as I what a complete bastard he was, and yet on some level she appreciated him. Perhaps she was the only other person in the world who did - and it always feels good not to be alone.

Then she asked me what I was doing there - in that city. She knew I didn't come to the city very often, hardly at all, if I could help it. I suppose I could have answered that it must have been fate, that I was supposed to go there to rescue her, said something that would take her far from my business. I could have directed her away from me very easily; she would have picked up quickly that I was putting up a wall instead of a door. She would have gone on to do the same, then, spoke pleasantries about her work, and then we would have parted, and that would have been that.

I didn't want to do that.

~*~

Sometimes when you meet an old friend, it's difficult to begin with, awkward, and then something happens and you laugh, and it's all easy once more. Or sometimes it's easy at first and then as the differences come up you remember why you hadn't seen each other for so long and it becomes increasingly more difficult to go on.

I thought it probably would happen that evening with us, too. There'd be things neither of us would want to bring up. And then there'd be a gap between us that we simply couldn't bridge. It made me terribly sad to think of it, but I thought that it would probably happen.

I didn't count on Olivia's strength. When she answered my simple question, my thoughtless question, which had been asked simply as conversation, she made a leap that I didn't think anybody could ever make. Not that far, not that kind of distance. I felt honoured that she chose to do it.

From forever, from the first time I ever spoke to her as a stranger in her house, I had sensed her generosity. She'd offer everything she had with ease, and forget faults as soon as they happened. It was one of the things I envied about her; because even as she leant forward and offered with courage everything she had, I was pulling back slightly, remembering. I had noted the chasm; but she'd seen it and leapt it. The years weren't even a gap for her. That was when I realised that I wouldn't just be seeing her the one time.

~*~

"I've had a meeting with the Child & Family Department, about adopting a baby.”

I looked at her as I said it, willing her to see my words as a bridge. I searched her face carefully, terrified that she would - as she had every right - be irretrievably hurt by my words. But I knew her. I saw one emotion chase another across her face and then she clasped my hand and smiled and said quietly, "Congratulations.”

As I said, that was the way most people responded to my comments about Tarek. It was the wrong thing to say then, but it was exactly the right thing to say now.

"Tell me about it. About what's been happening.”

"It started about six months ago - you know, when there was all that news coverage about the conflict on the Turkish border -”

"I remember.”

"Farinstan has never had to have international adoptions before, but things have changed, and now - now there are kids who need parents. And I can be a parent.”

"You'd be a good one," she said quietly.

"It's a long process, anyway. They check you out over time, put you on lists, check you out again. Give you psychological analyses -" I made a face, and she laughed. "They need to see how serious you are, I suppose.”

"I'm so glad. I mean -" Then she tilted her head and looked at me thoughtfully. "Tarek doesn't know?”

"No." I paused. "As I said, I haven't seen him in almost two years.”

"And how long before you get your child?" she went on, turning from that line of questioning. Or at least postponing it for the moment.

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "They said today it could be a month, or another six months, or any time in between.”

There was a cough, and a waiter standing over us meaningfully. We hadn't ordered, and we were taking up a table on a busy summer evening, when the place was full and there were people waiting.

"Let's walk," I suggested, and we got up, wove between the tables outside on the street, and crossed over the road to the park opposite. "Do you want to walk by the sea?”

"Of course," Hannah replied immediately, heading across the grass, through the few trees, to the low wall which separated the green from the white sand, the blue sea. We walked there; we'd walked there many times before.

I never wanted all the other things people said you're supposed to want from your life. The marriage, the mortgage, the serious career. Walking there with my friend reminded me of that; reminded me because it was Hannah who helped me discover it.

I actually remember the conversation clearly. I was wild with anger over Tarek, about something he'd said, and then I was sad - not about him, but about me. I walked into Hannah's room (it was late, she may well have been asleep) and I fell on her bed and I asked her very, very seriously what people were supposed to do with their lives.

I can't remember now if she woke up or if she spoke to me half-asleep or if she'd been awake the whole time (we had been shouting and screaming at one another, so perhaps she was awake) but I do remember what she said. She said, "You're supposed to get a job. Work in that job and save your money. Then you're supposed to meet someone nice, fall in love, and get married. You get a mortgage, buy a house together, and have some children. That's what you're supposed to do.”

I hid my head then and almost wailed. "I don't want to do that!”

"Then don't do it.”

It seemed like wisdom from the Sibyl, the way she said it - although she may have been half asleep. At any rate, it made a lot of difference to me. I got up, walked out to the phone, rang Tarek and calmly told him never to see me - not to ring or write or even come walking down my street - not ever again. Then I went to bed, and probably slept better than either Hannah or Tarek. I hope I slept better than Tarek, anyway. I do remember thinking, just before I fell asleep, that it wasn't fair that I didn't want all the other things but I really wanted a baby, and could never have one. But I did fall asleep.

"Dreaming?" Hannah asked me as we walked, and I laughed, remembering.

There were still a few people swimming near the shore, even though it was past eight o'clock, and there were also people picnicking on the beach, or sitting on the wall kicking their feet against the stones. We found some wide steps and sat on them, looking out to the horizon. There was an enormous ship, far, far out which looked as though it was floating in the sky.

"Farinstan; that's on the Turkish/Syrian border, right?" Hannah asked, squinting as she tried to remember. "They've got their own language - the Farin people, I mean -”

"Yeah, but they mostly speak Arabic, still," I replied. "Turkey wants them and Syria wants them, and they've barely had a moment's peace, ever; first the Persians conquered them, then the Greeks, then the Romans - after that the Islamic invasion and then the Ottoman empire, and since World War One they've just been harried by both Syria and Turkey who didn't agree with them having their own land. They've mostly cared for their own orphans up till now, but after this last conflict - there aren't enough people to care for all the children. So many people were killed . . ." I broke off, remembering the footage. Hannah shivered a little - she must have seen it too.

"If they're arranging adoptions they must have some sort of government, now," she said.

I nodded. "The UN has managed to broker peace, and get agreements from both Syria and Turkey not to step in at the slightest provocation "for the good of the Farin people" as they've been doing. So they're trying to get the kids out, now. A lot of children have already been adopted, but by people who have already been checked out, those on waiting lists or who've adopted before. As a first-timer, I have to wait.”

"I suppose they have rules, to prevent people from abusing the system," Hannah replied doubtfully. "I'd have thought they would have fast-tracked you a little, seeing you know Arabic, and with your background and everything.”

I laughed. "I've forgotten any Arabic I ever knew. And they said today - it could be only a few more months.”

Hannah looked at me and smiled a little. "Maybe in nine months you'll have a baby.”

"Maybe I will.”

I think it was more the fact that Olivia told me directly, and so soon after we met, that made the difference. If she'd told it in another way, or had waited, or had dissembled in any way at all, it would have been different and difficult and the end of our renewed friendship before it began.

But she told me straight away and so it made all decisions after that quite easy. Olivia had been there for me with my baby, and so I would be there for her, for her baby. Even though the circumstances were utterly different. Despite the fact that forgiveness hadn't quite arrived, even after five years.

Olivia had got through the first few interviews with Child & Family, had been accepted. Apparently only one in three applicants were accepted as possible parents. They'd made the decision that they were happy for her to adopt, and they were at the stage of finding the child. Once all the details were finalised on the other end - the Farinstan government decided which children were available for adoption, arranged their departure visas and all the other forms - she would be told that she had a child, given a day to make her final decision, and then she'd be asked to pick the child up from Farinstan almost immediately afterwards. The waiting could take a long, long time - but then everything would happen quickly.

She had a few more meetings in the city, and we met each time there, talking slowly about the past, talking together about the future. Walking through the city streets, sitting up late drinking coffee at my kitchen bench, catching an early evening movie at the cinema down the road. Talking. And then, when Olivia didn't need to come into the city any longer, I drove out to where she was - to the outlying town where we'd both lived, five years before. The same house we'd shared. We had our late-night coffees there, our walks through the town, our talks.

And then, quite easily, I transferred back to the branch of Lowell's where I had worked before and I moved back in with her.

It wasn't a difficult decision. The job was one I knew well; I had always liked the town, and I couldn't see the point of continually driving to and from the place, when I knew I wanted to be there for Olivia and her baby. I wanted to be part of their lives. And there was something I liked about the idea of moving back into the house we'd shared. It would be like moving home.

Our house was a semi-detached "townhouse" on a quiet back street, with a tiny front garden and an even tinier backyard. It didn't have a picket fence but it wouldn't have looked out of place had it had one. It had three smallish bedrooms, an open kitchen which wasn't too bad for entertaining, and a narrow porch which did for barbecues in the summer. The next-door neighbours had consisted of an elderly couple whom we nodded to on the occasions that we thought to water the grevilleas along the fence. It was an easy place to look after, and although we complained sometimes about having to park our cars out on the street, we had never thought seriously of looking for somewhere else to rent.

Now Olivia owned it, or at least, shared ownership of it with the bank. She'd looked into it shortly after I left, and had completed the necessary paperwork a year later. It didn't feel any more her house than it had before, however. It was hardly changed, although I did notice that one of the grevilleas was completely dead. The elderly neighbours weren't there any more, and she'd got a new letterbox; that was all. I teased her about that, and she gave me a look, but didn't answer. I thought that meant either she or Tarek had burnt the thing in a fit of temper one day.

We slipped back into the same relaxed relationship we'd had before. Occasionally we'd shop and buy food, and cook; more often we'd meet after work and eat out, or sometimes bring back something easy to eat in front of the television. We'd argue over the news, or about some idea we'd read about in the paper, but we never argued about cleaning or bills or things like that. Sometimes we wouldn't see one another for days at a time, if one or the other of us had a busy week at work and was going in early and leaving late. Other times it felt as though we were spending days on end just talking together.

Sometimes I found myself beginning to ask about Tarek, when he was coming around, when we would next see him. It was hard to remember that he hadn't been around for the last two years, for Olivia. Although they had been "on and off" for the entire time that I'd known her, that had not really meant much, except the shouting might take place over the phone rather than in the living room. There had never been anything in the house of his, no photos or male things left lying about, so the place was just like it was when he was in her life. That was why I forgot.

We had both been a little late that morning, because there'd been some breaking news on television about some renewed conflict in Farinstan, so we flicked from channel to channel trying to find out what was going on. Eventually we'd gone to the internet instead, and found out that it had been a border skirmish, quickly resolved by the UN peacekeepers. After that we'd both run to our cars; but mine wouldn't start.

"I'll give you a lift to work this morning," Olivia offered, standing outside on the pavement while I turned the key fruitlessly for the tenth time. "You'll probably have to get it towed, though, when you get back this afternoon . . .”

"What a pain!" I groaned. "And it might be nothing. Couldn't you give Tarek a call?" Tarek was just as good with car engines as he was with plane engines, and always seemed to be fixing up some vehicle or other in his spare time.

Olivia gave me a half-smile and stepped away from the car. I think she was waiting a moment until I remembered. "It's not like before, Hannah," she said almost gently. "It's been two years.”

I got out of the car myself, locked it automatically and walked with her to her own vehicle. She opened it, stopped, and stood with me still on the pavement, moving her keys about in the palm of her hand. "He isn't good for me, so I won't see him any more. I've made a choice . . . he's done some very bad things . . . and that's that. I've made my decision.”

I waited to see whether she had any more, but that was all of it. I nodded then, accepting her decision, and followed her into the car, thinking about all the times that she'd struggled with that before. I had thought it was the struggle of whether she liked, loved, him or not, weighing it all up, the way I did with my lovers. Coming to the realisation again and again that I didn't feel anything. Wondering why I went to all the trouble I did, over and over and over again.

It was stupid to think it would be that way with Olivia. I was the one who didn't feel anything; she was the one who felt everything. She knew what she felt about Tarek. I'm sure she always had.

~*~

Few people knew how Tarek and I had met, mostly because few people asked. Those who knew us simply assumed we'd known one another forever - had grown up next door to each other, perhaps, or had had parents who were best friends. Maybe he'd been left on our doorstep an orphan and had stayed, maybe he'd been in kindergarten with my older brother.

Actually we had met as adults. I had been flying back into Irbil, Northern Iraq after a short break on one of the tiny sixteen-seater planes that transported aid workers at that time. Things weren't looking particularly good there, in the late 'nineties; the Americans had pulled out and most of the big aid agencies had left. There were a few individuals scattered about the city, either finishing off projects or working quietly away at smaller tasks, hoping they'd be unnoticed. I wanted to get my program up and running before I left, so I'd stayed when the rest of the team evacuated, although I'd gone with them as far as Jordan, partly in order to have a break and join in their debriefing, and partly to fool any would-be terrorists that all the foreigners had left.

There had been some bad news on the very day that flight was scheduled to go. A car bomb had gone off in a street near the main bazaar; many people had been killed. Everyone on that plane knew the street, that corner of the bazaar, knew some of the shopkeepers who worked on the stalls there, knew the regular beggars who worked that corner. So it was a fairly quiet, saddened group who was returning to Irbil. Sometimes when you waited with aid workers in the airport lounges you heard a lot of talking; those who were paid compared wages, danger money, bonuses, while volunteers listened enviously. People argued about what exactly was slightly risky and what was plain foolhardy, or aired rumours about the unstable political situation and what the UN was going to do about it. There was none of that, that day.

It was late afternoon by the time we arrived into the city. They didn't like to schedule flights later than that; it wasn't wise to drive through the city after dark. As we circled over the runway, people held tightly onto their things. They were edgy, more edgy than usual.

It was an easy landing. The aircraft taxied to a halt, and the pilot's voice could be heard over the loudspeaker. "Welcome to Irbil. Local time is 4:45 and the current temperature is 35 degrees, with a 48% humidity. Unfortunately an armed dictatorship has taken over the city, and you are all now subjects of General Vassey. Wait until the seatbelt sign is deactivated before alighting, and thanks for travelling with us.”

There was something of a stunned silence, but then the seat-belt sign went off and everyone got up and grabbed their hand luggage. I was furious, however. Stupid jokes were stupid jokes, but in that time, in that situation, they were wrong and disrespectful to the suffering, and not in the least bit funny. I waited until the other passengers had alighted and found the pilot, waiting with a grin on his face in the cockpit.

I spent at least ten minutes there, I think - it could have been fifteen. I used every piece of sarcasm at my disposal, every invective, threw at him every horror which I'd seen or heard about. I was so angry - already angry about the situation, about the way the country was ignored by the rest of the world once the armies had left, about the way few people seemed to care about what was going on - that I wanted to hurt him for being flippant. It didn't help that he was an Arab himself, either.

It didn't hurt him, though. After about thirty seconds of surprise, another thirty of amusement, and about ten of boredom, he had switched from listening to looking. It was the only reason I stopped. Rather than hurting him, I was giving him pleasure, and that made me even more furious.

The foreign community there was very small - everyone knew everyone - so it shouldn't have been a surprise that I met him again at a party. Aid workers always seemed to bump into other aid workers, generally in order to complain about things. In those days there was a lot of things to complain about, although you almost always found at least one "old hand" who had been there for years and years and would blithely tell all that they didn't know how lucky they were - when he'd first arrived, things were really bad! It never ceased to amaze me how often conversations there turned to toilet paper.

I was introduced to him by Emma, the host of that particular party. Emma was a cheerful British forty-something, who often said she would leave Irbil only when she was carried out on a stretcher or in a box. She worked for a large organisation called Beit Amala, spread across a number of countries in the Middle Eastern region. "Tarek, this is Olivia, the only one left from C-Aid. Water purification in the villages and all that kind of thing, you know? And Olivia, Tarek's a pilot with Emergency Aviation Corps - you would've flown in on EAC, I think -”

"We've met," I answered shortly. Emma took the hint - she knew me rather well - and left. Tarek grinned.

"EAC is the only airline flying out at the moment," he offered. "You would've had to have seen me at least one more time.”

"I could have walked.”

"Water purification in the villages, huh? That can't be complicated enough for a whole NGO, surely. Boiling water for ten minutes, putting it out in the sun for a day?" He smirked. "I've read the UN manual, too.”

"Not everyone can.”

"And are you going to stay through all of it, like the others?" he asked, indicating Emma and a few men she was talking with.

"No - once my project's done, I'll be back home." I accidentally put a little too much into that final word; I couldn't help it. It was nearly time for me to go back, back to my huge extended family who were stretched out with worry for me, back to a land far cooler and greener than this one. I wanted to go back. Sometimes it frightened me, when I talked to people who hadn't been back to their own countries for years. One German man had forgotten words in his own language because he was used to speaking Arabic and English all the time. They had adopted a new country, of course, but in some ways they were always strangers, everywhere, without community and without home. I didn't want to be like that.

"You're almost there already," he answered, startling me. It wouldn't be the last time he read me a little too well for my liking. "Come on, let's get out of here. I want to do something.”

I laughed then - Emma looked across at me, hearing the unfamiliar sound, and then nodded at me. I grabbed my bag and followed Tarek out the back door, into a quiet, darkened street. I'd laughed because most of the time ex-pats complained that there wasn't anything to do, in the city; I'd also laughed because I couldn't believe that he could get me so angry and yet I wanted to spend the rest of the evening with him.

It was the rest of the evening and most of the morning too, by the end of it. He knew his own city. He found a loud, loud basement music club where you felt the music as much as heard it. The kind of dancing there was wild and dangerous, a kind I hadn't seen before in Irbil. After that we found a different place where we could eat - a lot of people there ate at about one or two am - and I discovered that I was hungrier than I'd been in ages. Finally, early in the morning just as it was getting light, he dragged me up a half-bombed building, right up to the top so we could look out over the city. He pushed broken shutters aside and climbed out a window onto a rusty iron balcony, then sat down, swinging his legs over emptiness.

"Know where we are?”

"No," I replied, bristling a little. I never liked saying I didn't know something, back then - I didn't like it until I discovered it was the only way to find things out.

He stretched out his arm, pointed to all the places we had been that night. Showed me Emma's place, showed me how we'd woven through tiny back streets - which looked even tinier from where we were - to the club, and then onto the restaurant. He pointed out some places which I hadn't known about up till then, places to avoid, including a nondescript fenced building where people went in and didn't usually come out again. "There," he said. "That's your office, isn't it?”

I squinted, seeing the plain white building next to the square of brown which was a building site. "Probably." Then I frowned. "How'd you know?”

"I asked," he answered simply. Then he pointed again. "There's mine - where I stay, when I'm here, anyway.”

I nodded, although I didn't think I'd recognise it from street level.

"Don't forget it!" he told me, laughing at me. Then he picked up a chunk of broken concrete from next to him and tossed it in the direction of his house, as though he'd forgotten how high up we were, that there were really houses down there and really people walking below. I saw the puff of dust on the dirt road below us, and I saw a street seller jump back to avoid the missile.

"You idiot - you could have killed him!" Suddenly I was furious with him again, and I climbed off the balcony and through the window into the dusty abandoned room. I heard him laugh at me, but he didn't follow, and I wound my own way down the rickety stairwell, cursing myself. He was a stupid, thoughtless, selfish fool and I should have trusted my first impression of him.

I didn't think of that, two nights later, when he turned up at my doorstep - resting lazily against the outside wall - and said just as briefly, "Let's go do something.”

So we did. We spent another whole night out, and it was such a change from the bland, safe aid worker parties where we watched suitable videos and talked about suitable things - nothing controversial, of course - that I almost felt as though it was the first time I'd come alive since I'd come to Irbil. You worked so hard that the whole time seemed like a dream, in some ways, or one long night of work, keeping people at a distance so you had the time to do it all. I'd barely learned the language, hadn't made any real friends. But roaming the streets in a time that was crazy and dark and dangerous, listening to music that spoke about things no one spoke about - that was living in Iraq, for me.

The next thing I heard about him after that is that he'd been kicked out of EAC for smuggling; and that he'd left Iraq altogether, and no one really knew where he was.

~*~

I got a raise within a month of returning to Lowell's - less because of my achievements than in the relief of getting rid of the last finance manager - and was sent home early with chocolates and a promise of a grateful workplace.

I found Olivia sitting on the back porch, a pile of books beside her, balancing a large hardcover volume on her lap. It was very thick.

"Careful with that, you might hurt yourself," I joked, sitting beside her.

Olivia laughed, and laid the book down. "That'd be ironic." She showed me the cover; The Middle East; A History of Conflict.

"Just trying to get a bit of a background," she explained. "I know bits and pieces, of course, but I want to understand a bit better how Farinstan fits into the whole picture.”

I raised my eyebrows, and slid the open box of chocolates over to her.

"Quite a bit of history there to cover, don't you think?”

"Conflicts in the Middle East? Not much apart from Iraq and Israel and Lebanon and Kuwait and Egypt, really. Oh, and don't forget the Iranian conflict or the Yemen-Saudi war . . .”

"Tarek wasn't involved in that, was he?" I asked half-jokingly. "Did he ever join the army?”

Olivia laughed so much that she choked on her caramel, and I had to slap her hard on her back. "Ow!”

"It wasn't that funny, was it?”

Olivia began to laugh again. "Are you kidding? I can just imagine Tarek standing up giving that speech, what is it - "I'll lie, and I'll steal, and I'll murder, but I won't think for myself!" “

"What speech is that?" I inquired, beginning to laugh myself at the idea of Tarek in uniform. "The opening lines of A Few Good Men?”

"Nope; people only say things like that in real life," Olivia replied dryly. She started gathering up her books.

“’The Flora and Fauna of Farinstan’ and ‘Farin Landscapes’ “ I read, helping her pick them up. “Two whole books on them! Isn’t it just all desert, there?”

Olivia grinned, and opened up a double-page spread of mountains, and a car disappearing between them. It was so sharp that it seemed the mountain had opened up to let the people through, like the pied piper story.

I flicked through and saw trees clinging onto hillsides, waterfalls splashing down rocks, huge grassy fields. Tiny villages, houses made up from red mud bricks, stood in the shadow of enormous mountains.

There was desert too, though.

“See, it’s a beautiful place,” Olivia assured me. “Which is why people have constantly been fighting over it.”

"I think you could take a liking to all of this political stuff," I mocked her, elbowing her. "I can see you arguing away about what should have happened and why.”

"Is it a political act to know the difference between right and wrong? I'd say it was pretty bloody personal, actually -" Then she stopped, balancing the heavy book on her hip. "These books tell me what happened. They don't tell me if it could have happened some other way.”

I watched her go back into the house, lugging all her words with her; but I stayed out longer, myself. Olivia had always been clear on the personal, anyway. To me it had always been just as confusing as any political text.

I remember the time Olivia and I had set out to count exactly how many boyfriends I had had during the time I lived with her. I think she did better than me; I couldn’t remember half their names. There had been the occasional blind date through someone at my job, there'd been sometimes a man who'd last just a week; generally someone who'd picked me up during after-work drinks or something like that. Even more rarely there'd be someone who stayed for a few months, who got to know my friends and who nearly became part of my life for a short time.

Once Olivia really got angry with me, after some guy left my room via the kitchen, taking off with money from her purse. She stormed into my room, ready to tell me off, ready to shout and scream as she did with Tarek. But when she saw me, sitting on the floor by the window, and looking, so she said, blank and terrible, she couldn't shout. Instead she got down on the floor with me and started to cry. I remembered being so shocked, to the point of being frightened.

"What are you crying about?" I'd asked finally.

"You looked so sad, sitting there," Olivia answered me, her head leaning against mine and her lip trembling. "I wish that it was better for you. I wish you didn't have to do this any more.”

Sometimes it's only when someone else says it that you are able to find the right words for yourself. My mouth opened and closed, then; then I squeezed my eyes shut and repeated softly, "I wish I didn't have to do this anymore. I wish I didn't have to do this anymore.”

After that we made a house rule that neither of us was allowed to bring strangers home to sleep the night. It was ostensibly for both of us, but really for me, as Olivia never had anyone apart from Tarek. But it was a good enough rule; after that, I had a few long-term boyfriends, which meant that I had someone to bring to barbecues, someone to talk to Tarek about football, as neither Olivia nor myself cared about it, and someone to partner me at work functions.

That was all they were for me, however; I didn't want anything more, and generally when they discovered that, it ended and I had to find someone new to do those things for me. I rarely had much of a break between men; I couldn't imagine living completely alone, not having someone who thought about you and bought you things and took you out places so you weren't by yourself all the time. That was what they were for, what they were good at.

And all that time Olivia had Tarek. I never envied her him; I saw the pain he constantly caused her, the pain they caused each other, and I couldn't understand really why they stayed together. I didn't want that kind of intense feeling. I was terrified of the idea of someone being able to shout at me for an hour and then, five minutes after, laugh with me over some joke. Olivia occasionally got annoyed at me but she never shouted at me, only at Tarek; and, over the phone, at members of her family. The idea of someone standing in front of me, face screwed up in fury, hurtful words coming out of their lips horrified me. If that was love, I didn't want to be loved that much.

It had been like that for them ever since I'd known them. In the very same week that I'd moved in with Olivia, so many years ago, I'd witnessed with some embarrassment a furious argument which ended with Tarek storming out and Olivia running to the front door to slam it vehemently after him. I'd assumed that would be the last I'd see of Tarek, but he was there the next night and they interacted just as though no fight ever occurred. I had never seen anything like it; it had entirely bewildered me. I had wondered whether they had just been acting the previous evening, whether it had been staged for some strange reason. I soon learned it was routine for them. They didn't fight every night, but when they did it was wild. I soon learned to ignore them.

~*~

Tarek looked me up - I have no idea how - soon after I arrived back from Iraq. Even though I'd been desperately homesick, I still found it hard to slip easily back into my old life, and so it was great having someone there who understood where I'd come from, the things I had been through. It was almost impossible to explain to people what it had all been like, actually, and after a while the effort was too much and I stopped talking about it altogether. With Tarek I could talk; there was no need to explain anything.

I confronted him with the smuggling charge and he admitted it, shrugging, smiling, without any defensiveness. Sure, he hadn't followed procedure here and there, and some people hadn't been happy about it - but now, he had a new job, and he liked moving on anyway, so what was the problem? I found out - not for the last time - how difficult it is to explain to someone that there are two things called "right" and "wrong", and how you had to make a choice which one you were going to go with in life. I also found out that it's not easy being in love with someone who doesn't understand that. Well - I discovered it wasn't easy being in love anyway.

When I met Hannah, or at least when I really got to know her, I discovered that not everyone falls in love the way I did. I almost hated myself for caring about him so much, for not having the power to look at the man dispassionately and weigh up whether he was good or bad, worthy or unworthy. Any kind of complex thought, at least at first, was quite impossible when I was around him. I thought he was beautiful, and it was only the moments that I was actually with him that felt like real life. No matter what I did in the other hours, whether work or family or going out with friends, all of it came with a sense of waiting. When I was with him, the waiting stopped and I could live.

Hannah never loved like that. She just found people to spend time with. I never saw her around a man except that she was awkward, even if she'd been with him for months. It was because she was acting. She'd seen what other people did, when they saw a man they thought looked nice, and so she followed suit. But she couldn't hide her relief when they left.

She was like that - or even more so - about her parents, who visited once or twice while she lived with me. And she was like that around her work colleagues. Acting, speaking carefully, never relaxing. She was one who worked out rationally who was worth spending time with, and how to speak with them, what to wear with them, never making a mistake.

I, on the other hand, made mistake after mistake, and always with Tarek. I couldn't seem to learn. If he'd disappointed me in one way, it was likely that he'd disappoint me in that way again. If he simply couldn't understand that the bad thing about speeding wasn't the fine but the danger, he'd never understand it. If he refused to accept that getting rid of stolen goods for a friend wasn't doing a good turn but committing a crime, he'd never accept it. I'd confront him with the things he'd done, and he'd either grin while I raged, or lose his own temper and shout back - never justifying himself, simply complaining about my attitude. And then when he'd go, I'd pace the room, berating myself for letting it go on and on.

I didn't seem to learn the basics when it came to Tarek. All I did seem to learn was that he was beautiful; that he made me feel alive, that he made me laugh, that he made me feel content, just being with him. I'd wake up when I heard his voice. Even when I was hurt and angry and shouting at him I wanted him to touch me. I found myself once screaming furiously at him while holding tightly to his hand.

Once or twice we managed to stay apart for a month or more. That was generally when I'd found out about something he'd done that was serious. He got fired from a very important job, and just missed out on being prosecuted and gaoled, after a serious fraud incident involving a large amount of money and a children's hospital. His easy manner saved him more than once from a gaol sentence. He should have been put on trial over one situation where a number of valuable antiques - probably stolen - were smuggled into the country. I wasn't always sure what saved him, or who stood by him, but it was never I. I told him often that I'd never lift a finger to save him from getting what he deserved.

Having the ability to forgive is sometimes envied, but sometimes I thought it was a curse. I used to look within myself to wonder how I could love someone who was basically rotten inside. I used to think I knew right from wrong, that I had a conscience and a sense of justice, until I met Tarek. Then I had to question all that. If I really believed in goodness, how could I spend my life with someone who didn't know the word at all?

~*~

Not everything was the same as it had been, five years earlier. We had pretty much lived day to day then; we were young of course and felt as though we had all the time in the world, for everything that we wanted. Although maybe that's just how it seems, looking back. It's funny how I can just remember early summers, when we sat out on the back porch for hours talking. I don't remember the mosquitoes, and I don't remember the winters at all.

The main difference now was that we were waiting. Olivia had finished with interviews and meetings and all those things, just before I moved back in. She'd been accepted, and now it was just waiting for a phone call. It wasn't an easy process, partly due to the political situation there and the fact that the government seemed to change every other week, and partly due to all the legal red tape on our side. She showed me every letter, her whole file of them, sharing with me everything that had happened, right from the start. She showed me the letters she had written explaining why she wanted the child, that it would be good for her and good for the child, too, and even the dry medical reports assuring the right people that it was quite impossible for Olivia to ever have a child herself.

Those documents made me feel cold and sad inside. I wished, then, that I'd been there for her. I wished I'd driven her to the appointment, had held her hand while the doctor did the tests, had continued holding it while he confirmed what Olivia already knew. She'd known it most of her life, of course, it was nothing new, but hearing it stated plainly would have hurt her, I know it would have hurt her. I wished I'd been there.

When I told her that, she smiled a bit and told me that it was all right. Then she sat down beside me and held my hand for a while, as though now as then was the same thing, held the same importance. As though her holding my hand was the same as my holding hers; the hand in the hand, the same.

Sometimes it felt like we were travelling backwards in time, not forwards. Sometimes it seemed as though the only way to go forward was to start from the beginning again and move on from there.

~*~

I met Raha- a friend of a friend who'd come to a dinner party Hannah and I had held, years back now - not long after Hannah moved back in with me. It was in a bookstore, where I'd been browsing the Early Childhood section. I limited myself to one book each week, so I had to spend quite a bit of time there, deciding.

"Olivia - Olivia, isn't it?”

I didn't recognise the heavily pregnant lady who squeezed my upper arm and smiled at me, so I smiled non-committedly and answered, "Yes, that's right.”

"You don't remember me.”

I grinned. "Sorry.”

"I'm a friend of Amy's . . . I came over to your and Hannah's place, it must have been five or six years back now, I can't believe how time flies . . .”

I suddenly recalled Amy bringing along a young woman with red hair to one of our parties - and then finding out afterwards that almost every word we'd spoken there had been repeated verbatim at several parties after that. I smiled cautiously at Raha and stepped back. "Oh yes - of course, of course.”

"So Hannah's expecting again?" Raha went on blithely. "I suppose that's a good thing, really, although - do they know if it's hereditary?”

I had perfected a method, five years earlier, of alerting people to the fact that they'd said something they shouldn't have. It was to keep silent, with a blank expression, waiting until they'd finished rattling out whatever it was they were saying. I had decided long ago that there was no need for me to feel uncomfortable about other people's faux pas, when it was just as easy to make them feel bad themselves.

"That is . . . I mean, I realise it's none of my business . . ." Raha faltered, finally, blushing.

"Congratulations," I said pointedly as she moved, apologising, towards the register. Then I hated myself. Of course the poor woman wanted to know if it was hereditary; she was pregnant herself, and was plagued with every sort of fear . . . and why shouldn't she be? Couldn't absolutely anything happen?

I suddenly remembered Hannah telling me years ago how she had felt stabs of utter black hatred towards other pregnant women during her own pregnancy. She'd wished them evil, had hoped for the worst - and had loathed herself for feeling that way. And now I had similar feelings, if not so strong. Was it on Hannah's behalf, or was it a kind of jealousy myself, that I couldn't have my child the way she could, carrying it inside me, knowing the baby even before it was born?

I had known about my infertility from my late teens, but that had never stopped the wanting. Occasionally I'd daydreamed that modern medicine would find some solution for me, even though I knew that medicine and miracles weren't the same thing; occasionally I'd pretended that it was all a mistake. Mostly I tried to be rational. After a while I'd forbidden daydreams, and had told myself strictly that I wasn't going to be ruled by the one thing I couldn't have. I had so much else. So it became more of a dull yearning than a wild longing, and it never turned into envy of others, separating myself from those who did have children. I was almost proud of that. I had even clamped down on my feelings during the adoption stage, frightened of what would happen were I to be rejected. Now that it was more than a possibility, but a definite probability that within a few months I'd have a baby of my own, I didn't know exactly what to think, nor exactly how to feel. I remembered Hannah in the earliest weeks of her pregnancy being confused and unsure and awed, as well - and I recognised a lot of those emotions in myself now, too.

~*~

I met Olivia's family not long after I moved in with her. I was still shy of her, then, generally leaving early to go to work, coming back late, eating separately and barely exchanging two words with her. On the weekends I'd politely offer to clean something or other, ask whether I could do the washing, answer quietly any questions and head back to my room. It felt like her house in those days, and I was careful.

One weekend, however, I was woken early by blasts of a car horn, then shouts, and the running of feet through the house. I got up immediately and stood by the window, stood behind a curtain so I couldn't be seen, and watched. Olivia burst out the door and down the few metres to the front gate and right into the arms of the older woman who stood there. Then she hugged the dozen others who seemed to pour out of the cars lined up the street, squealing and shouting all the while. I decided they were her family; there were definite resemblances. I dressed hurriedly, and watched as an older man and woman came into the front garden, followed by four young men, two women, one with a baby in a pouch, and finally Olivia with her arms around another man. Everyone was speaking loudly, laughing, talking over each other. It got even louder once they actually entered the house. I could hear them clearly, teasing Olivia about the house being untidy, her hair not done, the breakfast not yet made. They asked after Tarek and I heard Olivia answer in something like a defensive voice, "Oh, he's all right." Then they asked after me.

I was glad I'd got dressed then, because Olivia raced down the hallway and rapped on the door, then without a word dragged me out to meet everyone.

"This is Con, Tim, Dave, Lena and her husband Nick, Chris and his wife Trish, my niece Molly, and this is my Mum and Dad - and everyone, this is Hannah.”

Everyone shook hands, grinned, asked me how I managed to live with Olivia, assured me that they were quite different from her, assured me that they didn't always make this much noise, or that they did, and then sat me down to eat breakfast because they'd brought so much there was no way they'd be able to eat it all.

I worked out then that Olivia had four brothers and one sister. Lena was the eldest, and she'd got married young to a Greek guy who was thoroughly approved of by everyone from Grandma to their fourth cousin, once removed. She'd left the nephew and niece with Nick's family, to Olivia's disappointment, because of Greek school on Saturdays, because if they missed it once then they'd miss it every week, there'd be no exceptions. I could tell that Tarek wasn't getting the same kind of approval as Nick.

Con, Tim and Dave came next, and they were followed by Chris who was the one who had come in with Olivia. It seemed clear that they were a pair. Every story I heard which featured Olivia's childhood seemed also to feature Chris. They managed to finish off each other's sentences, knew what the other wanted before they asked, and broke in if someone asked something they could tell the other did not want to answer. Chris headed off a lot of comments about Tarek; Olivia headed off a few about Chris' work. I saw Trish biting her lip in amusement a few times; she'd probably seen their teamwork more than once.

Trish had handed over the baby to Olivia when she came in, and I didn't see her leave her arms for the rest of the morning. Even when there was a nappy change Olivia simply grabbed the bag and did it herself. She lifted the little girl to me, once, to hold, but I stepped back with some excuse or other. I'd never held a baby, and I didn't know if I wanted to, either.

After breakfast they went out into the tiny yard, and started banging away at some loose boards on the porch, analysing the soil around the poor grevilleas, or climbing onto the roof to clear out the guttering. All the while they were shouting and arguing and asking me how I coped with the noise, and calling across to the elderly couple who came out to see what on earth was happening.

I'd planned to spend the day out, maybe shopping or going for a drive, but I decided to stay around. It would have taken a pretty good excuse to leave at that point, anyway. I was part of all the renovations, passing hammers and nails, holding onto ladders or digging out secateurs to give the grevilleas a prune. When the family got too loud, Olivia would give me a look of shared exasperation, laugh, then tell them all to keep it down.

After that they all headed back inside and began complicated preparations for lunch. Everyone seemed to be chopping or peeling or stirring something, with Olivia complaining that she was quite capable of slapping together sandwiches for them if they'd just give her notice, they didn't have to go to all this trouble; and then taking the groans and teasing about her cooking abilities with good humour. No one was thinking of sandwiches when we all finally sat down to eat, though; it was a feast and I could tell Olivia enjoyed it and had missed it, too.

It wasn't long after lunch that they began to go. The farewells seemed to take ages, with hugs and reminders to phone and suggestions on what to bring next time. Chris got an extra-long hug, and then Olivia pushed them all out the door, hung on the gate and waved as they piled into their cars, and waited a moment in the garden until they were out of sight.

"I would've warned you about them, but they always turn up unannounced," she apologised as she came back into the living room. She collapsed onto the lounge and sighed. "At least we don't have to worry about home repairs for another few months.”

I laughed at that, and Olivia looked over at me and grinned. "You didn't mind?”

"It was . . . it was good," I admitted. It had been one of the better Saturdays that I'd spent in a long way, actually. "I think that it's . . . it's nice, that they all came here to see you.”

"Well, yeah," she shrugged, accepting it casually. "But what did you think of them?”

Loud - happy - energetic - I didn't quite know how to answer, because really it seemed she was asking what I thought of her. "Different," I answered finally. "All different.”

I hoped my almost diplomatic answer would head her off, but she took it in another way altogether.

"Yeah. I guess we are," Olivia replied seriously. She leant back, and closed her eyes for a moment. "I'll never be Lena with my two kids dashing off to Greek school; I'll never be career-driven Con or stressed-out Tim or head in the clouds Dave. I'll never be Mum or Dad, happy enough with my garden and the rare varieties of potatoes in there. I'll never be Chris, madly in love and rocking a baby to sleep each night.”

I think that was when I first asked. I think it was then, because I know after that things were different between us.

"You don't want kids?”

I remember she opened her eyes, turned her head to me and smiled a little. "Sure, but I can't have them. So yeah. I am different from the others. In that way, anyhow.”

I didn't know what to do or say, then. I can't remember if I just sat quietly for a moment or if I said something useless, or if I even just left the room. But I remember having that knowledge, all the times I saw her with a baby, looking over at a group of children, watching something on television. I didn't think of it much. I don't think she thought of it that much either. But the knowledge was with me.

~*~

My family had never really taken to Tarek.

No surprises there, as few people I knew seemed to like him; and when it came to boyfriends, my family had always been unfailingly critical. As a teenager, I'd either had to keep any flirtations a deadly secret, or risk the boy being threatened, beaten or otherwise harassed by my over-protective brothers, who were never satisfied with anyone I'd chosen. At the time I couldn't understand it, although, looking back I realise they had had better taste than I.

I never brought Tarek home, or even mentioned him, when I'd lived in the city. But with four brothers and a sister, along with various cousins and other relatives, I had no chance at all of keeping our relationship quiet. I think we were having dinner one evening in a quiet Italian restaurant when Chris, Con and Tim strode in and joined us. Tarek didn't raise an eyebrow; I sighed, pushed back my chair, and said, "Yes?”

"You haven't introduced us yet, sis," Chris said deliberately. He adjusted his glasses and looked directly at Tarek. "I'm Chris - one of Olivia's older brothers. There's four of us, you know.”

I rolled my eyes, while Tarek tried to hide his amusement. "I'll try to remember that.”

"Do," Con had to put in, shifting his chair slightly closer.

"All right, all right, stop with the theatrics already, will you? Tarek, these are my three over-protective brothers; Chris, Con, Tim. I'm assuming Dave forgot to show," I added, shaking my head. "There's also a sister who is eight months pregnant, which is her excuse for not coming.”

"Congratulations," Tarek replied easily. "So have you decided what to order?”

None of my brothers liked being ignored.

"We're just here to make sure you're treating Olivia right. If you don't, if you hurt her at all," Tim began, "we'll -”

Tarek can look extremely menacing when he chooses. He didn't rise from his chair, but somehow he was taller than before, taller than all my tall brothers, taking up most of the table, edging them all out. "Well?”

I sat back, impressed. He'd managed to silence all three of my brothers simultaneously. Even I had rarely achieved such a feat.

"We'll do whatever it takes," Chris finally replied. "That's what we're here to say.”

"Olivia can take care of herself," Tarek said then. "If you don't know that by now, you don't know much about her.”

They left shortly afterwards, and we finished our meal.

"Sorry about the Mafia Brothers there," I said, but Tarek grinned.

"If we were in Yemen, we'd both be dead; or they would be. If they were really worried about your reputation, they wouldn't have left so easily.”

I frowned. "It wasn't about reputation, Tarek; they were just being protective. It wasn't to do with them at all.”

Tarek shrugged, then, and changed the subject. I could tell he didn't really understand.

He met my family occasionally after that, mostly after I'd moved to Tariton; they'd even caught me with him on one of their surprise Saturdays. They never warmed to him. He wasn't Greek, he wasn't settled, and he wasn't going to marry me. The fraud charges didn't help, either.

Chris would occasionally defend him out of respect for me, although he did sit me down once and ask me directly what on earth I saw in him.

"I don't know," I said slowly, aware that Chris was only ever satisfied with real answers. "He knows the things I know. He does the things I like to do, too. There isn't anyone like him.”

"That's for sure," Chris said.

~*~

I remember getting back home late on a Friday evening; I think I'd spent the entire day trying to recover a document that the computer had swallowed. I'd ended up having to rewrite it anyway.

When I walked in, Tarek and Olivia were sitting on the couch, laughing over some far-fetched movie on the comedy channel.

"One day we're not going to believe women went through all of this," Tarek said lazily. "We'll be seeing news items about these backward cultures that still force mothers to carry their babies for nine months.”

"I can see the story now; these people inflicting such suffering on their babies, pushing them out of their own bodies, till their faces are squashed up and their heads are all misshapen!" Olivia said in mock-horror.

"Rather than the perfect cylinder-shape that a test-tube brings?" I added, sitting down beside them. "Just imagine the hats people will be wearing!”

They both laughed.

"There's some pizza left over, if you want to heat it up - or you can try the bowl of macaroni from last week, but grab a knife before you open the lid," Olivia told me. "It may have mutated.”

"It's all right, I've eaten," I explained, yawning. "I'll just grab a drink. Want one?”

I grabbed a few beers from the fridge and sat down with them to finish the movie. It was incomprehensible science fiction, so bad that it was funny.

"OK, I'm moving to one of these bunkers, nuclear war or not. They're far better equipped than any city I know!”

"Seeing that bunker is large enough to house every citizen of - where is it, Albania? - I should think you could go there without anyone noticing. You could live out the rest of your life in luxury.”

"For all we know the entire population of Albania has already worked that out, and is living the high life. By the time the nuclear war really does start, all the toilet paper will have run out.”

Olivia groaned. "Not toilet paper again!" She threw a cushion at me, and I ducked.

"If you're not going to drink that, I'll have it," Tarek said, reaching over for my unopened beer. "Is that ok?”

"Yeah - that's OK," I told him. "I just remembered - I didn't feel like beer, after all.”

~*~

Hannah was afraid to tell me what she suspected, at first, and I think she was afraid because she knew how I felt about children, how I wanted them but I couldn't have them. It wasn't like that, though. I never had the kind of envy that spoiled others' pleasure. Although when she told me, it wasn't to do with happiness - or the opposite, either. She was using unfamiliar words, speaking a new language, trying it out but still unsure as to what it meant.

"I think I need to buy one of those kits," she blurted out one evening, just as I'd switched off the outside light and was preparing to go to bed. "I'm feeling - kind of funny.”

My hand, which had known the position of the switch on the wall for years, was having trouble now locating it. I had to stop, turn to the wall, look for the thing and remind myself what to do, before turning back to her.

"Hannah, do you think you're pregnant?”

I stared at her. She didn't look different at all, and I certainly hadn't seen her dash to the bathroom to throw up breakfast, or have to sit down because she felt faint, or anything like that.

"I think I might be," Hannah said cautiously.

"Then maybe you'd better see a doctor," I told her. "I'll go with you tomorrow.”

"All right. Thanks." Then she turned off the hallway light and went to her room.

The doctor, the next day, confirmed it, and gave her a few other tests too - "if you've got pregnant from unprotected sex, you could've picked up a number of other things, too, you know" - and scheduled an ultrasound. And finally congratulated her.

We then headed to the pharmacy for vitamins and folate and calcium supplements, and then went back into the house and sat down in the living room. It was a rainy day, but we didn't put the lights on - we sat in the semi-darkness, listening to the occasional thunder and the rain against the windows.

"You've got to tell - was it John?”

"I think so, yeah. Yeah, I'll tell him," Hannah answered cautiously.

"And your parents.”

"I guess I'd better. Maybe though, I'll wait a bit.”

She wasn't three months, yet.

"I think they'd like to know, even if you lose the baby," I said quietly.

"No - I don't think they would," Hannah replied precisely. I remembered then that I hadn't met them as yet. I reached over and squeezed her hand.

"I can't think of the future, yet, Olivia," she said suddenly. "I can't make plans or decisions, not yet.”

"It's all right. It's all right.”

She was away at a three-day conference, the following weekend, when I told Tarek. He'd come over quite late - he was flying with a freight company at the time, criss-crossing from one end of the country to the other, and I sometimes didn't see him for a week or two when he was stuck in another state altogether. Sometimes those days were the nicest, having only a short time together, because often we could go for a day or so without fighting at all.

Not this time, though. It was the early hours of the morning, a time when I felt inclined to talk to him. He assured me sleepily that he'd been too busy to even think of ripping someone off, and I believed him - he was truthful when you asked him a direct question - and let myself feel all the affection I had for him, without guilt, for a moment. Then I told him about Hannah.

He was still a moment - then he asked, "What's she going to do?”

"She doesn't know," I told him.

He digested that, then he turned to me and looked at me. "How come you've never wanted to have my baby?”

Most of the times when he got angry with me and said horrible things, they didn't really hurt. I parried his blows easily, knowing exactly how temper could make you say terrible things - knowing it from experience. This was one of the few times he said something that truly hurt me. I think I gasped.

"Tarek, you know I can't have a baby," I whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut. "I'd have your child in a second if I could.”

He was quiet for a long time, then, but when I opened my eyes, blinking back the tears, I saw his face was still.

"That can't be true. You've never let me forget to wear a condom, not ever.”

Sometimes I thought that with all the shouting that we did, that we had the most open relationship there could be. That morning I realised how much we didn't know or trust about the other. I'd barely thought about it, but he knew the answer before I said it.

"It isn't just for preventing pregnancy.”

I saw his fist clench, knew that I'd hurt him just as much as he'd hurt me a moment ago. During a heated argument, sometimes there was a horrible pleasure in such a score - now it was agonising.

"All this time.”

It had been years, by then. We'd been together for several years, in different countries, places, under different circumstances.

"You thought, all this time, that I went from your bed to some other woman's. For years and years you haven't trusted me. You heard me tell you that I loved you but it meant to you that I loved you, then, just at that moment. Or you didn't trust that, either. You know I don't lie!”

"You don't lie, no," I answered heavily. "But you don't tell me everything, either. There's so much that you don't know is wrong. How did I know that you thought a one-night stand in a strange town with a strange woman was wrong, too? You could still love me, then, you could still say the words and mean them - I know you meant them -”

He rolled out of bed, began to get dressed. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, just sat up and watched him leave the room, heard his steps down the hallway, heard the slam of the front door, the swing of the gate, the car starting up and the roar of it fading down the road. After that there was silence and I cried and cried and cried.

~*~

A lot of Olivia's friends didn't think much of Tarek. They couldn't understand why she had stayed with him for so long; they couldn't understand why she'd ever picked him up at all. Once or twice one of her friends had tried to set her up with someone else, introducing her to a guy at a dinner party or a barbecue. Olivia would be her usual pleasant self, and for weeks afterwards her friends would tell her that such and such had asked after her, and he was such a nice guy, and wouldn't she like to see him again?

Mostly she just laughed at them and told them that she wasn't interested. If they pressed the point, and especially if they began to talk about Tarek's unsuitability, she'd get angry, and she was so good at it that they usually backed off. They didn't know that we'd laugh about it afterwards, about their unsubtle attempts to make her see that Tarek just wasn't part of the crowd. As if Olivia didn't know that already.

I was initially almost frightened of Tarek, I think. I saw him as someone who encouraged the worst in Olivia, who provoked arguments and shouting and fury. I picked up fairly quickly that he was involved in some shady things, and at first I wondered if he had some strange hold over Olivia. I think that was what a lot of people thought. They didn't realise that actually it was the other way round. Tarek was madly in love with Olivia and would do anything apart from change his nature to be with her.

Sometimes in the early days, I'd see Olivia close her eyes and sigh when she heard Tarek come into the house in the evening. It was only after some time that I realised she was sighing with relief that he was back again. It wasn't complicated. They missed one another when they were apart.

I didn't talk that much with Tarek. He wasn't a social person, and he wanted to spend most of his time with Olivia. But as we got closer, he began to learn more about me; he'd have a running conversation with me about a certain politician, over whom we disagreed, or about a particular television show, which we both liked. A few weeks after I got pregnant, he came into the house early, while I was still in my pyjamas in the kitchen drinking orange juice, and he paused before finding Olivia's room.

"Congratulations over the baby," he said. "Do you want me to beat up the father?”

"Um, no. He's said he'll only believe it if I provide the DNA evidence, so that's good enough for me. Thanks anyway.”

"Anytime," he said, and made his way to Olivia's room. Usually she didn't like being woken up early, especially on the weekend, so I expected to hear a lot of noise after that; but it was quiet, and I didn't see either of them for the rest of the day.

It had been fairly easy to break the news to John. He hadn't wanted to meet me, and had reacted to the news over the phone with disinterest, which is what I had hoped for. I never saw him again, in fact.

My parents were disappointed, and I could see why. As they said, it would not be very good for my career plans. I hoped that perhaps when they met the child, things would change there.

I never really made any decisions, real decisions about the pregnancy. In the past I'd imagined that I'd draw up some kind of pros and cons list, work it all out, then head to the doctor with everything all worked out.

It didn't happen like that, though. I just was pregnant. That was what I was, at that time. Occasionally I'd wake up, frightened, wondering what on earth I had done. I'd had nightmares as a teenager that I was suddenly, mysteriously, pregnant and sometimes it felt like that, although there was no mystery about it. Pregnancy was what happened after you had sex, if you weren't careful, and sometimes even when you thought you were. It was part of what it was all about. Often I forgot about it, because I wasn't particularly sick, and sometimes I'd make plans for the future and suddenly realise that those plans would have to include someone else.

I started getting interested in the idea of the child at about four months, when I first felt my baby move. I discovered that he, she had a heart and a mind and even a smile . . . something my baby was simply practising for the time we'd meet. I began, slowly at first, to read one of the books Olivia had given me right at the start, and began tentatively talking about next year.

Next year soon became a catchphrase between Olivia and myself. Next year, I'd take some unpaid leave to add to the paid leave that Lowell's provided; and then I'd go back part-time, and maybe Olivia would, too, as in her small organisation job sharing wasn't difficult to organise at all. Next year we'd take a trip, maybe we'd rent a house for a week or two by the sea. Next year we'd have to be more careful, maybe we could do with one car, because things would be more expensive. Tarek would have to start watching his language, next year.

Olivia and Tarek occasionally used an unfamiliar phrase, laughing, when they talked to one another. It was an Arabic phrase, "inshallah", and it was, Olivia admitted, one of the very few Arabic words she had picked up. I knew what it meant, it meant God willing, but although I heard it a lot around the place, I never said it myself. It sounded strange.

I liked a few of the other Arabic words that I learned from her. She referred to "Beit Amala" or "house of hope" a few times, which was the organisation where her friend Emma worked in Irbil. Occasionally she'd say "salaam" in greeting, "afu" in apology.

I sometimes imagined that I'd said "inshallah" instead of "next year". I wonder if it would have made a difference, not to what happened, but to all my thoughts about time, afterwards, all my guilt, all my grief. Perhaps it would've made no difference at all, but sometimes I wonder.

~*~

It seems strange to me that years and years afterwards I still wake up with my ears straining for the sound of 'Allah Akbah'. The call to prayer had woken me every morning in Iraq; during the day it had reminded me that it was lunch, or dinner, or that twilight was approaching, to look out the window at the sun setting. I heard it in my dreams and I still dream it, occasionally, especially when it's hot and I think for a moment I'm back there in Irbil.

It wasn't a particularly romantic sound, distorted as it was by the tinny loudspeakers through which the recording was played. In the villages, where it was a real mullah calling and not a taped chant, it was different; but in the city it was generally just a loop which sounded at the press of a button. Sometimes several mosques sounded at once, and it was impossible to hear a word. But in the mornings it began with one, and I could understand some of what was being said.

Tarek was an Arab, from Yemen. He knew French as well as Arabic; and now he lived in an entirely new land, where he spoke fluent English. I had barely learned Sorani, and had only picked up a couple of Arabic words. Sometimes I wondered whether our true distance was that we couldn't share a mothertongue. No matter how much he learned of mine, and I his, the language we were most comfortable in was one so different from the other.

In that week after we fought, I told myself for the twentieth time that I could do it without him - could have a whole life without him, could have a better life. I had a life with Hannah and now Hannah's child; I had work that I enjoyed, a home and a place in a community. It wasn't like being back there, separated from my own customs, language, and people. I was surrounded by family; that was enough for me.

I felt a horrible guilt at what I'd put on him, in that single morning - finding out I could never have his child, something he'd evidently been thinking about, and moreover discovering that I had never really trusted him - and part of me thought that it would be better for Tarek, too, if I wasn't in his life. I knew the power I had to hurt him, and it was quite equal to that power he had to damage me. I didn't like knowing that I could do that, and I didn't want to know it, and if I didn't have Tarek I would never know it.

But a week after we fought - and I was lying half-asleep, wondering why I couldn't hear the call to prayer from my bedroom window - he slipped quietly inside my room and knelt beside my bed, and the shared guilt in both our eyes was enough for it to be all right. That was one of the times I learned how terrible griefs can be a bridge, not a gulf. How often they can draw people on your side of the battlefield. He leapt there in an instant, onto my island, across the moat into my isolated castle. Because - if I trusted him, if he was true - it meant that he couldn't have a child, either.

Hannah's baby didn't mean much to him. I certainly wasn't living vicariously through her, but I was excited, as I'd been excited when my brother and sister-in-law had had their child. Tarek never knew Hannah closely, and only really tolerated her because he knew that I cared about her. He forgot frequently that she even was pregnant, and that changes were going to come to my household within a short period of time. He never imagined a child.

But Hannah and I did. We talked about whether he'd have fair hair or brown, whether she'd have blue eyes or green. We wondered about his interests, her hobbies. We predicted dates, discussed seriously what the weather would be like at about the time the baby would be born and how that would affect midnight feeds. It wasn't frequent, but it was enough, especially after Hannah felt the child moving inside her. Someone got her a name book - but she hadn't got that far. Actually she never opened it, I know. When I found it again - after I got the letter about my acceptance to the adoption programme - not a page had been turned, it was as fresh and new as the day it had been given. None of the names I thought about had ever been thought of before.

Not that Hannah never named her child. She did, of course, but she didn't have to search to find out what to call her baby.

~*~

When I moved back to Tariton, and moved back to my old position at the Lowell's branch there, I came across a lot of people I hadn't seen for years. It wasn't a large town, and most people knew one another's business fairly well. I think that I had a hard time with that sometimes, as anonymity had within itself a certain kind of protection. I think having been brought up to fear what other people thought, and to blend in with what others expected of me, I ended up wanting to know less people, in order to lessen the effort made to fit in with them.

There was something nice, however, about being greeted with real pleasure on my first day back at work, being really welcomed. I had been well respected there, I knew, because I could do my job and that it made it easier for others to do theirs. But they were also comfortable enough to tease me gently about things, like my overly tidy workspace, or my constantly breaking-down car, and that kind of intimacy was also pleasant.

A couple of people commented directly on me moving back in with Olivia, in order to help her out with her coming baby. They assumed, I suppose, that we had stayed in touch the entire time that I'd been away from Tariton; and that I made the sacrificial decision to take a pay cut and come back to the local branch instead of staying in the city, just to help her out. It was almost right, but not quite, and so I often felt embarrassed. The main difference is that it wasn't sacrificial at all, but it was impossible to protest that I was doing it all for selfish reasons. Suggesting that I was selfish only prompted choruses of "no, you're not!" which wasn't the response I was trying to provoke, anyway.

I had liked Tariton, despite its small-town nature, when I'd lived there before. It was pretty, with old style houses, especially in the centre of town; it had a lot of parks, a lot of very old trees, and a protected wetland for birds. The shops weren't too busy, but there was everything you needed there. People passed through deliberately sometimes because it was a nice place to picnic, a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, especially just by the river. It was definitely a tame place, with not much excitement, but I liked it.

I did wonder initially why Olivia had chosen it, however. Her family all lived within a few minutes of each other, in the city, and I wondered sometimes why she didn't live closer to them. Tariton after Iraq just seemed boring, and Olivia didn't like boring. I knew that, at least. She never walked if she could run; never whispered if she could shout. She was always out, doing something, like going out for a swim in the waterhole at 11pm at night, climbing up to the top of the bell tower to check a bird's nest there, organising to paint a mural on a wall that she thought was an eyesore. Sometimes people suggested, not too subtly, that Tarek had held Olivia back, that if she hadn't stuck with him for so long she would be some famous and important person somewhere. She never pretended that she didn't understand such hints, and always hotly defended her choice of job and lifestyle. When she said she wasn't interested in famous and important, I knew it was true. If she'd wanted anything else, she would already have had it.

"Tariton isn't tame, it's human," she told me once. "It has everything it needs, just as it is. I don't find cities exotic, or exhilarating, or any more alive than any other place. They're just places where a lot of people who don't know one another have to get along, or not. Towns are different. People choose each other in towns. They choose to settle together. I like that.”

I remember that we'd talked about Tariton as being a good place to raise a child, we'd talked about it when I started to appreciate that being pregnant meant that I'd have a baby to look after. It had small schools, safe play spaces, and a whole community to watch over a child. I remember that back then that was all that I imagined we would need, to have a child. A school, a playground, other people.

They had a small hospital there, too, with a maternity unit. I was able to get my eighteen week ultrasound there, and I remember clearly turning my head and looking at the picture of the baby moving about, seeing in a moment what for so long I'd only imagined. I had thought it would be still a blob, and that the technician would have to point out to me what it all meant. But the image jumped, and then it was clear, a clear outline of a baby.

The technician pointed out the spinal cord, the toes, the little hands held above a tiny body.

I said, "Look at her fingers!" and then the technician looked as well.

When I looked back at Olivia, she had stopped smiling, and at first I didn't know why. But then the technician stayed and stayed, looking at exactly what I'd pointed out. The fingers of my baby.

For the longest time I remembered Olivia's face just as clearly as my baby's fingers. I hated that she stopped smiling. Even when I realised that the technician was alarmed, I still looked at her beautiful fingers. They were still beautiful, even if they weren't supposed to look that way.

~*~

What I remember about that sonogram is that Hannah picked out immediately that she was having a daughter, and she saw before the technician did that there was something different about her daughter. It's not unusual that something is picked up on a eighteen-week sonogram, but although the technician may well have seen something unusual about the baby's fingers afterwards, he didn't notice anything until Hannah pointed it out. Sometimes I thought that Hannah secretly wished she'd never mentioned her baby's fingers, as though not knowing would have somehow made things easier. But there were other signs. We found out later that the technician had noticed other things, although all we'd seen was a baby, and a baby's fingers.

The technician switched everything off after that, and turned to leave, telling Hannah she could get dressed. But before he left the room, he stopped. "Do you want to know if it's a boy or a girl?" he asked suddenly.

Before that, he'd said "your baby" or "your child". He'd been careful not to say "he" or "she" - but never before had he called the child "it". I knew he was asking something more than whether we wanted to know the sex in advance.

"Well, she's a girl, isn't she?" Hannah replied, getting up, and the technician nodded, and cleared his throat.

"Yes - yes, she's a girl.”

~*~

Olivia was with me from the moment I knew I was pregnant. She was with me, watching my baby on screen just at the same time I did. She saw the technician's reaction. She was with me when we met him in his office, afterwards, and he told us I'd have to go to a bigger hospital for further testing. She pushed, as I did, for clarification. What further testing, why, what had he seen? But she got no further than I did. He couldn't say, wouldn't say, wanted someone else to say it. All he'd admit was that I was going to have a daughter.

So most of my memories of that time are mixed up with Olivia. When I think of my anger, she's there. When I think of the bitterness I felt, she's there too. The very first moment I had an idea something was wrong was because of her face. I hate still that she looked at the picture of my baby with that expression on her face.

Olivia is known by everyone as being particularly forgiving. She's had to learn forgiveness, even if she wasn't naturally so, by being around Tarek anyway. But even apart from that she is known as one who doesn't hold a grudge, who will forget a hurt. She has a generous nature.

I wish I were like that. Because even as I missed her, I was angry with her; even as I moved back in with her, I knew I still hadn't forgiven her. I hated that about myself, because she had done more for me than anyone on earth. It seems strange to me that I could love her and yet not be able to let go of my anger towards her. But there it was.

Part of moving back in with her, I think, was an effort to forgive her for what she had done. Five years away had changed me, but I could still remember her face, that day; it was still with me.

~*~

I remember those first few days clearly. I remember the way Hannah and I kept swapping roles. On the way home from the sonogram, I was reassuring and optimistic - the technician certainly wasn't an expert, which was why he was referring us on, and how the fear of law-suits nowadays made everyone worried about the least thing.

"But what is he worried about? Why didn't he tell us?" Hannah shot back. "I didn't see any extra fingers, if that's what he thought -”

"If he did say something, and he was wrong, he could get in a lot of trouble," I reminded her. "Someone was telling me recently how cautious they all are with those old-fashioned 2d sonograms now, and how difficult to interpret they are. The big hospital will have a proper 3d or 4d one, which will show everything more clearly. I'm sure it's nothing - you're under thirty, so you're low risk, he said that, remember?”

"When did he say that?" Hannah asked quickly. "I don't remember -”

"Well, when he was reading your file, before the sonogram.”

"Oh.”

Tarek came round late that evening - Hannah had already gone to bed - and knew something was up after just one look at my face. I don't think I said anything for at least an hour, but I do remember trying to cry softly, because I didn't want Hannah to hear, and to know that I was worried, just because of the way the technician had reacted. He'd got an appointment the very next week - he'd got all the specialists on the phone right as we waited - he'd made one person break an earlier appointment in order to see us. I knew that wasn't routine or procedure or covering himself in case of a lawsuit. He'd seen something.

"There's something wrong with the baby," I gasped finally, wiping my eyes with my sleeves. "The technician saw something - he wouldn't say what.”

Tarek handed me a hot cup of coffee, and I warmed my hands on it, trying to stop the long shivers which had accompanied my tears. I breathed deeply, leaning back into the couch, closing my eyes. A sip of the coffee, and they opened right up - he'd spiked it. I think I spluttered, and then saw Tarek grin.

"That's the only coffee you're getting tonight, so enjoy it," he warned me, taking a long swig of his own drink. "No - finish it first - “

I sat back and drank the whole mug. My trembling stopped, and my breathing grew steadier. By the last gulp, I was ready to laugh at myself.

"I was telling Hannah it was probably nothing - I should have listened to myself," I said finally. "Maybe it is just procedure.”

"You know that isn't true.”

My eyes widened. "What?”

Tarek took the mug from me and set it down. "Don't start making up stories. Don't start pretending. It makes it harder, I promise you.”

Tears sprang to my eyes again. "How am I supposed to bear it?" I whispered.

"It's not your baby," Tarek reminded me. "It's Hannah's. She has to bear it.”

Sometimes I blame Tarek for what happened afterwards. I blamed him for Hannah hating me, as I knew she did. But sometimes I think that those first wise words of Tarek got me through all that followed.

"You told me that you daydreamed, sometimes, that you could have a child. Did it make it any easier? And what about when you were in Iraq? Did it make it easier when you saw what you saw to pretend that you were watching some kind of film of it all?”

"Sometimes I did that," I admitted in a low voice. "Sometimes it made it easier. I hated myself afterwards, though.”

"Don't pretend," Tarek repeated. "Get over it as soon as you can, because there isn't time enough for anything else.”

I wondered at his urgency, but it was impossible for me to follow his advice. I spent the next few days alternating with Hannah, between cheerful optimism ("it's nothing, and even if it isn't, it can be fixed through modern medicine") and despair. I was terrified that Hannah would suddenly have a seizure or collapse, and so I watched her carefully, asking casually where she was going, what she was doing. I remember searching desperately on the internet to see how often a pregnant woman suddenly died in her sleep, and reassuring Hannah with wild statistics about doctors and false alarms. Sometimes she'd take the statistic and throw it back at me, later on, when she'd decided things would be fine; other times she'd turn the numbers around to prove often they were right. My protectiveness meant I hid my concerns, but she was openly anxious, showing it in a kind of constant irritation.

When the day finally came to travel to the larger hospital for further tests, we were both relieved and terrified. Hannah said a few times that she wasn't leaving the place without solid information; I supported her, saying that they couldn't test without saying what all the examinations were for. Secretly I thought it unlikely we'd find out anything. I was wrong, however.

~*~

I wrote down everyone that we met that day.

There was a geneticist, a cardiologist, a perinatologist, as well as several nurses and a registrar. We had a card with a list of names, Dr James, Dr Neung, Dr Erickson, but it was only when we found the doors that we discovered who they were, what their specialties were. I remember hesitating outside door 504, reading the sign. Dr Renata James, Geneticist. I had no idea what that meant, and either did Olivia. I wondered if we were at the right place. If it affected me, surely I'd understand what the person did? But nothing had been explained. It was all still a mystery, and if we were at the wrong place, walking in and asking would at least clear that up.

The receptionist expected us, however. We waited a moment, and then a couple came out of the room, tears pouring down their faces, both he and she. Cold washed over me then, and I clenched my hands together. It was a nightmare, some kind of horrific nightmare. I got up in order to head out the door. I had to be in the wrong place. There was nothing right about it.

Then the doctor appeared at the door.

"Hannah, Olivia? Come on in.”

It was such a sensible voice that I came towards it at once. I felt that something would be sorted out immediately, that the woman would briskly explain that a mistake had been made, that the technician was new, inexperienced, that you had to be careful these days and so on.

She was tall, as tall as Olivia, although she was many years older, perhaps in her sixties. She waved us into her office, a bright, airy place, with cream-coloured walls and a few abstract paintings hung on them. There was a desk by the window, but she didn't sit there. There were a few chairs set together in the centre of the room, and she ushered us to them, sitting beside us, picking up a file with my name on it from a low table to the side.

"What does your name mean?" I blurted out immediately.

"Renata?" she replied, confused, and then laughed. "Oh! You mean my title, geneticist. I specialise in genetic disorders, problems with genes and chromosomes." She stopped, looked at us both, and frowned. "You weren't aware of that.”

I could hear Olivia beside me begin to take deep breaths. I started noticing everything in the room apart from myself. I looked at what the doctor was wearing; a longish tan skirt, with a striped silk blouse and a gold chain. I looked at the things on her desk; a stack of books, another pile of papers, a small jar holding pens and pencils, and a vase with lilies-of-the-valley. I looked at the shapes in the painting; swirls of blue and red, with hexagons, triangles, squares and one pentagon. Then I said casually, "My baby has a genetic disorder, then. A problem with her genes and chromosomes.”

"That's what is suspected, yes.”

After that she got pictures out of my file, pictures that had been taken from the ultrasound. She had a kind of pencil, and she marked the pictures, marked the things that the doctor had seen, that concerned him. There were three main problems, the doctor said. One was the heart, one was the kidney. The other was the fingers.

"Her index finger is crossed over her middle finger. Her pinky is crossed over her fourth finger," the doctor pointed out.

I noticed that the doctor didn't say "it"; that she used the word "pinky", a kind of word you use when talking about a little child. Beside me Olivia was still breathing hard, and I reached over and grabbed her hand. I didn't look at her face, though. I was scared that I'd see the exact same expression I'd seen before. I was afraid her face would be still with knowledge.

"She has some fluid around her heart, which is why you've been booked to see the cardiologist. They want to do a special test to see if there's any particular problem with your baby's heart. The perinatologist is an expert on fetal development. He'll do another ultrasound and check carefully what he sees. Because he's seen so many ultrasounds, he knows exactly what to look for.”

"And then we'll know," I said firmly.

"No," the doctor corrected me gently. "The only way to know for certain is to do a special test of your baby's chromosomes. You'll need an amniocentesis if you want to find out for certain.”

"Find out what, exactly?”

Olivia's voice was cold. "Please explain exactly what you're talking about, before you start suggesting an amnio. I know they've got a very high risk of miscarriage.”

"There is some risk of miscarriage, that's true," the doctor replied quietly. "And you're right. Before we start talking about that, I want to tell you about what the doctor and I suspect, based on what I've shown you on the ultrasound.”

She hesitated for a moment, looking from one of us to the other.

"You know we all have 23 pairs of chromosomes, and those chromosomes are the code, the blueprint for our bodies. Occasionally, however, when the sperm and the egg come together, there's an error, and an extra chromosome is formed. So instead of two chromosomes, there are three. That's called trisomia.”

"You think my daughter has an extra chromosome? How could one tiny extra chromosome cause any problems?" I asked disbelievingly.

"It's not just one extra chromosome. It's an extra chromosome in every cell in her body. So the blueprint doesn't work any longer. It doesn't tell the body to form in the same way our bodies are formed. Mistakes are made. Errors. In your baby's case, it's suspected to be the chromosome in the eighteenth position. That's why the disorder is called "Trisomy Eighteen". It's also called Edwards syndrome, after Dr Edwards, the doctor who first discovered it was a distinct syndrome.”

Mistakes were made. Errors.

I started to shake, and then I started to cry. I had made mistakes, plenty of them. I'd got drunk many times, perhaps just as this baby was being conceived. I hadn't even chosen her father, hadn't thought about what he could pass on. I hadn't looked in our own family history, to see whether I should ever have had a child . . .

Now it was Olivia holding my hand, slipping her arm around me, defending me. "I've never heard of this syndrome. If there was any way to prevent it, I'm sure Hannah would have, if she'd known!”

"There's nothing Hannah could have done to make this happen, or to stop it happening," the doctor went on hastily. "It's a one in five to seven thousand chance that this error could have occurred, and it is complete chance. No one knows why, but it's not hereditary, not passed on from the father or the mother. It's not to do with anything you had eaten, drunk, or anything you had done. It just happened.”

"And why do you think that it is this particular disorder, when you haven't done the tests yet?”

"Because of her fingers," I said softly. I lifted my head and looked at her directly.

Dr James looked surprised. But she nodded slowly. "Most babies with Edwards syndrome have fingers like that. It's a well-known characteristic.”

"And will they always be like that?" I asked.

Dr James paused again.

"As I say, we're cannot be certain your baby does have Trisomy 18. The only way to be sure is through the amniocentesis. However, if that does come back showing that your baby does have the extra chromosome, then you'll have to make some decisions." She stopped, looking at us both carefully. "Trisomy 18 doesn't just affect the heart, kidneys and fingers. It can affect almost every part of the body. Babies with this disorder can have malformed feet and hands, and genitals, can be born with serious digestive and respiratory problems, can have spinal cord damage and damage to the brain. They have severe facial deformities as well. If they survive past early childhood, then they are at risk for specific kinds of cancer.”

"If they survive?" Olivia whispered.

"Sadly, almost all babies with Trisomy 18 are miscarried or stillborn. It's a syndrome that is incompatible with life.”

There's something kind of frightening about a baby inside a womb, growing away quietly, changing not just the shape of the woman around it but also the way they feel, the way their body reacts to so many things. Someone I know said it horrified her, that would be like being invaded by some kind of alien, possessed by a demon, inhabited by some kind of parasite. Another living thing altering you completely.

But isn't that what happens whenever you love someone? You alter, change, react differently, your behaviour changes, your habits, the things you think about. Your body changes when you see them coming. Your heart races, your palms sweat, you begin to tremble. A smile comes onto your face without you even realising it. And you don't choose love, either.

Olivia had to cope with so many people telling her she was utterly crazy for loving Tarek. For wasting her energy on that kind of love. For not choosing a different, easier, man. For allowing her life to change to accommodate him.

Sometimes people thought I was crazy to have a friend like Olivia. She didn't have an ordinary job, she didn't lead an ordinary life. My choosing to link my life to hers was seen as not quite sensible.

So what. So what if she didn't fit in, so what if she didn't suit anyone else in the world? I knew she was exceptional, I knew who she was even if others only saw the outside. I knew that she was worth it.

There's something of the alien look about the face of a fetus, especially on a 4d ultrasound. The routine ultrasound which I'd had initially had been waves of sound bouncing back, creating an outline, not just of the shape of my baby but also the insides. The 4d was far clearer. I could see her eyes. The fingers I'd seen on the initial ultrasound were just white lines against black, but they were real images, this time. It was still fuzzy and strange, but it was also incredible. When I saw her this time, and it was a long session, as the perinatologist studied the images carefully, all I could think was that she had to be protected. I felt as though she was being attacked on all sides, by people refusing to refer to her as my daughter, by people urging me to make "decisions". I think I whispered to Olivia that I wanted her to protect my baby. I don't know if I really did, or if I imagined it, because Olivia didn't make any response.

Dr Erickson pointed out the fingers, and some other things, too, the shape of her head, the spacing of her eyes. And her kidneys hadn't separated; they were still connected, which was a serious problem. And there were her heart problems, the VSD and the issue with the pulmonary artery, the artery that took blood to the lungs.

"Did Dr James talk to you about Trisomy 18?”

Three times. The three of them had seen it. Four, if you counted the ultrasound technician who'd refused to give me any information.

"Yes.”

"I'd seriously advise that you get an amniocentesis as soon as possible, in order to confirm the findings. Only a chromosome test can tell with any certainty that that is the problem.”

"So there's a chance that it may not be that at all?" Olivia broke in. "After all, it's only a one in five thousand chance . . . that's miniscule.”

"Even if it isn't Trisomy 18, your baby is very sick," the doctor said carefully. "The heart, the kidneys, and the smaller head, which indicates that the baby will have severe brain damage . . .”

I felt sick. "Brain damage?" There'd been a list of things that Dr James had said, all the problems. She'd said it was in every cell of the body, including the brain.

"That's correct.”

"But there's a risk, with the amnio, isn't there?" Olivia persisted.

"There's a small risk, of about one percent or less, that a miscarriage can occur following an amniocentesis. However, in this case . . ." He trailed off, then started again, turning directly towards me. "You're already nineteen weeks, and if you feel you can't continue with the pregnancy, then the sooner you know, the sooner you can arrange for the termination.”

Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but I seemed to go through a thousand mood swings in a day, then. I sometimes hated Olivia, hated being around her, read sinister things into whatever she said. Sometimes I thought she wished that I'd lost the baby or had never got pregnant at all.

Sometimes I thought that I put such things onto Olivia when really they were my dreams.

At other times, I felt nothing but deep love and appreciated for who she was and everything she was to me at that time. She was the only person who ever saw my daughter and said that she was beautiful. We were close to each other during that time, both in the increased hours we spent together, and with the things we talked about. I had never been so close to anyone in my life, not a family member, certainly not a lover.

Sometimes I loved her so fiercely that I thought it was a gift. Something extra and unasked for, like the chromosome.

I remembered that feeling, later on, how amazed and frightened I'd been by it. That was the friendship of poetry and literature, that was Achilles' fury over Patrocles' death. It really existed, and it really was powerful, more powerful than anything I'd ever known.

When I went away, I forgot what it was like. I went back to some of the things I'd done before, meeting men because that was what you did, seeking out something indefinable that was supposed to be only found in romance. I'd feel the same slight buzz of sexual excitement, the flattery of someone being interested in me, the enjoyment of sharing laughter, sharing stories. It didn't last, mostly because there was always a limit to how much I was able to share. And it sometimes felt that there was something outside us, pulling us together, chemistry, pheromones, rather than choice. I'd like him because of his body, the colour of his hair, his eyes. He'd like my smooth skin, my face, my body. The rest came afterwards.

I came back and remembered that Olivia and I were true friends, and that meant choosing one another without a spark drawing us together in spite of ourselves. We didn't care about looks, there was nothing sexual about it. I liked who she was; she liked who I was. And most of all, she was there for the most significant parts of my life, and she didn't hold back, didn't protect herself. She was too busy protecting me.

I think that's why I had to come back. I knew that her child would mark the most significant portion of her life, and I couldn't not share it with her.

PART TWO

End of financial year, and we'd just posted a bigger profit than any of the previous years. I'd only been there three months, so I definitely couldn't take the credit for it, but it was still a buzz. I got a couple of undeserved congratulations, some nods, and backslaps, of approval from the rest of the guys at work, and a phone call from the top asking me whether I wanted to return to the city branch, and whether I was happy to accept a raise.

I arrived home a little later than usual, and pushed my way through the door, laden down with a bunch of flowers, from the floor staff who knew now there wouldn't be any cutbacks; a large box of chocolates, from the finance advisor who had stayed up late with me three nights in a row to get everything done; and Thai takeaway. Olivia was already at the door.

"You shouldn't have," she said dryly, snatching the bag with the food which balanced precariously from one of my left fingers. "Really, you don't need to say it with flowers.”

I grinned. "That’s what the chocolates are for. The flowers are just decoration.”

"I see." She set the things down on the long kitchen bench, and waited as I washed my hands and kicked off my shoes. "It's not your birthday, is it?”

"You'd know better than I would." Olivia always remembered things like that. "It's just the end of financial year, that's all. Things will slacken off a bit at work after this.”

I sat down at the table and began serving myself some rice. "I'll be able to help you get the room ready, if you like, now my weekends will be freer. I know you had some ideas about how you wanted to set it all up.”

"Mmm." Olivia poured herself a drink and sat down, resting her chin on her hands. "There's a problem.”

"Oh?" I swallowed a mouthful of chilli, and spluttered, grabbing at the jug of water in front of me. "Sorry, wait a moment . . .”

Olivia slid a glass over and waited, her expression unreadable. "I got a visitor today from Child & Family. They do these unscheduled drop-ins, you know.”

"That's sensible.”

"And so they discovered there had a been a change since our last meeting." She nodded over at my closed bedroom door. "Another adult in the house. Someone they didn't know about.”

I put my fork down. "Oh, hell. I didn't even think!”

"Either did I." She shook her head. "They'd mentioned changes in households, early on, but at the time I wasn't thinking beyond . . . well, beyond Tarek. I didn't even think about it, when you moved back in.”

It hit me suddenly that I was standing between her and her child. My presence in her life meant that maybe she'd never meet this baby she was hoping for, a baby who might already exist somewhere, somewhere out of reach but real. For a moment that child had a strawberry-shaped head and tiny curved fingers.

Olivia was looking over at the flowers on the bench. She'd shoved them in a vase, but there was some water dripping from the edge. I had no idea what she was thinking about, but for an instant I hated her. It would be very easy to make it hard for her, now. It would be very easy for it not to be fair for her, either.

"If I stayed on, they'd have to investigate me, too," I said slowly. "There'd be interviews, meetings. It would delay things significantly.”

"Well, it would delay things. I mean, it wouldn't be the huge process that I had to go through . . .”

"Unless they weren't happy with my background, of course," I said, keeping my voice light.

Olivia looked at me carefully. "They know about Amala, Hannah." My chest tightened unexpectedly, and surprised tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I swallowed.

"They asked me about my life, what I'd done, who I'd known, my experiences. How could I have answered any of that without talking about her?”

I moved my chair back with a screech, got up from the table and headed to my room.

My baby, my baby, my baby.

It was so horribly unfair. I didn't care how many years it was, I didn't care about reasons or answers or purpose or meaning. It wasn't right. It wasn't.

~*~

I was irritated at Hannah's reaction, and irritated at myself for being so impatient and unfeeling.

The Thai was still hot, though, so I served myself a plateful and began to eat, before the dripping water from the vase distracted me. I moved over to the sink and grabbed a sponge, cleaning up the mess. Too-perfect roses, with sprays of baby's breath - how appropriate. I wished I could throw the whole arrangement in the bin, but they weren't my flowers.

How I loved having Hannah around again. I liked her stupid jokes, her gullibility, her open pleasure when she'd completed some basic task like defrosting the refrigerator. After she'd left, I'd often turned to say something to her and found myself almost in tears when I remembered she wasn't there.

One of the things that connected me so closely to Tarek was our shared background. He knew what it was like to be a stranger in a strange land, the frustrations of trying to adapt to another culture and always being only a guest there. He'd seen some of the very sad things that I couldn't forget and couldn't mention - I didn't ever have to describe them to him, but he knew what I'd seen. He knew what it was like to be constantly putting a good face on things in order to reassure family and friends that decisions made were the right ones. We scarcely had to talk about Iraq, but it was there, whenever we were together - the fact that we alone knew.

Of course it was like that between Hannah and I. I couldn't talk about the baby I'd loved with anyone else. Nobody else had spent day after day wishing good morning to an unseen child whom you knew could be gone by afternoon. No one else had touched such miniature hands, no one else knew how precious such a tiny, tiny baby could look. She understood as no one else did how death really could be a release. She understood that you thought, every time someone you knew announced their pregnancy, that something would go wrong, and how you couldn't quite understand it when it didn't.

But even though I'd been there with her from the start, Amala had not been my baby.

So there was a distance between us, and maybe that distance was as great as that between me and my old schoolfriend, who'd never heard of poverty. There were some chasms that seemed just too difficult to cross. I wasn't the one who'd gone under anaesthetic, felt a baby being ripped out from within me - I never could, never would. But I'd gone as far with her as I could. Pregnancy and labour were something like death, in that people could accompany you part of the way, but at the end you had to go alone. It was a naturally lonely experience.

There'd always be so much we couldn't share. We'd had our entire childhoods before we'd met, and that whole life, almost a complete life, was cut off one from the other. I could hear her stories (I could see them lived out everyday in her careful separateness) but they could only ever be second-hand, as mine were to her. And had we been there? We weren't in one another's skin. There'd always be a distance, not a distance between two hands, but a distance of worlds.

~*~

I woke up feeling desperately hungry.

Blinking, I realised I must have fallen asleep in my clothes; I was hot, uncomfortable. I leant over and switched on my light, then yawned. It was three am, the time to wake up and contemplate life. Not generally a time to seek out leftover Thai.

I got rid of my uncomfortable clothes and slipped on a robe instead, then headed out to the kitchen. The flowers were no longer dripping, but the vase had been shoved into a dark corner. The table had been cleared, and when I opened the fridge I saw the chocolates lying neatly and unopened on a bottom shelf, with the Thai in a plastic container above them. I grabbed the food and emptied it out on a plate, then slid it into the microwave. The buttons sounded loudly in the quiet of the night.

"Is there enough there for two?”

I turned and saw that Olivia had padded out in her pyjamas, which consisted of a ragged men's shirt, with a pair of even raggedy shorts underneath. I grinned.

"More than enough," I said. "I don't think more than two mouthfuls are missing.”

"Three," Olivia corrected. "I started to eat, but I couldn't finish.”

She moved over and grabbed some plates and cutlery, setting them out on the table, with a jug of cold water and glasses. I nodded over at the vase. "I forgot you didn't like those set bouquets.”

"Oh." Olivia looked sheepish. "I didn't even realise I'd pushed them aside.”

"It doesn't matter; I didn't buy them, anyway.”

"Still. They were a gift to you." She picked up the vase and set it in the middle of the table, between us. When I got the hot food and served it out, and we sat down, we found that we were totally hidden from each other behind the mass of roses.

"Mmm, I think it's even nicer now," Olivia said with her mouth full.

"There's something about 3am hunger which spices up even leftover rice," I agreed.

We shovelled in a few more mouthfuls before dissolving into laughter. No matter how we tried, it was impossible to see anything apart from the huge vase overfilled with roses and baby's breath. Even attempting to reach for the jug of water was disastrous, the water teetering on the edge of the table.

"Let me do the honours," I said, getting up and upturning the contents of the vase in the bin. "I prefer daffodils, anyway.”

"I know.”

Sitting down again, I lifted my fork, then set it down again. "Sometimes I feel as sad as I ever did. I didn't mean that you shouldn't have told them about Amala . . . that wasn't why I left the room . . .”

"Oh, I understood that," Olivia replied quickly.

"I just hate that she is always in the past tense." My lip trembled for a moment.

"I hate it too," Olivia said, her voice unsteady.

"She should be in the present, with your child," I went on. "Your baby has been stuck somewhere in the future, not here, where you want it to be; and Olivia, I do too.”

I did. In spite of my moments of terrible envy, I wanted Olivia to be able to hold her child. There was no way I would even try to stop that happening, no way I'd ever hurt Olivia's chances.

"And I don't want to delay it, either," I said finally.

Olivia's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" She laid her fork down and looked at me carefully. "Don't even think of moving away again. I don't care if it takes longer than I expected. I don't want you to go back to the city.”

"They asked me yesterday to go back there, there was a position that had to be filled.”

"No.”

Olivia got up, cleared the dishes, turned on the tap and began to noisily wash the plates.

"It wasn't right that you left last time. Maybe you felt it was, but it wasn't, it wasn't, and it isn't right now." I could hear that she was crying. "I want you to be there when I get to hold my baby . . .”

I quickly got up and put my arms around her. Leaving the water to run, she turned into me, holding me close. "It's been so wonderful having you back. Please don't leave again.”

We stood in that way until we realised the sink had filled up and water was spilling over onto the floor. Jumping back, Olivia grabbed at the tap while I pulled the plug; then we spent until 4am cleaning up the kitchen floor.

I didn't make any promises, but I thought that it would be hard to leave again. One of the hardest things about leaving before a story unfolded was in the not knowing. I'd wanted everyday, in those five years apart from Olivia, to know what was happening with her, how she was doing, if she was all right. Whether her proposal had gone to the board and been accepted, whether she'd finished the huge jigsaw she'd been working on. If she'd ever mastered the difficulty of the chocolate soufflι. This time, it would be far worse.

~*~

I have - had - pretty bad screaming matches with Tarek, sometimes, but they were nothing to how I shouted at my family. They were the ones who were able to get me the angriest. I must have stormed out of the house at least a hundred time as a teenager, run away and stayed away a couple of times, too. I got so mad with Lena once that I tore out pages of her favourite book and flushed them down the toilet. Once I deliberately punctured both tires of Chris' motorbike. Actually, I remembered staying away from home a couple of days after that - I was scared what he was going to do to me.

I still shout at people in my family, when I get frustrated with them. It's always over the same thing, though. Their expectations, my life, the things I want to do with it. More specifically, it's Tarek.

Chris gets very, very, angry if he feels that Tarek has hurt me in any way - and of course, I appreciate that. What he doesn't understand is that it's almost always reciprocal. Once Chris rang me up and found me in tears, after another argument with Tarek. But maybe if he'd rung up Tarek, he'd have found him in exactly the same way.

My father sat me down once, and quietly explained to me that Tarek wasn't good enough for me. That there was only one way of someone showing their love, and that was in commitment. And if he refused to do that, well, he didn't love me, and the sooner I realised that, the better.

I don't think I spoke to him again for about a month. Probably his ears were still ringing, too.

I don't like having to explain myself to anyone. If I want to do something, that should be good enough for them! How could I say that Tarek was incredibly committed to me, that he had stayed with me for years and years and years? That he'd made it clear that if there was no child for me, there'd be no child for him, either. That the real problem was my own commitment, and having my own family continually arguing over it all didn't make it any easier?

Why didn't they ever argue about Hannah's commitment to me? Whether she stayed or left, that was her life, but she was my friend, my dearest friend! Why shouldn't the world tell her to stay with me, to stay committed to me? My family watched her in my life and never said anything. They appreciated my sadness, but they never questioned any of our decisions. I wanted someone else to see that it was wrong, that it should be different, that no matter how she hurt, she had to stay, because she loved me, and that was the only way someone showed love - by commitment -

But of course I knew they'd never say that because it was absurd. Whether Hannah stayed or left, I knew she loved me. And that was clear to my family, too, and to anyone. Everyone in the whole world knew that truth - that friendship was without commitment. You couldn't ask a friend to change their life to suit yours, although you could ask that of a lover. You couldn't ask a friend to make decisions different because of what you wanted. It didn't work like that.

Friendship was precious because it was so tenuous. It was always in the present tense. It was based on nothing apart from appreciation of the moment. A sister would always be a sister, whether you liked or hated her; but a friend only stayed a friend so long as you cared. After that - they had no special title. The person would just merge into the rest of the world.

I could ask Hannah anything I wanted, but I couldn't expect any response. I wanted her to stay, but she could do whatever she pleased.

~*~

After the weekend, I rang up Head Office and asked whether the offer was still open. It was, I was told. If I could make a firm decision within two weeks, they would be pleased.

I found out that Child & Family were also having another meeting with Olivia within two weeks, although that information had been hard to drag out of her. She said again and again that the delay of getting me screened as well would be nothing, not in the big picture. I'd only been able to find out the truth because I'd come home just as she'd gone to the letterbox to read the mail. She had the letter open, and I'd asked her a direct question.

"I don't want to tell you," she said.

I kicked the gate with my foot, made it swing gently to and fro. And I looked at her. I knew that she was helpless against direct questions, unlike myself. I was good at dissembling.

"The letter's from Child & Family. I can tell from the envelope," I said patiently. I set down my briefcase, tossed my keys from hand to hand.

"Yes, all right, it is, then.”

I nearly laughed at her sulky expression. She'd had the afternoon off, and was dressed in jeans and a shirt she'd obviously been painting in. Her feet were characteristically bare and she'd pulled her hair back severely from her face. "You've been painting the room?”

Her face brightened at the change of subject. "Yes, come and see.”

"You're not getting off so easily. That letter is about your next meeting, right?”

"Maybe," she mumbled, shifting her weight from side to side.

"And the date is?”

"Something or other.”

I waited, making the gate creak slightly until I could see it was setting her teeth on edge.

"It's the 21st, all right? Happy?”

"Perfectly," I replied, picking up my bag and coming into the garden. "Oh, just one other thing.”

"Yes? You'd like to read it yourself?" she snapped.

"No, I want to know about the letterbox.”

Olivia stopped then, and a slightly guilty expression flashed across her face. "Oh yeah. I got a new one.”

"I noticed that. I'm not quite sure why you got a bright green one, but . . .”

"It's heritage green, actually," Olivia retorted.

"This isn't exactly a heritage house," I argued, laughing. "Come on, I want to know what you did to the other one.”

"How do you know I did anything to it?”

"Because you would never have chosen that shade of green if you'd been in your right mind at the time.”

At that moment, the next door neighbours, a young couple who'd only been there as long as I had, turned up to check their own letterbox. "Are you two arguing again?" Than teased. "Listen, I'm sure Lin will be able to arrange some family therapy for you, if you like." Lin was a counsellor.

"Hah. If we stopped arguing, then we might need the therapy," I called back. "Listen, when are you two coming over for dinner?”

"Ah . . ." Lin began, then gestured for us to come closer. "We don't need to be shouting this all over the neighbourhood.”

We came round the front, Olivia complaining as the pavement was hot on her bare soles. I didn't say a word.

"We've actually put a deposit on a house near the river," Lin went on. "We've just put in our notice to leave here, it was only temporary, anyway, until we found a bigger place.”

"Oh, you're leaving?" Olivia said, disappointed. "Well, you'll definitely have to come over, then - if you've got time before you leave. Otherwise, once you've settled into your new place.”

"You've just put your notice in? Today?" I asked.

"That's right," Than confirmed. "And we'll definitely take you up on that offer for dinner, anyway. Well . . . if you tell us what you did with the letterbox. Now I'm curious.”

We all laughed - except for Olivia. "Well, it isn't a very exciting story. I just decided one day to put it in the bin, on rubbish collection day.”

"After going at it with a pair of wire cutters?" Lin observed. The letterboxes which came with the townhouses were fairly well attached to the fence.

"Ah . . . yes, after that," Olivia admitted. "At the time I wasn't keen on getting any letters." She hesitated. "I didn't realise that the council requires a letterbox on all houses, which is why I had to get that one in a hurry." She turned to me. "I don't think it's that ugly, though.”

"It's pretty bad," Than grimaced. "I mean, you must have just pointed at the first one you saw in the shop.”

Olivia's rueful expression confirmed that. I interrupted them by looking down at my watch, noticing it wasn't quite four-thirty, and announcing that I had to go.

"But you've just got home!" Olivia said, astonished.

I assured her I'd just forgotten something, and I'd be back, and I expected the three of them to have sorted out a time for dinner by then. Then I headed off, remembering that sometimes a choice could be made where not everybody lost.

~*~

I thought that Hannah was going to come back with a new letterbox - and secretly, I wouldn't have minded, either - but she'd forgotten about it by the time she had come back.

I could see that she was excited, she was alive, buzzing - she pushed open the door so hard that it swung with a crash against the wall, and then she kicked it shut behind her as she made her way into the kitchen. I looked up at her from the couch, as she dumped some shopping on the counter, and watched her putting things away energetically, humming all the while.

I hadn't seen her like that in a long time. Sometimes she was a lot of fun, when she was happy, and you could spend the evening laughing over some stupid movie, or going out doing something crazy. I wondered if she was going to try to get out of me the real story of the letterbox, because I was fairly sure she wasn't going to be satisfied with what I'd said. When she'd first moved back in, she'd pretended to look for burn-marks, and then suggested that something Tarek had written must have set it on fire. She wasn't far from the truth, in a way; it had been a letter he'd written which had made me go for the metal box with something a little tougher than wire-cutters, destroy it, and throw the whole thing away. Sometimes when I looked back at things I'd done like that, I wondered whether I wasn't more than a little crazy.

Hannah occasionally suggested as much, especially if I was the excited one. I'd grab her by the hand and pull her out to see something, not listening to any excuses, or I'd wake her in the middle of the night, because I just had to tell her something. I don't think she ever got that excited.

"So, what was your important errand, hmm?" I asked.

"I'm moving out," she said. Then she pulled out a few things from the fridge and began making dinner.

A heaviness settled in me, and I sat back. So she'd organised everything, then - she must have rung up the city branch and accepted the offer, thinking about it, making the decision, not really listening to our conversation with Than and Lin; her teasing perfunctory. And now that the difficulty of making the decision was over, she was satisfied, happy to be going back.

"Don't look like that, Olivia.”

"How am I supposed to look?" I bit back. "You're so - so happy -”

She put down her chopping knife and moved over to the couch. "I'm not going back to the city. I don't want to go back there.”

Relief shot through me. "Then?”

"You weren't listening, really, were you - not when Than and Lin were talking? You were too busy worrying about the letterbox story," she added, grinning. "They're moving out. The place next door is up for rent - or was, except I headed straight for the real estate agency, and got there just before it closed.”

I grabbed her hand. "I told you that you didn't have to move -”

"I don't want things to be harder for you," she answered seriously. "I'll just be on the other side of the wall, anyway. We'll be able to use the whole back yard for parties . . .”

I laughed, then, partly at myself for thinking she hadn't been listening. "All right, then. It's not a bad solution - you've forestalled the possibility of really awful neighbours moving in, anyway.”

"What, the kind who make official complaints to the council because your letterbox isn't regulation colour?”

"Don't you dare -”

She jumped back to the safety of her chopping knife in a hurry, finishing the salad while I worked on the news. Child & Family would be satisfied, and the extra room would definitely be handy. It wasn't a bad solution. Not the best - I still wished she could stay - but it would do.

~*~

I ended up going with Olivia to her next meeting with Child & Family, at their request. I had just moved out, and had been thankful for the raise, because I'd had to furnish the place. It was the other side of the townhouse, so it was an exact replica, in mirror image, of Olivia's place. Three bedrooms were a lot for one person, but I was fairly certain I'd fill them up with junk before too long. One guest room would be useful, when my parents came to stay, or an out of town friend, but two were rarely necessary.

Olivia had sometimes filled up the house with guests, with a couple of old school friends bedding down in the living room, a few university buddies sharing the spare bedroom, and one or two friends from her time in Iraq lying on mattresses in her own room. She had a wide circle, mostly because she kept in touch with people. She had friends from the area she'd grown up in, friends she'd made in the local area, especially while hiking. She had a massive extended family, some of whom would drop in unexpectedly. She was close to the people she worked with, as it was a small, tight-knit organisation. Parties that she hosted might have people aged from sixteen up to eighty-five, from all different walks of life and backgrounds.

My circle was far smaller. I was close to my two cousins, because I'd never had brothers or sisters myself, and they were the closest thing. Marianne and Lise would visit maybe once a year, or I'd go to their place in the mountains, and we'd stay up all night talking. I hadn't really stayed in touch with anyone from previous jobs, although I still talked to a few old school friends, who were just learning not to set me up with any man they happened to know. If I saw people frequently enough, like Than and Lin, I'd slowly become friends, although when it came to local people, Olivia generally knew them long before I did.

I'd got to know Olivia, and the fact that she was looking for a house-mate, because one of her friends had also been a friend of one of my workmates. At that time I'd gone out with the people I worked with fairly frequently, especially to drink on the weekends. I remember finding out, about a year later, that the pair of them had complained, had said they wished they'd never told me about the spare place. By then Olivia had set the house rules about bringing strangers back home, and I'd stopped drinking with the girls so much. And Olivia's friend had been jealous, because we'd grown close, closer than she and Olivia; and somehow that seemed unfair to her.

I thought about this as we drove into the city to the main office where the meeting would be held. I wondered if these people, too, would think we'd been a bad influence on one another. Sometimes it felt as though we hadn't chosen it, not any of it. At other times it felt as though we'd not only chosen once, but we'd had to keep choosing, again and again and again.

I knew that it was like that with Olivia and Tarek. Or it had been - she'd continually had to make the choice, every time they argued, whether to continue or to call it all off. But she told me once that it wasn't like that for Tarek.

I remember the conversation, actually. They'd had another screaming match and I think it had been late and I'd yelled out for them to shut up. Tarek had stuck his head round my door a few minutes later and apologised for the noise. He hesitated then, and then looked at me directly, with an almost severe expression, then nodded at me. Maybe he was nodding at my stomach. "I wish it hadn't had to have happened to you. Life can be a real bastard.”

I was so surprised I didn't say anything; and anyway, he disappeared almost as soon as he said it. I heard the door slam and I came out, and saw Olivia pacing up and down, her expression fierce. Usually I'd leave her alone, but I told her what Tarek had said and she stopped moving about and sat back on the couch instead.

"He can be a real bastard sometimes," she said at first. Then she sighed and closed her eyes. "It's so unfair. He's chosen me once, and that's it for him. No matter what, even if I went to Yemen and wiped out his hometown, he'd accept me, come back to me - shout at me but love me. But I have to choose him again every time.”

She opened her eyes again then and smiled at me. I wonder if she realised I was thinking that I had to choose her every time, too. But maybe for me, I was chosen, she didn't have to question me again. I did for her, though. Again and again, I did for her.

~*~

I was in a different part of the country altogether when Tarek looked me up the first time after Iraq. I was working on a very short-term project in a rural district, and staying in a tumbledown wooden two-storey building in the main street, a building as old as the town and even more dilapidated. It had once been a brothel, once a saloon, once a schoolhouse, and for many years the local post office, before being turned into a private home. I was renting it; it was the cheapest house on the street, and the one in the worst state of disrepair. Floral paper was peeling off the walls in the downstairs room, and most of the railings were missing in the stairwell. Mould had taken over the bathroom and declared victory, while the kitchen boasted about thirty years of ground-in dirt. I don't think I ever used it; I ate out the entire time I was there.

I think I tried to slam the door in his face when he first turned up, but the door wouldn't slam - in fact, it wouldn't even shut, but just swung gently open once again. Neither of us had moved position in the meantime, and we stayed where we were on either side of the door as it swung, deciding whether to open or close. In the end I think he came in and helped me fix the hinges on the thing.

I'd been there a couple of weeks, but as usual he found what there was to do in a town like that - a private rodeo later in the evening, a wild, insane, and utterly country experience. He also managed to discover the best place to eat and the best time to eat there, and where to dig up decent wine to drink with the meal.

A couple of days later when I found out the rodeo had been completely illegal and had broken several animal rights laws, I was furious. Furious with myself for so easily slipping back into enjoying time with him. I told him to get lost, that I'd only hooked up with him again because I was out of the city and bored, and to go find his criminal activities elsewhere. Of course, he shouted just as much as I did, but he eventually went - and because he'd fixed the door, he managed to slam it after himself, too.

The next time he found me I was in the city, working on a massively important program which I hated and loathed. He got me living again, then. We went out night after night until the whole project was finished and I could quit. I mostly remember being crazed with tiredness; going back to his place, lying on his couch and just watching him, barely able to talk. Before he'd come on the scene I hadn't been able to imagine any life outside the length of the project. He pulled me from my workplace and into the city, into the craziness of one nightclub after the other, dancing when I thought I could barely stand, eating starters, dinner and dessert at three different restaurants in a night. He used to come into the office at about six and stand outside the large window of my office, and look at me, waiting until I'd switch off the computer and come. I remember that he looked utterly different from anyone - from anything at all - in that sterile, pastel-coloured building.

He dragged me out one evening to a tiny square of ground in some corner of the town I'd never been before. There were big grey apartment blocks surrounding it, sickly looking trees, pot-holed streets, overflowing garbage bins. I think I raised an eyebrow at him, and said, "Nice.”

He grinned, grabbed my hand and said, "Come on!”

There was a huddle of men and women underneath the only tree around over shoulder height. They nodded at Tarek, exchanged a couple of words in Arabic or English, and ignored me. Then a lime-green mini pulled up, and everyone brightened and ran to it. A tall guy stuck his head out and shouted, "You're all here, then?”

"You're here at last, Rebwar! What, you couldn't find the way?" Tarek jeered, pulling open the back door, grabbing a bag from the seat.

The tall guy laughed, and managed miraculously to unfold himself from the front seat. "I thought you'd all be ready!”

At that, everyone began to strip. I wondered at that point exactly what I had got myself into.

In the middle of all this, the tall guy unzipped his bag and threw something out - a black and white ball. A small compact woman grabbed it from the air and then kicked it out onto the grounds. I realised that they'd been just stripping down to shorts and t-shirts - it was too cold, then, to be standing round half-clad - and that they were all there to play soccer. They shouted and yelled as they booted the ball from one to the other, loudly sorting out teams and basic rules. Someone ran to pile rocks into position to be goal-posts, another dug his heel into the earth to mark out the centre. All the while the ball was being kicked, or head-butted or kneed from one to the other, flying all over the scrap of land. Then the tall guy made an almighty kick from the far side of the ground, and the ball ended up heading straight for me.

I was in a tailored suit with a silk shirt, as I'd just come from the office, and totally unsuitable shoes. So there was nothing I could do. I just had to kick those shoes off and leap up to head butt the ball right back into the fray.

Tarek whooped and the short girl cheered and then a guy with a turban told me I was on his team. That suited me - it was the opposite to Tarek, and I could play against him with everything I had. It was a wild game, and I tore my suit to pieces, but it was worth it. I scored a goal which meant we just beat Tarek's team, and all the blisters in the world were worth that.

We all ended up at Rebwar's apartment after that, and all I can remember was an argument over whether the Greeks or the Arabs were more obsessed with soccer. For once Tarek actually suggested we leave - he was flying out early the next morning - because I was still going in my mudcoloured suit, at one a.m.

I finished that project about a fortnight later, and ended up sleeping for almost two days straight. Then I opened a newspaper, and discovered that the light planes Tarek had been employed to test were being sent out to the Pacific islands without proper approval, and everyone involved in the scheme was taking a good cut to get it done as quickly as possible without the authorities finding out.

I don't know how he got out of that one without a gaol sentence - possibly he managed to convince them he hadn't known about the scheme - but I do know that he stared at me without comprehension when I asked him how he couldn't care that people could well die from what he'd done, from what he'd been involved in. I think he just frowned a little, assured me it was just rules and bureaucracy he'd been avoiding, and he couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

I didn't give him any forwarding address when I took on the new project in Tariton the following week. I'd found the house that I wanted, the job that I'd wanted. The town that I wanted for myself. Tarek didn't fit any of it.

He found me, though.

I remember when I first saw him kick the garden gate open with his foot, stride up the path, lean on the door, press the doorbell with his open palm. I was sitting in the car on the opposite side of the road; I'd just come back from work. After that wherever I was in the house, when I heard him come I remembered that exact walk, the particular way he'd stepped into the yard. As though he was attacking, not me, but anything that was standing in the way of me.

I also remember the warring inside me as I watched him wait at the door. The dual sense of excitement and relief at seeing him; wariness and despair at myself, because I knew what I'd do before I did it.

But I didn't have to call out or get out of the car or open the door. He turned right around, deciding I wasn't there; then he looked out and saw me. He walked up, opened the passenger door of my car and sat down on the seat beside me. I remember thinking that he was wearing the exact same clothing he'd had on when I'd last seen him - the same black jacket and jeans, the same t-shirt with a stupid saying that I couldn't understand written across it.

"New car? It's not bad," he said. Then he dug his hand into his left pocket and drew out a piece of paper, tossing it over to me. "Updated details.”

It was the acceptance letter for a new job at a flight training school, and I pocketed it. I think I checked out later that it was bona fide and wasn't secretly training terrorist groups or flying weapons into North Korea.

"There's an - entirely legal - explosives demo on in about twenty minutes, north of Freya's Bridge.”

"So that's why you came?”

"No, I came to see you. If we head out now, though, we'll catch most of it.”

"And what makes you think I'd want to see that?”

"I heard they're blowing up a camel," he answered seriously.

I stared at him, and then began to laugh. "All right, then, if they're detonating camels -”

A camel turned out to be a technical term for a certain kind of explosive device, and I think that Tarek probably knew that too, but it was pretty cool anyway. We argued about it, and certain other points, most of the way back; and then halfway through I got really angry and stormed into the house and wouldn't let him in.

I watched him as he waited, sitting on the front gate, swinging it a little. Then he shrugged and turned to go and I realised I didn't want him to. I ran out and called his name just as he reached his car. He stopped and turned, looked at me.

"What do you want?”

I stood there and I couldn't answer him. I looked at him and I couldn't answer him. Eventually he shrugged again and turned. I swung an arm over the fence, pulled him back - grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him back to me.

"I want to know you - know you better than I do," I told him, staring right at him, still holding the back of his jacket. His face was still and wary, and only inches away from mine. "I want to know what makes me so angry about you, with you, with you -”

"Maybe you want to fuck me," he suggested, and his expression relaxed a little.

I gripped even tighter than I had before. "I don't want you to fuck me. I don't want that.”

He reached back to his collar then, and pulled my fingers off, keeping them within his hand. I watched my fingers in his hand, I watched my own hand trying to slip away but unable to help clenching on. "To be honest, I don't want to ruin your life, either," Tarek said finally. "I don't want to ruin anything about you." Then he lifted his free hand to my face, brought my lips to his, and kissed me.

It wasn't the first time he'd kissed me. But all the previous kisses had been laced with guilt or anxiety or uncertainty - on my behalf, at least. I hadn't been sure of him, but there, out on the street in Tariton, I was sure, sure enough to drop my clenching hand and lift my arms to embrace him instead. It felt good to be close to him again; closer, even, because we were finally able to admit the possibility that we could destroy one another, but we wanted to be together nevertheless. It was senseless and risky and foolhardy, but it was true.

Later on I watched him sleep and looked down at his body lying there and thought, this is it, this is it. I didn't want to think that, though, so I lay down to sleep myself, and contented myself with adding, for now.

~*~

I hadn't gone back to the city in quite a while, only once since moving my things out to Tariton. There hadn't been any real reason to do so; I had just wanted to sit alone in the park near my old apartment, to make sure I was really all right with going back, to see if I was feeling any sense of regret.

But while I had thought it might be too painful to go back to Tariton - I had wondered if the associations would be too much - it was actually the opposite. The city linked me to no one I cared about, nothing vital or important. But I saw streets that I had walked down in the middle of the night, unable to sleep for fear of nightmares. I saw the supermarket where I'd broken down publicly, the park where I'd nearly collapsed. There was nothing good or positive about any of the memories.

Olivia talked almost the entire way into the city, but I didn't always hear what she said. Every time I saw some landmark I could feel myself being glad that I didn't have to see it everyday. A bus stop, a street sign, a roundabout in the middle of the road. A store, a school, a medical centre. All of them reminding me of a broken time.

I was glad when Olivia finally pointed out the official building where the meeting would be held. The focus was now on the future not the past. Eventually all the landmarks would remind me of another day, the day I'd come with Olivia to find out about her child. That's what I'd remember. That was what was important.

~*~ No, it wasn't a problem, now that Hannah wasn't actually living with me. No, having a friend next-door was a lovely idea and would be an excellent help especially in the early days. No, there was nothing in the policies and procedures document about this. But - they still requested an interview.

I thought Hannah would mind - she had enough sense to know what kinds of things they'd ask about - but she accepted it without a word. I think she was half curious as well, about these people that I'd developed such a relationship with. I'd known the caseworker now for over a year. Fiona reminded me of Emma, my friend in Irbil. She was just as hearty and cheerful, just as determined to get things done. Very certain that the way she was planning to go ahead was, in fact, the only way.

Emma was still in Irbil, and we wrote, sometimes. She was the kind of person who wrote chatty mass newsletters at Christmastime, only mentioning the positive things that had happened with her work at Beit Amala. The rest of the reality of Irbil didn't really exist for her. So though we were friends, we weren't very close. She never got over the guilt of having introduced Tarek to me, even though I assured her we would have met again had she never held her party. She was utterly relieved when she discovered I'd finally broken off all ties with him.

I hadn't mentioned a great deal about Tarek to Child & Family, apart from the fact that I had had a long-term boyfriend at one stage, but that it had ended, and I didn't even know where he was at present. I think they assumed that he hadn't stuck around because I couldn't have his children. I didn't care that they thought badly of him unjustly; if I'd said more about him, they would have thought worse.

I'd said more about Hannah. I felt almost uncomfortable bringing her to them because I'd spoken to them about her, not ever dreaming that they'd actually meet her. I tried to recall everything I'd said, and spent most of the trip driving into the city telling Hannah all that I could remember. She didn't seem to care, though.

Fiona greeted us both warmly, offered drinks, biscuits, began with small talk about the traffic and pollution. I could see her watching us, eagle-eyed, at every comment, every gesture. She spoke a little about the International Adoptions programme and how it worked, for Hannah's benefit; she explained where the process was, right then, and how it was critical that everyone involved was ready, as the call could come at any time.

"Have you thought of any names?" she asked then, turning to me. "In some cases, parents decide to keep the name the child has been given, or to add it to another name . . .”

"I've looked up a few," I said non-committedly. As far as I was concerned, it very much depended on the name.

"The name you gave your little girl was lovely, I thought," she went on brightly. "Amala, wasn't it?”

Hannah tensed visibly. "That's right." I could see that she disliked having a complete stranger speak about her daughter as though she'd met her, had known her, knew anything about her.

"It's very unusual. How did you choose it?”

"I'd heard it, liked it," Hannah said in a low voice.

"Well, it's very pretty," Fiona said, finally realising that persisting there wasn't such a good idea. "As I say, everything - including names - should be ready, because you could hear that a child has been selected any day, and may have to leave at very short notice. I assume all your passport details are up to date?”

I promised that I was ready, as ready as I could be. Names were the least of it, though. The room, the things, none of that mattered. At the end, none of those things mattered; I knew.

~*~

I think I remember a slight thrill of excitement when I hit thirteen weeks. Excitement, nervousness, panic. I was beyond the "risk" period. The doctor had definitely informed me that 30% of women have a miscarriage at some stage, that it could happen in those early weeks of pregnancy. After that it was less common, I didn't have to worry.

At sixteen weeks I felt for the first time that particular thrum inside that indicated the baby was moving. So then, it wasn't just a pregnancy. Not simply something that had happened to me. There was the possibility that was turning into a reality, that next year I would have a child. It was just on the edges of my imagination.

Then at eighteen weeks, just as I was noticing with a certain panic the slight bump that was my stomach, everything changed.

I had planned to be ready for the child long before it was born, had planned to take leave a month before my due date, had planned to spend time on clothes and nursery furniture, had planned to learn about all the things I would need to do to care for a baby. I was organised at work, organised in my life.

I remember one day being surrounded by lists; I think it was just a few days before my ultrasound, and the upcoming appointment had reminded me of all the things I had to do. I was sitting on the floor of the living room, paper around me, in near panic, when Olivia came in.

She took in all that she saw in a second. Then she came over to me, sat down, and deliberately took the pencil out of my hand.

"This baby will come without any of this. It will come without clothes. It will come without a bed, without a mattress or sheets. It will come without a plate, spoon, cup, bib, or high-chair. It will come without a pram and without any toys. Whether you have a child safety seat in your car or not, it will come.”

I let her take away the pencil and the scraps of paper that surrounded me. Nameless, naked, without a single possession apart from myself; that was how the child would come, as every child came. My labour wouldn't wait until the cradle was set up in the nursery. My pregnancy wouldn't go on and on until I'd stockpiled enough baby suits to last out the season. Whether I was ready or not, the baby would come.

About two weeks after the ultrasound, Olivia and I found ourselves waiting outside the obstetrician's office for an appointment which we had made about two months earlier. I hadn't wanted to go, but OIivia bullied me into it. I didn't know why she was so desperate to see the doctor, but I gave in. I gave in easily in those early weeks, because I was sad and tired. I hated my body, hated my pregnancy, and I could only get through day after day by pretending that I wasn't pregnant at all. It didn't work in the clarity of three am, but for most of the time it was fine. I think that was why I didn't want to see the obstetrician.

He was a busy man, it seemed; we waited an hour before being ushered in by a harried-looking nurse. I saw him scanning my file, frowning.

"Why have you decided against an amniocentesis?" he asked.

I was taken aback by the comment, expecting at least an introduction.

"There's no need. It's been confirmed by four specialists," I said finally.

"That's no confirmation. You need a chromosome analysis, to be absolutely sure," he threw back quickly.

"I'm sure.”

He shrugged, then, as though he couldn't be bothered wasting time on the argument.

"Are you going to schedule the termination, then? You're quite far along, so the sooner -”

"If I'd wanted to do that, I would have brought it up myself," I interrupted him, starting to feel the slow boil of anger at the man.

"You realise that Trisomy 18 is incompatible with life? You'll either miscarry, or have a still-born baby. Why would you choose that?”

Olivia moved her chair slightly in front of mine. "Will carrying this baby to term harm Hannah in any way? If the baby comes early, or if she suffers a miscarriage, will that be endangering her life?”

I understood, then, why Olivia had wanted to come to this appointment. She blurted out the words as though she'd been rehearsing them for a week.

The obstetrician opened his mouth, almost spoke. "Well, there's always a danger - that is -" He faltered under Olivia's stare. "There's a danger in any birth procedure," he snapped. "I couldn't say that carrying the baby would be more dangerous, no, but there is a possibility, of course.”

The strained look left Olivia's face, and she sank back in her chair.

"However, I have to say I dislike seeing hospital facilities being wasted on hopeless cases," he went on. "Labour rooms, perhaps the operating theatre if you need a C-section, and the neonatal unit - it's a criminal waste of time and effort. Attempting to save a severely deformed baby is an unnecessary burden on our already stretched health services . . .”

"If you're so concerned about your health services, perhaps you'd better start by reforming them first," I began, but I was angry that I began to shake, and I got up, knowing that I was about to burst into tears. I saw the obstetrician open his mouth in order to claim my tears as his victory, but he hadn't reckoned on Olivia.

"Oh, I know you," she purred, pushing her chair close to him, pushing her face very close to him. "You're one of those doctors who really enjoy the whole power play, aren't you? But you hate that you have to stand by and watch someone giving birth because in the end, there's only so much you can control. Now and again you get your kicks, telling someone to do something, watching them snap to and do it. Well, fuck you. Today's not that day.”

The obstetrician's mouth hung open. Suddenly he looked very small in his chair.

"No, today's the day we remind you you're here to deliver babies, not to get out of delivering them," Olivia murmured. "Today's the day you regret harassing women for wasting your time by having a child under less than perfect circumstances. Oh, now you're starting to remember. People are coming to you in situations of extreme distress, and you're giving them - what? Understanding? Support? No, you're telling them to clean up their mess and shut the door after them. Isn't it a pity people dare to get pregnant at all - hospitals would really run far more smoothly without the patients to overload them." Olivia smiled a frightening smile, and I saw the obstetrician shudder. "We're going to make things messy for you, Doctor. We're going to make them very messy indeed.”

The obstetrician probably had a hell of a job cleaning up his files after Olivia dumped the entire drawer over his table. As for me, I was very, very grateful to that obstetrician. In a single meeting he moved me from denial to anger.

~*~

There's books out there with "week by week" pregnancy guides. What your child will look like inside, what your body is doing, what you might be feeling emotionally, what preparations you need to make at each stage.

There's none of that though for a mother who is carrying a child, knowing that she will probably lose it. Should she still worry about not drinking, avoiding caffeine, taking vitamins? Hannah had had big plans for listening to particular classical music pieces (although I'd scoffed at her for that, because she didn't like the music herself and I thought the dislike would probably be hereditary). She had chosen a few storybooks which she thought would be nice for a baby, with a plan to read them regularly out loud, so the child would be soothed by the sound when it was born.

For the first few weeks after the ultrasound, Hannah was quite lost. She would change the channel on the television if there was a story or even an advertisement which had a baby or pregnant mother. She wouldn't read the newspaper for the same reason. I even saw her cross the street when she realised a heavily-pregnant woman was coming towards her. Later she told me of the horrible, sudden hatred that she would feel upon seeing or hearing of someone else’s' pregnancy. When she saw another woman with a child, she'd find herself cursing them, and hating herself in the same moment.

My initial worries were for Hannah's physical health. When the obstetrician allayed those, as unwilling as he was, I was utterly relieved.

A few days after the obstetrician's appointment, Hannah mentioned casually that she'd decided to get the amniocentesis after all. I think I was astonished, but I remember trying to respond as casually as she herself. I didn't know what that meant, whether she had thought about what the obstetrician had said about hospital services and had come around to his idea. It seemed unlikely.

She was able to schedule the test almost immediately, and we went in together to get it done. For some reason she had to get another ultrasound - I don't think Hannah had felt the baby move for a day or two - and I remember when Hannah asked the technician to confirm that she was having a girl, he stared at her and snapped, "I can't see how that's relevant.”

Shortly after I had finished with him he had cause to reflect on the relevance of his own remark.

A different doctor arrived to take the fluid for the test. It would be a good ten days wait, he warned, for the result. I remember him looking at us almost sadly; he had already seen the ultrasound images.

Hannah seemed very distracted during that time. She was always either at work, or at her computer in her room at home. I assumed she was working hard on the end of quarter reports that she'd mentioned earlier. I did notice, however, that she was taking her vitamins, was abstaining from alcohol and caffeine, was eating plenty of fruit and vegetables. She was definitely listening to the classical pieces she'd planned on earlier, because I heard the strains of orchestral music coming from her room.

We went into the doctor's office to get the results. I could tell - perhaps Hannah could, too - what the scrap of paper said before he showed it to us. It was written clearly on his face, in his eyes. There were three chromosomes, instead of two, in the eighteenth position. The extra chromosome was in every cell. It was most definitely Edwards syndrome.

"It's late, but we can still schedule a termination," the doctor went on. "There's no reason why we couldn't schedule it for tomorrow, in fact." He opened up his book.

"Yes, there is," Hannah said.

"Are you busy?" He hadn't looked up to see her face.

"Yes, I'm a little too busy to spend the day killing my baby," she said tightly.

His head snapped up immediately, and red spots appeared in his cheeks. "I think I'll just get the Geneticist - she's along the corridor - perhaps you don't quite understand -”

Both Hannah and I got up then. I stood in front of her, and I looked down at the doctor, a tight smile on my lips. "No, perhaps you don't understand. My friend has made herself quite clear, I think. Are you going to persist, or are you going to write clearly in her file that she is carrying her daughter and that no further references to termination will be accepted?”

He spluttered a little, but I refused to back down, and stared pointedly as he wrote the remark I had suggested in the file.

When he'd done, I discovered that Hannah had already left the room, that she was standing in the corridor, her eyes closed, her head leaning back against the wall. I called her name softly, and she looked at me, then reached out a hand to clutch mine. She wasn't crying, although her eyes were bright with tears.

"Thank you. Thank you so much.”

I pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm so sorry.”

We stayed like that for a while, but then she pulled back, and laughed a little. "I think we're going to run out of doctors, at this rate.”

"Oh, I doubt you'll have any further problems," I said smoothly, already thinking up a new remark for future pushy doctors. "They're going to be on our side, after this." I'd make sure of it.

"As long as you are, Olivia," Hannah said quietly.

~*~

It was a lot easier after the amniocentesis. The obstetrician had pushed me into anger, and the doctor who did the amnio pushed me into certainty. I began to read a lot about Edwards syndrome on the internet, and I began to think a lot about the time that I had already had with my child, how much she'd changed me already.

There was so much to read. Plenty of personal stories, advice, and photographs of tiny, beautiful babies. Scientific studies and overviews, as well; summary pages, case studies. I searched the pictures as though I was trying to find out which one was my own baby. I could see a clear difference between what was said again and again on the medical summary sites "this syndrome is not compatible with life" and what the stories revealed - that the babies who didn't know such a thing defied it all the time.

There seemed to me to be so many stories of life. Ten percent of ten percent was a pretty small number, so I wondered if it was still true. Maybe before, when heart operations were more difficult. Maybe before, when they didn't try so hard, when they didn't care so much. I was certain it was different, now.

One mother said she didn't know what to do with her living child after preparing so long for her death.

I tried to get in touch with a few people who had children still living with Edwards syndrome. They lived too far away from where I was, sometimes in a different continent altogether, for me to visit. A few of the email addresses were no longer valid, although I got a reply from one or two. I sensed that they were very busy from their replies, as most of them referred me to their sites.

I did, however, get in touch with one woman, who had lost an infant of eighteen months to Trisomy 18. She told me that the doctor who had been there for her at her child's birth was moving his practice to our area, fairly soon. This doctor had been entirely sympathetic and accommodating, through her pregnancy and during the birth. She'd written out a birth plan with him, and he'd gone through it with all the staff at the hospital, so they all knew that it was going to be different. And it was, because her baby lived, lived for a long time. I wasn't quite clear on how she died, and I didn't ask. But I knew it was possible to live.

So I stopped worrying about whether there was any purpose in the preparation, knowing I was being altered each day by the time I spent with my daughter. I remember Olivia laughing when she heard of my plan to listen to classical music each day with the daughter, because I'd read somewhere it was good for babies. She laughed because I generally loathed that kind of music, and she couldn't see how I would be able to sit through it for more than one session.

But I learned to love Brahms. I think I listened to his Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor at least thirty times, from beginning to end. I loved the storms in it; I loved the peace that followed.

I know she was dumbfounded when I gave up my morning coffee, was astonished that I was able to do it. She was so surprised that she began to skip it herself, and I saw that my daughter was changing Olivia, too.

Although the baby didn't move much - apparently babies with Trisomy 18 were quite still - she made her presence known enough, enough to remind me all day that I wasn't alone. My body changed day by day, and not just in shape. I had always been tense, had moved quickly, made hurried decisions. At work especially, I was always on edge. That altered, while I was pregnant. Maybe because I cut out caffeine, maybe because, for the first time ever, I stopped drinking. I think it was also because I stopped caring. It didn't matter so much now if my report arrived in the afternoon, rather than the morning, or if my secretary was half an hour late. The work would be there tomorrow, just as it always had been, whether I tapped my foot irritably beside the photocopier or not.

And at the end of the day I'd realise that I'd spent another whole day with a living baby, who didn't know that she had something termed incompatible with life.

Olivia had already begun the habit of wishing my daughter, along with me, a good morning, and she continued to do so, at first self-consciously, and then in the same way I did, glad that there was another morning with her, another day with her.

"I'm looking forward to meeting her," I said suddenly one evening. We were out on the back porch, out in the quiet dark.

Olivia looked at me, and said carefully, "I've enjoyed knowing her, these few months. Even if that is all we have.”

I remembered then what Olivia had told me about her friend Emma, about her work in Iraq. Occasionally she handed over a newsletter that summarised Emma's work at Beit Amala. She had warned me not to believe everything in it. Not that it wasn't true, but all the bad bits were cut out. That Emma liked to be positive, that was how she got through a lot of the things she had to do, had to see. And that people who donated money liked to hear positive things, to feel that giving their money was worthwhile.

Olivia felt that telling only half of the story was near to lying. But I understood it. I understood why Emma's organisation was called "house of hope". I knew what was the name of the other half, the untold half. It was despair. It was a hollow, dirty, cold place, a shack where the wind howled through continually, and you couldn't think or move. She chose to live in a different house, and I understood that; I understood why.

~*~

It had been a long, long, week. One of my colleagues, whom I had known for many years, had resigned, accepting a job that was better-paid but less rewarding in other ways. We were both devastated. A proposal that we'd both worked hard on came back, with a curt rejection, just after she'd packed her things in a box and left. It was a horrible end to it all.

When I got home, Hannah was already there, sitting in our big armchair, reading from a stack of loose papers. I realised that she'd been home before me every day that week, which would have previously been unheard of. She looked up at me and smiled as I came in, and I felt a stab of love for her. Dropping my bag, I grabbed a drink and lay on the couch opposite her, a cushion over my head.

"What are you reading?”

Hannah smiled, and waved the sheaf of papers in her hand. "It's not work stuff, don't worry.”

"Good.”

She scanned the paper in front of her, then looked up at me. "You know, practically everyone has said 'Trisomy 18 is incompatible with life.' Did you realise there are adults, people who have grown to adulthood, who have it?”

"No -" I sat up, confused. All I'd heard was that the baby would die. "You mean, it's like Down syndrome? There are people out there with this syndrome?”

Hannah faltered. "Well - not quite like that." She paused. "I mean, there's a couple of case studies of adults, who survived." She dug through her papers. "I've found a few websites, there's people with children who are still alive. The heart can be fixed, you know, the VSD.”

"The kidneys?”

Another pause. "I don't know.”

I moved beside her and began reading through the papers. They were mostly print-outs from various websites, people who'd had a child with Edwards syndrome. It almost always was in the past tense. She was right - there were a few children who had survived. They were the rare ones, who had made it through the first hurdle, and were actually born. Ninety percent of the babies weren't. And then they made it through the second hurdle, surviving their first year. Ninety percent of those alive at birth were not alive a year later. So the little ones who were still with their families a year later were very, very rare. They had all had a lot of operations, a lot of close calls. But Hannah was correct. It wasn't incompatible with life.

After that I read everything Hannah gave me to read. I wondered how she could read so much, how she could read it all and yet go on. Every word saddened me. All the stories began with loss of hope, with utter grief and anger and disbelief. They were awful stories, and they reminded me of someone who woke to discover, morning after morning, that she had significant brain damage and could only recall a day at a time. Every morning beginning with horror and tears.

She told me about someone she'd got in touch with, who'd given her the details of a doctor who had experience in this area. I was utterly relieved with that, as after the experiences with some of the other doctors, who'd alternately been embarrassed and awkward, or cold and distant, I'd wondered how we would get through the next few months, how we would get through labour and whatever was beyond. Sometimes I wondered how I could support Hannah alone in this. It seemed impossible to me.

Usually I'd waited until my family descended on me, but the weekend after the amniocentesis I went into the city to visit them myself. I'd already told them about Hannah's pregnancy, and had told them about the ultrasound and what had followed. I was usually on the phone to at least one of my brothers, my parents or my sister each week; the news went around the family pretty fast. I think they decided fairly quickly that one of their usual early Saturday morning surprise visits wouldn't really be appropriate any more.

I don't know if Hannah updated her own family so frequently. They knew she was pregnant; she'd told them after she was three months, told them the due date. I remember she went quietly into her room after that conversation and didn't come out for a long time. Whether they knew about the baby having Trisomy 18, I wasn't sure. I'd never met her parents, myself, although I'd met her cousins; her parents didn't do surprise visits. They were too busy, apparently.

When I went to do my own surprise visit I took some of the things Hannah had given me to read. It was mid-morning by the time I arrived; my mother rushed around ringing everyone and harrying them into bringing things for lunch. She sat me down at the big table in the middle of the kitchen, setting cake and coffee before me, and then continued with her preparations. My father sat down with me and looked at the printed sheets I'd brought.

"How terribly sad.”

I liked it when people voiced your own thoughts, especially when it was hard to say them yourself. My father was good at that; he was used to me bursting into tears of anger or sadness, and knew the best way to head it off was to say what I felt.

"It is. It is terribly sad.”

My father shuffled some of the pages. "Has Hannah made up - what is it called, a birth plan? Where they decide what is going to happen, when the baby is born?”

"Maybe if this doctor comes, he'll help her do it," I said. "I brought it up once, but - she told me not to talk about it anymore. I can understand why, I suppose." I hesitated. "Tarek warned me, right at the beginning, on the very first day -" my eyes filled at the memory - "not to pretend, not to hope that things would miraculously turn out differently. I've tried to tell her that, but . . .”

My father cleared his throat, as he always did at the mention of Tarek; but my mother stopped rushing around the kitchen and sat down at the table with us.

"You need to decide what kind of friend you're going to be to her. She doesn't have much family, or many friends, does she?”

"I don't think I can be everyone to her," I whispered.

My father covered my hand gently. "One good friend is better than a hundred others who don't care. She's a grown woman, Olivia . . .”

I brought my hand to my head, covering my eyes.

"You want to take it all on yourself, but there's no way to make it easier for her, not really," my mother said slowly. "The end of it will be terrible, no matter what. Whether she pretends or doesn't, it'll have the same outcome. All you can do is be there for her, be who you are, as you are.”

Suddenly I wanted Tarek. I stayed for the onslaught of family at lunch, then headed off shortly afterwards, driving out to the flat he was living in near the airport. He looked surprised to see me; I didn't often come out to his place. But he was more than willing to help me forget, to remind me what was real, present, tangible, alive. I didn't talk about any of it then with Tarek. He had always had to be pragmatic to survive, leaving people and places without a backward glance, taking chances and accepting the consequences. Abandoning lost causes.

I didn't think I could ever be like that.

When I got home I found Hannah alone, flicking channels on the television, her face looking somewhere else altogether. I sat down beside her, gently took the remote from her hand.

"Those doctors never were right, Hannah," I said softly. "She's living with you, you know. Probably that's all she'll have, but she's alive, and comfortable, and surrounded by love.”

Hannah turned to me almost pleadingly.” She could make it. She really could. Every year there's more possibilities for these children . . .”

I felt my eyes fill with tears. "Even with the pulmonary artery not taking the blood to her lungs? Even with the apnea, the respiratory problems, the VSD, the kidneys not formed correctly? Even then?”

"I don't know!" Hannah almost screamed.

The room grew very silent.

"Don't hope. Please, please don't hope," I said quietly. I reached over and turned her face to look at me directly. "Please, please, love her as she is now, please don't hope, it will destroy you, please, please . . ." I began to sob, but I continued to plead anyway. "Please Hannah, please don't hope.”

She began to cry with me, but she didn't turn away. She kept looking as she cried, looking at the tears falling from my eyes as I looked at hers.

"I want her to live, Olivia," she whispered. "I want her to live so much.”

~*~

I got a phone call not long afterwards, and I was able to make an appointment with the doctor for the very next day. I wasn't sure whether Olivia would be able to come with me, but she cancelled one meeting and moved another one and was able to go with me to the hospital at ten the next morning.

We waited only a few minutes outside his room. Then the door opened, and a tall, thin man, with a shock of grey hair springing out from the top of his head came out, moving from his toes to his heels in almost a bounce. He stepped forward as soon as he saw us, and extended his hand. "Hannah, Olivia? Glad to meet you at last. I'm Dr John Terr, yes, please call me John. Come in and sit down.”

His casual warmth relaxed me at once. We sat down and I saw he already had my file with the ultrasound pictures and all the information. He quietly reviewed what he'd learned from my file, and asked me whether there was anything he'd missed, anything else we wanted to add. After that there was a quick examination, and he assured me that there was still a good heartbeat.

"She is a little smaller than a baby without Trisomy 18, but she's still growing which is the main thing," he went on. "You feel her moving around?”

"Not all the time, but yes, sometimes it feels like she's going at gymnastics in there," I answered, and he laughed.

"That's going to get worse when there's less room in there for her; she'll be doing gymnastics on your bladder, then," he promised.

It felt almost unbelievable to be having an ordinary conversation with a doctor about my pregnancy. It felt like I'd gone back in time several months, before the eighteen-week ultrasound, when I was still complaining about morning sickness and backache.

Olivia sitting beside me looked more relaxed as well. I think she'd come prepared to defend me again if she had to, but now she was accepting John as friend not enemy. He spoke a little about what days he would be working, and what further appointments we should make. Then he looked down at the file again.

"There's one other thing," he said, turning a page. "Have you chosen your daughter's name yet?”

I loved that he asked, so I answered without thinking. "It's Amala, actually - will that go in the file?”

"Of course; and it's a beautiful name," he said, writing it down.

I only remembered afterwards that I hadn't told Olivia first.

~*~

Amala.

The doctor smiled, thought it was a pretty name, I think he said something like that. I was amazed at how much it hurt to hear him say it.

After our conversation, when I'd begged her not to hope any longer, Hannah hadn't talked much about the future. She hadn't given me anything else to read, she hadn't spoken of maybes. I'd thought . . . I'd thought that despite what my parents had said that there could be an easier way.

I knew where she'd got the name from, of course. Beit Amala, house of hope. When she said the word I'd thought for a moment that she was saying it just as a dig at me, just as a way to finally say no to everything I'd asked of her. But she wasn't looking at me, she was answering a question. Her daughter had been Amala in her head for a while.

We waited for the doctor to write it down, close the file, confirm our next appointment, show us out. All the time, walking out the door, walking down the corridor, finding the lift . . . all that time I was readjusting things. All I could think was that it was becoming like my relationship with Tarek. I couldn't be true to myself and entirely true to Hannah, either. She wanted so much to pretend that it was going to be all right in the end. She knew her little girl, now, and so did I; I greeted her each morning, sometimes laid my hand on Hannah's stomach and felt her move. But Hannah went further. She thought of first steps, first words, kindergarten, school. I knew all of that and I felt cynical and heartless for not being able to think of those things too. It was impossible for me. It was like trusting someone that I knew was evil. No matter how much easier it would be to believe that he had a human heart, I couldn't pretend that it was true.

We found the set of lifts and waited there, watching the numbers light up. It arrived empty, and Hannah sighed with relief, leaning back against the wooden bar inside.

"These things should have seats," she grumbled, closing her eyes.

"Then there'd be no room for the wheelchairs," I answered abstractly, selecting the right floor. I couldn't understand why large buildings were never labelled simply one to ten or fifteen or whatever. The lowest five always had special names that never gave you a clue as to where the car park lay. "So - Amala, huh?”

Hannah opened her eyes, then. "Yeah.”

I made my decision quickly. I'd be there for Hannah no matter what choices she made, but I'd never lie to her, never pretend for her. Otherwise I would be untrue to us both.

"I'll have to tell Emma; I think she was the one who chose the name "Beit Amala" for their organisation," I replied. "I thought John was a good man, by the way. I think he'll be there for us, no matter what.”

"Oh, yeah -”

But she looked disappointed.

The closer I got to the day of the birth, the more I withdrew from everyone around me. Sometimes I thought that I was going to die on that day. Sometimes I thought the world would end.

I had written a birth plan, with some input from the doctor. I chose to have a caesarean, because it was less risk for Amala that way, even if it was slightly more risky for me. I wanted medical intervention from the start if she wasn't breathing; I wanted her transferred to the NICU immediately. I wanted her to have every possibility of life. I would give her every chance.

Dr John was great. He had a meeting with the staff of the maternity unit and talked to them about Trisomy 18 and what it might mean. He went through my birth plan, explained what I wanted to happen.

I'd thought about transferring to a larger hospital, with a bigger neonatal unit and perhaps more experienced staff. But I knew that I wouldn't get any control in a big bureaucratic hospital. I knew that my daughter would be lost in miscommunication and tired, uncaring staff.

I went through the plan with Olivia as well, and she booked leave for the entire week. She also promised me that she'd be there with Amala as much as she could while I was in recovery. I told her what I wanted - aggressive medical intervention - and she nodded, and went through each possibility carefully. IV fluids if the baby was born unable to suck, or with a disconnected oesophagus. Pain relief before any intervention. Oxygen. Early surgery if that was necessary. It was an utter relief to be able to trust in Olivia's loyalty, to know that she'd fight to the death for me.

I grew quieter, calmer in the last few weeks. Each day I'd wake and greet Amala; get out of bed and pad sleepily to the shower, often bumping into Olivia, who'd lay her hand on my belly and wish Amala a good morning. I'd come in late to work and leave early; and a month before the date we'd set for the caesarean, I took indefinite unpaid leave. I found an old book I'd loved as a child and I read it out loud each day. She didn't often move much, but I often felt her jump slightly when I began the story, as though settling down to enjoy it.

We didn't eat out any longer. I had time to cook for Olivia when she got back after work; at that time she was very busy, I remember. She'd collapse on the lounge and close her eyes in exhaustion as soon as she got in the door; mostly she was content to listen as I talked to her, about my simple, meaningless day. Once she looked at me with a funny smile on her face and said, "Do you remember what I wished for you, once?”

I had to think back, think back to the day I was on the floor of my bedroom, blank, empty. "I remember," I said.

I still don't know exactly what she meant by that. Did she mean that it had come true, that I was no longer that woman - that I didn't have to pretend to fall in love anymore? I didn't need any of that anymore.

Or, sometimes I wonder this, did she still have the same wish for me. Did she wish I didn't have to do it anymore, what I was doing then, carrying a child who was going to die, storing up incredible heartbreak for myself, pretending still.

Maybe it was both.

~*~

I grew both seriously concerned about Hannah and amazed by her in those few last weeks before Amala's birth. I was horribly worried about her, especially when she told me she'd chosen a caesarean, which I knew was more dangerous than an unassisted birth. I used to wake up and go to her door and watch her sleeping, in stupid, terrible fear. I looked up the statistics, reminded myself how common the procedure was, secretly rang up the surgeon who was the one most likely to do it and harassed him until he told me exactly how often he'd done the surgery before.

But I was also honestly amazed by her. I was amazed by her calm, by how beautiful she was, how much she was truly enjoying the last weeks of her pregnancy even though she was tired and awkward and uncomfortable. I was awed by her happiness.

I cried a lot, then, although Hannah was the one with the hormones and the one who should have been crying. But she didn't cry very often. I remember sitting outside on the back porch with Tarek and crying and crying, because Hannah was so happy.

Tarek was so used to me crying that he never asked me why. He wasn't embarrassed by the tears, but he knew if I wanted to tell him, I would, in my own time. He very rarely gave me any advice if I told him the cause of my sadness - a characteristic which I appreciated enormously. It also meant that on the few times when he did advise me I listened. He didn't ask me much about what was happening with Hannah, but he did tell me to call him once Hannah went into hospital. He knew enough about what was going on, but he didn't have much to say about it. There was little to say. Once he asked me whether I thought Hannah hated me for the things I was saying and I had to tell him honestly that I didn't know. That maybe she did.

I had stuck to being true to Hannah and true to myself as well. I never criticised any decision she made; I never even questioned her choice to have a caesarean, for example. But I couldn't go along with some of her fantasies. Dr John had, for example, recommended she talk to some people from the Early Intervention playgroup, as well as some people from Palliative care, and she'd balked at both. She'd talked all the way home in the car, saying that it was presumptuous to suggest that she'd need Early Intervention without having met her, to plan how she'd die before she'd barely had a chance to live . . . and I let her talk. Then I stopped the car, but waited a moment before getting out.

"Dr John isn't making any presumptions, Hannah," I said slowly. "We know that Amala has Trisomy 18. We don't know all that will mean for her, but we know part of it. We know she's going to be born with significant disabilities, and we know she may not live very long. John's suggestions aren't based on stereotypes or outdated ideas. You need to decide for yourself whether you want to follow his suggestions, and I'll support whatever you choose. But they're not stupid ideas, because John isn't stupid.”

She looked at me as though she was searching for something, and couldn't find it. Then she got out of the car.

Once she saw a programme about the local schools, and she began talking about which was closest to the house, which had better facilities, a better reputation. It made me so sad; sadder when she asked me what I thought.

"I wish Amala could grow up and go to school," I said quietly. "I hope I'm wrong, and she will - but I think that we'll only have her for a short time, and we need to enjoy her now, and not make it harder.”

"Harder?" she asked me, her voice cold, dark, horrible. "Harder?”

Maybe she was right, and there was no way it could get any harder.

~*~

I had planned the day I wanted the caesarean, but it was scheduled a little earlier, in order to fit in with both the surgeon and anaesthetist. I'd gone in to see Dr John the previous day, and I'd heard Amala's heartbeat and felt a slight kick.

He reminded me that Amala might not breathe on her own; he went through the birth plan again, talked a bit about what she might look like. He asked me whether I was going to watch the caesarean - I'd get a spinal block - and I said that I would. I'd imagined it all clearly, everything that would happen that day, the next day, the day after that. She had got through the first ninety per cent. That was all I could think about.

~*~

I took Hannah into the hospital about half an hour before the time they'd suggested; we ended up waiting about two hours because there had been an emergency caesarean. Apparently they'd lost the heartbeat of a baby during labour. He lived, though, we found out afterwards.

~*~

I felt sick when I saw the needle for the spinal block, especially when they told me not to flinch when it went in, as I could be risking permanent spinal injury. Then I felt horribly cold as I lost feeling in my legs, in my abdomen. After I saw the tray of instruments being wheeled in, I closed my eyes, squeezed them shut.

Olivia pressed my hand firmly; I knew she would watch.

I didn't feel the cut, but I felt the surgeon's hands inside me, I felt my insides being pulled aside, felt it as the surgeon told me quietly what was happening, my eyes tightly shut. It was horrible. I felt as though everything was being taken out of me.

"Here she is," Olivia said urgently.

I opened my eyes and saw her being pulled out without grace or gentleness. She didn't look like a baby, she looked like part of my body.

They took her aside immediately, just out of my view, as the surgeon began to sew all my layers back together. I couldn't hear clearly what they were saying, but I didn't strain to listen, either. I felt detached.

"She's grey and not taking a breath, Hannah," the doctor called. "We're suctioning her, and are going to begin resuscitation and oxygen as per your wishes -" He stopped. "She's taken a breath.”

Then he brought her over to me.

I loved her before I saw her; when I saw her, I loved her even more.

She had such big eyes. She looked at me and her mouth was open, and her arms and legs were moving slightly. She was still covered in my blood, her dark hair slicked back on her little head. One clenched fist moved to her mouth, and then my hand moved, too, moved to touch her. I drew my finger down one tiny cheek, wonderingly.

"We need to take her now, Hannah," the doctor warned.

"Goodbye Amala," I said as they wrapped her up. "I mean, hello.”

~*~

I thought she was stillborn when they took her out of Hannah; I already had tears in my eyes from seeing the knife in my friend, but they fell as I watched the little grey body coming out of her. When they said she breathed I nearly shouted. I felt a flood of pure and beautiful joy, and then I really did cry.

I can still see Amala lying in the crook of Hannah's arm. She was very tiny, but she had big dark eyes which looked directly up at Hannah. Her mouth was open a little; she almost looked surprised.

The doctor wrapped her up after that, and Hannah told me to follow them. She had been sewn up and was being wheeled into recovery, and I didn't want to leave her; but I had promised her earlier to stay with Amala when she couldn't, so I followed them and watched them work on Amala through glass. It took a long time to examine her; I couldn't look as they inserted needles beneath her pale skin. She stopped breathing a few times, I remember.

A nurse took me back to Hannah, because they had to do some tests on Amala which I couldn't watch, tests of her heart, her blood, her respiratory and digestive systems. But Hannah was asleep in Recovery. I sat beside her and then I went and rang up Tarek and told him what had happened.

"Do you want me to come in?”

"No - not yet. Not now," I told him. I took a breath which was a sob.

"I'm coming in," he said then.

"No, please -" I took another breath. I could hear Tarek swearing under his breath in Arabic and English, I could hear his footsteps, too; he was pacing. "I have to keep going. I can't stop. I don't want you here, yet, not now. I will call you -”

I was standing out in the corridor, and I saw that Hannah had woken and was being moved, so I left him there. I knew he'd be there if I phoned him again in one hour or ten. Instead, I followed Hannah to her own room. Dr John came in not long after.

"The nurses are going to bring Amala into here - she's breathing on her own now, and we thought you'd want her with you," he began. He looked tired. "Dr Harper and I have done a thorough examination and there's no urgent surgery that can be done.”

Oh hell.

"The VSD is usually ok for a few months anyway, isn't it?" Hannah said tenuously.

"The VSD. Yes." He paused. "There's the kidneys, too, Hannah. They came up on the ultrasound as a marker for Trisomy 18.”

"But they've worked so far," Hannah whispered.

"She's fought hard, that's for sure," Dr John said, and he smiled a little. "She really has.”

Then the door opened and the nurse brought Amala in. She made a strange, weak, high-pitched cry and shook her little fists wildly as she settled in Hannah's arms. But then she quieted; she looked up at Hannah again with her big eyes wide open.

"Hello, my darling girl," Hannah murmured.

~*~

I was only ever separated from Amala for a few short hours, those hours after surgery when I slept. She stayed with me in my arms after that. Dr John produced a camera and took some photos of her with me, and with Olivia; he left after that, and Olivia told me afterwards he put a sign on the door so that we weren't disturbed.

I've lived longer away from my family than I was ever with them; but Amala spent her whole life just with me. I never had to surrender her to sleep, or to school, or to friends, to travel or work, to a new family of her own choosing ; I never had to spend days worrying about whether I'd hear from her or find myself in agony over choices she'd made. I only had to give her up once. The rest of the time she was connected to me, surrounded by me, by my body, by my arms. She heard only my voice.

Her eyes were fixed on me in that little room, me alone. She moved her arms and legs, cried occasionally with her tiny voice. I talked to her, and I told her the story again - I knew it by heart, now - the story which I'd read to her so many times before. I examined her little hands and feet, her tiny strawberry-shaped face, her wisps of dark hair. I held her close against my skin.

I told her again and again hello and goodbye; I told her I loved her and how beautiful she was.

In the end her kidneys didn't matter. She was in my arms and she forgot to breathe, and she was gone. I didn't see or feel her go. But when I looked down again I knew.

~*~

Apnea is common with babies with Trisomy 18. They don't struggle to die, they close their eyes and slip away as Amala did.

We held her and said goodbye again and then we washed her and dressed her in a tiny little dress of rainbow colours that John had given us. He came in and held her too. I called Tarek then and he came and took a list which Hannah had made, and rang up nearly thirty people that evening.

The next day a small memorial service was held in the hospital chapel. That was the first time Hannah's parents saw Amala, dressed in a little outfit that Hannah had chosen months back, a dress with pink and blue and orange and yellow. They sat at the back and they cried, both of them.

Hannah didn't cry, though.

Most of our friends came, and Hannah's workmates, and her cousins and some of her other friends, too. Dr John was there, of course. The chaplain planned and ran the entire service after meeting with Hannah and I for about half an hour that morning; I don't remember any of it. I sat at the front and held Hannah's hand. It seems strange now, but I was still terrified she was going to die, too.

Once everyone left, I said goodbye to Amala for the last time; I left Hannah then so she could say her own goodbyes.

~*~

When I look back now, it seems as though I didn't utter a word for about a month after that.

I must have, of course, because you have to talk to live; you have to buy groceries and ask for stamps at the post office and apologise when you bump into a stranger in the street. I had to see the doctor a few times as my abdominal scar healed and I went back to work and had to ask the secretary to photocopy the previous month's business report.

I don't really remember talking to Olivia, though. We lived in the same house just as we always had. We ate together about as frequently as we did before and watched television I think and watered the grevilleas.

About six weeks later my stomach stopped hurting and I could tell the scar had healed. I went to the doctor and he probed the area and asked how I felt and I told him I was fine. I didn't tell him that I wanted it cut open again, because I wanted it to keep hurting, because it was only right that it kept hurting. I didn't say things like that - perhaps that was why I felt I didn't talk.

About two weeks after that I applied for the transfer to the city branch and was interviewed and accepted, and my work colleagues gave me a little party to congratulate me.

I got home late from that and Olivia asked me where I'd been. When I told her she didn't say anything at first. She just stared at me.

"You're moving to the city. Next week.”

I knew someone there who would put me up until I could find my own place.

Then she exploded. "How can you do this to me?”

That was when I first realised how much I hated her.

~*~

Right back, early on, when we had had that awful day with the ultrasounds and the geneticists and everyone; that day Hannah had said she was never, ever, going to have such a horrible day again.

I wish I'd said that then too. It didn't turn out to be the worst day of my life; not even the day Amala died, because she lived that day too, and it was beautiful. The worst day was the day I discovered Hannah hated me.

She came in and told me calmly she was going to leave the next week. I did what I very rarely ever did with Hannah - began to shout at her, the way I shouted at Tarek, at family.

"How can you do this to me?" I shouted at her.

She looked at me strangely, and it was a frightening, calculating look, as though she was measuring exactly how much she had broken my heart. She stayed where she was in the kitchen, in all her business clothes, with her briefcase by her high-heeled shoes.

"You're glad she's dead, aren't you," she said flatly.

I was so shocked that my mouth just opened and I said nothing.

"The whole time you kept telling me she was going to die, and you were right. And you're glad you're right. It feels good to be right, doesn't it?”

A sob burst out of me, then, and I couldn't see.

"It all happened just as you thought. That must be a comforting feeling, mustn't it? That you're right, you're always right?”

"How can you say-" I began, sobbing, and I moved forward to hold her but she wouldn't let me. "Hannah, I loved Amala, I love you, how can you say that?”

"You didn't love her," Hannah spat out and then she went to her room and locked it. I know, because I banged on it, crying, several times. She was in there quiet and again I was afraid she would die.

Later that night - early morning, really - she came out and found me on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket, shivering, staring at home-shopping advertisements. She stood there in the darkness for a moment, and I switched off the television, and waited.

Then she fell, fell onto her knees and buried her head in her arms and cried the most heart-wrenching sobs I have ever heard. In a single movement I pulled her up into my arms, held her close.

"Oh hell, Olivia, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!”

"I know, I know," I crooned, rocking her. "It's all right, it's all right.”

It wasn't all right, though, because she left the very next day.

PART THREE

It's the end of the world, and not only that, but I'm standing at the end of the world, some kind of cliff edge which plunges down not into sea or canyon or gully but into nothing. It's not black, it's not dark, it's not invisible. There's no possibility left, no hope that there could be anything below just beyond my eyesight. It's finishing up behind me, the world, and right in front of my eyes is the end as well.

And then I wake.

I used to have nightmares a lot, as a child, mostly because I was always worrying about different things - school, the dentist, the kid who lived around the corner. I also had nightmares as an adult, but they weren't so easy to understand. One of the reasons I think that I liked to have someone sleeping beside me, even a man who barely knew my name, was to have someone to shake me awake from my dreams.

One of the things that Olivia often did for me was to wake me up from a nightmare and bring me out into the kitchen, make me a drink, talk to me of funny, ordinary things. It got so that I could wake myself from my dreams, remembering that.

She wasn't there for the worst nightmares, though. The worst times, longing for my daughter, searching the news headlines in hopes that the tragedy of her passing would be written there, that pictures of her would be pasted up for the world to know. I wanted a day in her honour, I wanted the world to stop year after year on the day of her birth, her death.

She wasn't there as I questioned myself again and again as to whether I had done all I could to save my daughter. She wasn't there when I uploaded every photograph I had of Amala onto slideshow and flicked through them for hours at a time. When I burned them onto CDs and hid them all over the house in case of burglars. All the times I had to walk out of movies which had babies, out of stores which had maternity clothes, away from people who were pregnant, who had young children. I saw a woman shout at her toddler once, and I nearly screamed at her. How dare she be allowed to have her child when I couldn't have mine?

Olivia wasn't there in the times of depression, when I knew the real reason Amala had died; because I wasn't supposed to be a mother, because I wasn't good enough for her. I used up every sick day in the first six months of my new job because of all the days where I could not get up and get dressed. I didn't use any more after that, though. Working hard, not thinking at all about anything, was the only way I could live for the year after that.

Sometimes it was all right. Then I could see how much Amala had changed me, how lucky I was to have her for even such a short time. In those times I thought that if Amala hadn't had Trisomy 18, she wouldn't have been who she was, my daughter, and I loved her exactly as she was. Sometimes it all seemed meant to be exactly as it was.

But mostly it wasn't like that.

Mostly it was like the end of the world. I had nothing left. Nothing to look forward to, nothing of meaning or purpose. Slowly, very slowly, I dragged a life for myself from my job and my few remaining friends. I wasn't sure why, except there was no alternative. If I had no life, then Amala was entirely forgotten. I didn't want her lost again.

~*~

I could hear the music, but it was just a little too low to hear the words. The beat was clear, and the tune came and went, and it frustrated me. I went to the window and opened it, and sat on the wide sill. The song had finished; but a new one began. A few chords - it was a solo guitar, and then it was a voice.

"In the absence of martyrs, there's a presence of peace . . .”

The words came clearly when the wind blew towards me, but it was a wild night and it came in gusts, sending me a few words at a time, a few notes and then silence. The curtains swirled around me, and eventually I turned away and shut the window.

"In the absence of martyrs, there's a presence of peace . . .”

It was quiet outside, but the song echoed in my head. They were words Tarek would appreciate, words he believed. He believed in one at a time, I knew that. Once he'd laughed, held my hand, said mockingly, "You and me against the world . . .".

He'd laughed as he said it but I knew he believed it, and I knew that he felt my unease as he said it. I didn't need to be against the world. I knew I was connected to the families I had known in Iraq, the families I knew in my home country.

A year and a half after Amala had died, after Hannah had left for the city, Tarek came over and began picking a fight immediately. He criticised and found fault with everything; he brought up topics calculated to annoy me.

I saw what he was doing straight away, though, so I didn't bite; and that made him angrier. He wanted a reason to be angry, he wanted a reason to storm out, blame things on me. I didn't say a word, though. I didn't question him in a way which would make him accuse me of smothering him; I didn't throw back at him any arguments against the absurdities he was spouting. Instead, I grew sadder and sadder, knowing that there was going to be some revelation, something painful, something which again would disappoint and hurt me, which again would tell me that he was just a shadow of a person. No substance, no light.

Just as he was about to launch into some new form of attack, I stopped him. I put my hand over his mouth - not gently, forcefully, pulling his face down, turning him to me.

"You've done it again, Tarek. I can see you have." This time I didn't shout - in fact, I think I whispered. "You're going to tell me that you've had to leave your job, that you may have to leave the area or even the country; that you have to lay low for a while. That you won't be able to tell me where you are, because you know I'd turn you in to anyone who asks. That you can't understand how I can love you and not let you be the bastard you were born to be.”

I removed my hand slowly from his face, and Tarek jerked back.

"I don't want to hear what you've done. I don't want to hear any excuses. I don't want you to deny my words. I just want you to listen.”

He moved back, then rubbed his jaw.

"This is the last time. This is the final time I'm going to give in to whatever it is that makes me come back to you again and again. If you stuff up again, there's no more discussion, there's no more possibilities or chances or risks. It's over forever. I hate myself for the things you do, and I don't like hating myself. So go away now, do what you have to do, and if you must - come back afterwards. But there'll be only one more coming back.”

He did go away then, and I heard later from Raha - who always knew everything - about what he'd done; how he'd picked a fight with a police officer after a minor traffic infringement, how he'd ended up in gaol overnight and in court the following day, about how he'd ended up losing his license for a month, and so had lost his position as courier. He must have come to see me right after his sentencing, furious because he knew he'd get no sympathy from me, no acceptance that if he felt angry he should act angry, that no court should pass judgement on him because of who he was. And he was right; I felt no sympathy, just a curious relief that it was no worse. I hated myself enough for giving him one more chance.

Just one more coming back.

The song blew towards me with the wind; the wind blew the song away from me.

It probably would be more peaceful in the absence of martyrs, in the absence of people who judged right and wrong, who made decisions that differed from the crowd, who cried when no one else cried. But it wasn't the kind of peace that satisfied me. It was the stillness of death, a kind of silent helplessness. I wanted a different peace.

~*~

I went to a grief group in desperation, once. A group for people who'd lost children, who'd lost babies. It was about the time of Amala's first birthday, and a time when I was feeling so sad and alone that I was frightened for myself.

I sat back, watched, listened. Everyone seemed to be floundering with the same sense of disbelief at such profound unfairness. When I heard their stories I saw a group of people longing to get off the road they discovered themselves travelling over; seeking out some map, some exit. I didn't find anyone who'd found it, though.

I kept emailing the handful of people I'd talked with while I'd been pregnant, people who had been there before I had. The words grew less over time, however, because there was only the same thing to say, over and over and over again. No new way to say it.

With anything else apart from death there's a way to go forward. It might be a slow, sad, painful way - but there's at least some hope. One woman had had a child with spina bifida after her first child had died from anencephaly. It had been the same blow, the same sadness, anger, grief when she found out the news; but with a difference. There was a way ahead. There were new things to find out, things to do, losses augmented with gifts unsought.

There's nothing ahead for a dead child. Nothing to hope for, nothing to imagine or dream about. Only ever the past, only memory.

After a while I stopped going to the group, stopped the emailing as well. Although for a time I needed people who understood the exact agony of my grief, I also felt the gap, the chasm of what they didn't know - who they didn't know. They were complete strangers to Amala, always would be. They could only imagine her face, the face I held in my mind. They had never touched her, never would. Their lost children weren't my own.

Only Olivia had been there. I spoke of her, sometimes, to those in the group, mentioned her in emails. Tamara, the woman who'd recommended Doctor John, told me once that I was the only mother more angry with a friend than with fate. But no one loves fate; and no one truly hates unless they've first truly loved.

~*~

It's rare for me to break off ties; I keep in contact with schoolmates from kindergarten. I always feel the absence, know there's something missing, when someone goes from my life. Within five years I had lost my best friend, had lost my lover. I couldn't replace either of them in my life, so I had to live a different kind of life. I bought the house I'd rented for years, and I began to adopt a baby.

I'd finally told Tarek not to come again, not to call me, not to contact me in any way after I found out he was linked to one of the companies which used child labour in North Africa. I'd found out at the same time as everyone else, when it hit the news, and I recognised the name of the company. I knew he would have known what was happening there. I also knew that if he had been in the factory, if he'd walked down the aisles and seen a child being beaten by a foreman in front of his eyes, he would have broken the man's arm. But it was the same to him as sitting high up in the building and throwing the concrete block down. It was far away. It wasn't far away to me.

When I saw him the next day, after hearing the news, I could see nothing I liked in him. He seemed twisted, evil, beyond hope. He was a man, not a boy, he had lived that way for a long time, he wouldn't change. I couldn't touch him - I could barely look at him. The worst was knowing that I was looking at myself, my own shadow, my own darkness. I'd held it so close, I'd loved it, and yet it was a sickness.

"This time, I'm not moving," I told him steadily. "I'm not changing countries or cities or houses. I'm not finding a new job or new friends. Everything will stay the same for me. This time, you're the one who has to move on.”

He stared at me for a while, and for once didn't lose his temper. Maybe it was my cold quiet voice that stilled him.

"It's all over between us, because I chose the wrong job? I chose a job where not everyone was doing what you think they should do - and that's it, for us? It was in another country -”

" - and besides, the wench is dead," I finished sarcastically. "Or maybe a different quote would be more appropriate - "it's a small world, after all?" “

He swore furiously, then, unable to hold reign over his temper any longer. "It was a job, something I did for a couple of hours each day to get some money! It's the same thing every time, and you just don't get it! It doesn't mean anything - it's just something I do!”

I spoke to him then, slowly, in a low, steady voice. "You're wrong. I do understand. It doesn't mean anything - it's just something you do.”

There was silence between us for a long time.

When he left the house that day, I knew it would be different from all the other times. He didn't come back, come looking for me, he didn't even call me. He did send a letter, however - a postcard, actually, perhaps because he knew I wouldn't open an envelope after seeing his writing on it.

It had a famous picture on it - or rather, a photograph of a famous sculpture, Laocoon being devoured by serpents. I still have no idea where he got it from or what it was supposed to signify. On the back was a single scrawled sentence.

"You like me like this.”

That's when I went for the mailbox with the axe.

It took a long time for the idea of my child to take place in my mind, mostly because I'd spent so many years blocking those very dreams. But I knew it would be a messy, noisy, disorganised, unpredictable journey of a life, with a child by my side. It wouldn't be peaceful. That was fine with me. That was more than fine with me.

~*~

There's whole worlds that you forget, one at a time. I can't remember kindergarten, but it was probably the whole world for me at one time. I can't go back there. There's little worlds, like the store I'd go to regularly for bread in Tariton, day after day, so that I unconsciously memorised the pattern of shelves and the colours of the products that stood on them. The routine when I met the postman, the words I'd say each morning to the woman behind the front desk in the office of my very first job.

I used to catch the bus to work, in my very early days, and that quickly became a world that I entered and left, with its own hierarchy and routine. People sat in the same place each day; looked out the window to see the same sights day after day, said the same thing to the bus driver, handed over the same change. If someone different got on, everyone became restless; disorder entered the place.

After my first year of work I bought a car and I never had to catch the bus again. I forgot what it was like to wait at the bus stop, worrying about it being late or delayed, running sometimes in order not to miss it. I forgot the horrible cold of the sharp winter winds, when the chant under my breath of "Please come, please come," became almost magical. I forgot the hot sticky seats in summer.

My car was hit in the supermarket car park when I lived in the city, about two years after I left Olivia. The front door was smashed in so badly that I couldn't open it, and I had to get in the other side, driving it to the panelbeaters who looked at it and promptly assured me it would be at least three days. One of my colleagues promised to pick me up in the mornings, but I knew she had to drop children off at school first, so I told her I knew the bus route, could catch it without difficulty.

I'd forgotten the intrusive scent of cigarette smoke. Going from home to work, to air-conditioned restaurants; I barely remembered that anyone smoked any longer. But waiting each morning at this stop was an older man who smoked a last desperate cigarette, stubbing it out just as the bus arrived.

I'd forgotten the passionate teenagers making out on the back seat, the drunk man who leaned over your seat to talk to you, coughing. I'd forgotten the bus driver groupies who liked to sit up the front and comment on the timetable.

I knew I was going to intrude on some set order in the bus by only coming for three days; I'd take someone's special seat by mistake, I'd look left just as the rest of them turned right to stare at the pink-slippered husband calling farewell to his suit-clad wife. I mixed up the change on the first day and I could feel the exasperation of the crowd, waiting for me to fumble. I counted my stops carefully, not wanting to rush down the aisle too early or too late.

I had someone different sit by me each day, though; perhaps I'd managed to choose the visitor's seat by blind luck. On the first day was a chatty elderly lady who was going to meet an old flame in a cafe which she thought was still open, or at least she hoped was. I think I saw her standing on the corner outside a chemist, looking lost and sad.

On the second day a young man with Down Syndrome politely asked to sit down, and then slid on a pair of headphones, spending the rest of the ride listening to heavy metal.

On the third day a middle-aged woman slipped into the seat next to mine on the stop after mine. She had a newspaper, and she opened it up in the middle, and there was a photograph of a man, and a woman with a baby in her arms, and a large headline which said "Trisomy Tragedy For Local Family".

When someone opens a paper beside you, your eyes flicker over it, and you try not to look, but this time I couldn't move. I stared, and I felt my face grow hot and my heart begin to beat faster and faster.

"She would have been five," the woman next to me said.

Her voice broke the spell. I looked over at her, and I recognised her by her eyes. She knew.

"She would have been two," I replied.

The woman laid her hand gently over the picture for a moment. "Jilly didn't have clenched hands, not like that, though. I got to hold her, and her fingers were fine." She took a deep breath. "I didn't expect she'd look so much like my husband -”

"Amala had the same strawberry shaped face," I said quietly, "but her eyes were mine, and she had her own voice, too.”

The woman looked at me for a moment. "You didn't know, then. Until she was born - and she lived for a while -”

"I knew. She lived for nine months, and eight and a half hours," I answered softly. "Two years ago.”

"I let Jilly go early, I didn't want her to suffer." She looked back down at the photograph. "At least it's over for her.”

For her.

It would never be over for me, for the woman whom I met on one odd day and would never see again. I knew that, knew it right from the day I found out about Amala's extra chromosome. I said it would be the worst day in my life that day, and I said that knowing there would be many bad days after that. Bad days? Terrible, haunting, agonizing days.

I still had had her though. I'd still known her. It was the other side of the coin to love, grief. Sometimes it felt like the only side I ever got to see. Sometimes I wondered about knowing a different kind of love, and that was when I thought about Olivia and her child. I wanted her to have so many good memories, I wanted to help her create them. I wanted to be there.

~*~

There had, it was sad to say, developed a slight level of competition between Hannah and I ever since she had moved next door. It was Than and Lin's fault, of course - they had, during their stay, planted a lovely garden in their front yard, designing it carefully for the small plot of land. It looked great, and Hannah had vowed not to let them down by allowing all the plants to die; especially as they were coming over occasionally for dinner. Half the meals now were spent with Hannah questioning Lin carefully about the best brands of fertiliser, or probing Than for the exact method of pruning he had used.

Of course, it did rather put my half-dead grevilleas to shame, and so I found myself now going out there with the hose and some food scraps which were optimistically called compost.

So on most evenings, once the sun had begun to set, we often found ourselves exchanging the news of the day or arguing over the exact terms of the water restrictions or complaining about new council rules.

"Not another present! I won't be able to fit it into the room!" I exclaimed as Hannah tossed a wrapped package over the fence at me one evening. "Don't tell me - it's a bottle of bleach for washing nappies, right?”

"You've got it," Hannah said solemnly as I began to unwrap the small square box. "I was worried you wouldn't be able to find the aisle in the supermarket marked "cleaning products".”

"Ha - I've been buying that aisle out ever since the whole Child & Family thing began. You know they believe that cleanliness comes far ahead of godliness . . ." I stopped. "Oh, Hannah - that's beautiful.”

It was a small "baby book", the kind where you wrote in the first step, first word, first school detention. All the firsts that Hannah never got to see herself. I had heard other parents admitting that the early years flew by so fast that some of the "firsts" came and went unnoticed; I knew that wouldn't be the case with my child. They would be both celebrated, and in a way, mourned as well.

"Well, you might not get time to find it yourself," Hannah argued. "They did say at the last meeting to be prepared.”

I grinned. "I think they were talking about passports, but thanks, anyway." I slid the book into my front pocket. "But no more presents, ok? You'll bankrupt yourself!”

"I'll just have to embezzle some more from Lowell's then, won't I?”

I laughed, but only for a bit, and then I said goodnight and went into the house. I could imagine Tarek saying something like that, and I knew exactly how I'd react, how I'd tense up and worry that he really meant it, that he'd take a laugh as consent. A comment like that might end up in an argument, and he'd defend himself by saying I didn't trust him - which was true - and I'd shout back that he gave me cause to - which was also true. And we'd both end up feeling guilty and hurt; all over a joke.

Two years apart didn't meant that I didn't think about him anymore. When Hannah had first come back, she'd mentioned him occasionally as though he was still around; it had taken her a while to remember. After all, she'd never known me without him. I wondered sometimes if I was any different because of it.

Well, I was doing different things, anyway. I had a house and I'd soon have a child. Maybe I would never be woken at midnight and told that we needed to make chocolate chilli icecream, now - maybe I'd never find that instead of going to the drive-in movies by car we were riding there on two white horses instead. Maybe I'd never find anyone who could argue me down as quickly and as intensely as Tarek, so that we ended up eye to eye, an breath away from one another, unable to remember how we'd got from parking tickets to the situation in Haiti. Who knew the only way to concede defeat and keep one's pride was by attempting an unexpected kiss that would remove all rational thought for at least an hour.

Maybe all that was over. But I could forge a different set of memories if I chose. That was what I wanted; that was what I planned to do.

~*~

Farinstan had been out of the news for about two months. That was a good sign, Olivia said; because news agencies never bothered with stories about rebuilding, about children returning to play on the streets, about markets being opened up and salaries being cautiously raised. She was in contact with a couple of people she'd known from her old days overseas; they were in Syria now, not far from the border, and told her that crossing had got more routine, that there was less gunfire, fewer soldiers. Things were getting better. Emma, her friend from Irbil, had told her that their organisation was considering setting up a base in Zalho, Farinstan's capital, if things continued to stay fairly secure.

Because it was staying out of the news, often the only information Olivia got was through trawling the internet, or through her old aid worker networks - someone who knew someone who knew someone who'd gone in there. The International Adoptions people weren't much help; previously, the children had been taken out through Turkey in groups, but now they were dealing with one child at a time, dealing with orphanages and local case-workers. It was messier, more complicated, and far longer a process than when it had been an emergency relief situation. The Red Cross wasn't involved any longer; it was now in the hands of the government, and its bureaucracy.

Olivia knew something about civil war, about the tenuousness of peace as well. She'd fled Iraq, as had many aid workers, when the Sadaam-backed KDP invaded Irbil back in '96; she'd watched from outside as the war between the political parties went on and on and yet was soon forgotten by anyone outside the country. She knew how things could happen almost before anyone realised it at all.

I wondered occasionally what would happen if the slow bureaucracy ground to a halt, if some impatient pen-pusher used a red stamp rather than a signature, if laws and politics changed. And Olivia's child remained in some orphanage, never to be named or held or known. Existing somewhere utterly out of reach. Alive, though. The child would be alive.

~*~

I'd been exchanging emails with a young couple who lived on the Syrian border for several months. I'd known Sally from Iraq, where she'd been working with Two Hands, a small aid organisation that specialised in micro-economics, although I'd never met her husband. They were now doing some work with poor widows in that area, revolving loan schemes and the like. They were also close enough to the Farinstan border to be able to give me up to date information.

They hadn't been around when the real crisis had occurred and thousands of refugees had poured out of the country, but there were still many Farin displaced people in the area, as well as soldiers going to and from the border. Because of this, they were in a position to hear about some things that were happening - the kind of things that newspapers didn't find interesting enough to report.

Recently, however, there hadn't been much of anything happening. There was no build-up of troops on the border, and there hadn't been a dispute there for ages. I pinned my hopes on their news.

Sally, on the other hand, wanted to find out from me about the people we'd known while we were in Iraq. I put her in touch with some of the others with whom I'd worked at C-Aid, as well as giving her the contact details for Emma. For some reason she wasn't surprised that years later, I still had up to date contact details for almost everyone we'd known then.

I forwarded her some of Emma's recent newsletters - warning her to take some of Emma's more optimistic comments with a grain of salt - and a couple of C-Aid e-letters which came my way occasionally. She managed to type out some kind of informal message to me weekly, knowing the kind of thing I wanted to hear. I was glad she was helping out the widows, but I didn't need to know if the project was going well. I wanted to know about Farinstan.

"Met a refugee Farin family who've been in Damascus about six months . . . they stopped here on the way to the border. They're planning to go back, even though the husband and eldest son managed to get jobs in the big souq in Damascus.”

"Saw three big convoys heading towards the border this morning. Was worried until in the afternoon I saw three big convoys heading back. Maybe a change of guard?”

"The baker told me that his brother had heard gunfire last night, and there were rumours shots had been fired across the border. No one seems to be able to confirm this, however.”

"Had dinner with a young Farin couple who were crossing to get some kind of medicine for their baby - epilepsy, perhaps? Anyway, they said security was much improved and the price of oil had fallen significantly.”

"Heard from Emma that some flights were resuming to Zalho, Farin's capital. I think she said Beit Amala is investigating setting up some kind of project there. Not EAC though, but that little outfit that stopped and started a few times - ZaneAir or something? I think there were rumours it was run by the communists and might fly you direct to China.”

I remember grinning when I read that one. We used to call it "InsaneAir", and the reason was fairly obvious to anyone who was foolhardy enough to actually fly with them. Someone had to keep his legs folded up the entire trip because the floor was completely awash from a leaky toilet; another discovered that there weren't enough seats and a few passengers were required to sit on boxes at the back. They didn't even bother with safety instructions; perhaps it was too ironic even for them. They didn't have flight attendants to read them out, anyway.

"Do you remember a Muhammed Tarek Kamal? I think I met him once in Iraq. He passed through the other day, and he said he knew you.”

~*~

I woke up one Saturday, and had no idea what had woken me. It felt something like a birthday morning, that feeling of expectation, knowing that there was no point sleeping - something was going to happen.

I got up, listened carefully. There was a slam of a car door, voices, and then I knew.

Going to the window I saw a bevy of cars lining the streets. I'd stood at my window so many years ago and watched the procession, and now I stood here again, waiting, wondering. Time had changed them as much as I. The nephew and the niece who had always seemed to be at Greek school were now bored-looking teenagers; the baby Molly was a big sister now, with another little girl who looked just like her by her side. I wasn't sure whether it was Con or Dave who was holding a woman I didn't know tentatively by the hand, looking amazed at himself for daring.

I made the decision quickly and pulled on my clothes, then went around the front fence to greet them.

"Hannah! Olivia said you'd moved next door - it's so good to see you again!" Olivia's mother cried, enveloping me into a hug. I felt tears prick at my eyelids, and quickly blinked them away. "It's great to see you, too, Mrs. Theopilis.”

I was hugged by almost every member of the family then - primly kissed by Lena, and completely avoided by her teens - and drawn into the house with the whole crowd of them. I wondered when the surprise Saturdays had begun again. They'd stopped when I'd got pregnant, I knew that. Olivia never talked about it, but I was sure she'd told them to stay away. I wasn't sure whether that was something else I needed to learn to forgive her, too.

They dashed into the place and began cooking up pancakes and rushing about staring at the nursery and throwing children into the air. There was another baby around, a fat eighteen-month old who was wobbling about and wailing, and being picked up by - I think it was Tim. One of the brothers was missing, but I wasn't sure which.

I was wedged on the couch between Mr. Theopilis and Trisha, and questioned mercilessly about the house, what I'd done with it, what I was planning to do with it, why my garden was so much better than Olivia's (I admitted I could take no credit for it), and whether I was too thin. It took me about twenty minutes to realise that Olivia herself wasn't there.

"Where's Olivia?" I asked. "I assume someone must have let you in - although you do all probably have keys -”

Trish laughed. "We're not so keen on seeing Olivia's nursery that we'd break and enter! She's off with Chris, in the backyard, I think.”

I peered out through the back window and noticed someone sitting in a tree. Then I was handed a plate of pancakes and ordered to eat up, in a tone which meant refusal was an impossibility. They were too good to miss out on, anyway. I listened then as Nick and Con - I think - argued over which oil was better for your car engine, with Mr. Theopilis interrupting occasionally with the assurance that none of them were any good at all, and that the oil companies were in a conspiracy together to get rid of cars altogether. Then Olivia came back in.

I could see she wasn't her usual self. With all her family about, she generally got even more energetic and argumentative than usual, taking part in at least three different conversations simultaneously. She was pulling back today, focusing her attention on Chris' little girls, Tim's toddler. There was enough noise from the others to cover her. I watched them all, their quick banter based on knowing one another for years, listening to arguments which had no heat to them, hearing bursts of laughter which became quickly infectious. I wondered for a moment what it would have been like if Amala had been there, running about with Trish's daughters, picking up Tim's son when he fell. Then I wondered whether Olivia's child would be there next time they visited.

I saw Olivia looking over at the children and thought perhaps she was wondering the same thing.

~*~

I'd forgotten how much Hannah enjoyed seeing my wild and crazy family - experiencing, actually, because more than seeing was involved when they came. She was hugged and fed and subjected to all the strange sort of talk which accompanied my parents, four brothers, their wives and kids, and Lena and her family. I realised Hannah hadn't met them all - Chris had another daughter, both Con and Tim had got married, and Tim had had a son, since Hannah had left - but I didn't bother sorting them all out. I knew she'd work it out eventually.

Dave hadn't come - he was working on some mining project in the middle of nowhere - but the rest of them turned up. My house sometimes felt too big for me, but when they all squeezed in it was far too small. I ended up retreating to the backyard with Chris, taking the time to catch him up on some of the things that had happened.

"I thought you'd have your child by this time," he said honestly.

"So did I," I admitted, "and it's really hard having to wait, wait and worry, without any clue as to the due date. At least a pregnancy only lasts nine months!”

"True. So what do you think is holding it all up?”

I hesitated, then slid out of the tree, finding a place on the grass to sit beside him. "I know what it's like - buildings filled with people behind desks, papers being passed from one to another up a kind of incomprehensible hierarchy. There isn't a photo of the child there, or of me. Just words. Just paper. It's far away to them - not to me, but to them.”

"So it's a waiting game, then.”

I shrugged. "I can do that, you know. I can wait. I'm just hoping . . . I'm hoping my child isn't having to wait like this." I shivered. "You know I've seen orphanages there before . . .”

"Not Farinstan, though," Chris reminded me. "There's no reason that they have to be like - the one that you saw.”

We went back inside and I couldn't help but spend all my time with the children, giving them extra attention, watching over them, wondering whether my child would be there next time they came.

Talking about the orphanage with Chris had put images in my mind that I'd tried my best to leave behind. Northern Iraq hadn't had any real institutions, no huge orphanages, but I'd spent a short amount of time in Southern Iraq and I'd seen one there that still haunted me. Things had changed now, and it probably didn't exist any longer. But I could still remember the tiny cribs and the children squeezed into them, two or even three sharing a bed. Their cries which were like drones. I was sure Farinstan had never had orphanages before the big crisis, so it was unlikely they were institutionalised enough to have the crowded buildings I'd seen in Baghdad. I wondered, sometimes, though. I couldn't forget.

Con drew me aside after dinner, pointing out something about the lawn, squatting down to pull up some clover. I got down beside him, looking to see whether there was some dangerous weed that was disturbing him.

"Remember my friend Michael? Mick Davies?" he asked lightly.

I groaned. "You're not trying to set me up again, Con!”

"He's married, Olivia," Con said patiently. "His wife works as an air traffic controller over at Milton airport - the international one.”

"Oh, right. That's nice," I replied, puzzled. I began to get up.

"Olivia. Mick is pretty sure Tarek is back in the country.”

I slipped on a bit of wet ground and fell down beside my brother. "What did you say?" I grabbed onto his arm. "How would Mick know Tarek?”

Con raised an eyebrow. "You don't remember?”

Then, of course, I did.

It had been at Chris and Trish's wedding. Tarek had been invited, surprisingly enough - I think Trish twisted Chris' arm - and had actually turned up. I hadn't been sure that he would; I think we'd fought about it. But he'd turned up, wearing a charcoal suit which looked as though it had been made just for him. Probably it had.

I hadn't seen him for about a week, but I couldn't keep my eyes off him at the wedding; my own brother's wedding, and I couldn't wait for it to end. And once the dancing began we didn't leave the floor, not once.

Con had told Mick that I'd broken up with Tarek, that it was all over between us. Mick had been hopeful - he'd had a stupid crush on me for years - and was disappointed, and angry too, to see Tarek turn up. Con had probably told Mick a little of Tarek's background. Either way, he wasn't happy to see us together. A couple of times he tried to cut in our dancing, but we laughed it off and ignored him. As the night went on, and the alcohol flowed freely, he got more pushy, more frustrated. He tried to pull Tarek away from me, once, and ended up on the floor. He tried it again and ended up on the floor unconscious.

I realised Mick would probably have a good idea of who Tarek was.

"I don't think that's possible," I said, getting up and brushing the grass from me. "I don't think it's possible at all.”

They left in the late afternoon after making me promise to call them as soon as I had any news. Afterwards, Hannah stayed round and helped finish the washing-up, drying each teaspoon carefully and managing to reorder the cutlery drawer at the same time. I forced her to sit down and have a drink, then handed her the print-out of Sally's last email.

"Well, at least you know he's on the complete opposite side of the world to you," she said cautiously.

"True. But now I have to wonder if he was the chief orchestrator of the Farinstan coup!" Then I grew serious. "Con reckons a friend of his has seen him here, though. Oh, I don't know who to believe!”

"Even when he was living not far from here - he never contacted you, did he?" Hannah asked.

"No," I replied slowly. "No - he stayed away like I told him.”

"Then it doesn't make any difference where he is, then,does it? Let's agree that we can be pretty sure he won't be available to fix my car anytime soon," Hannah finished. "I'm probably going to have to learn to do it myself . . .”

"Or at least get to know a mechanic," I finished.

"A mechanic who is unlikely to ring you up half-way through a street riot, saying "isn't this fun?" " Hannah added.

I couldn't hide the smile - and either could Hannah. We ended up laughing at the picture, not at its absurdity, but at its truth. Tarek was the only person we knew who'd have fun during a raid on the city, and expect you to enjoy it, too. I'd bet everything I owned that Hannah would never find another mechanic like that.

~*~

I thought a lot about that family gathering after that, about who was missing. Tarek; Olivia's child; my own. It wasn't like a family meal, where you looked around and discovered that Dad hadn't got back from work yet. There was no possible way these three people could be together; no way that it could all come all right in the end. Olivia chose to give up Tarek, I had had to give up Amala in the end. Either way, somehow, they were with us. We couldn't leave them behind.

Amala's birth and deathday passed not long afterwards. In some ways it was easier, because there was someone else to remember with me. Olivia rang the front door bell before seven o'clock, knowing I'd be awake; the first thing she did when I opened the door was to hug me. She also gave me flowers, and a framed photograph she'd found in clearing out some boxes after I moved out. Me; Amala in my arms.

I drove to work that morning, but I never got out of the car. I found myself driving past, calling in sick as I drove round the block, through the busy morning streets, down past the river, out past the half-harvested fields outside town. Driving, driving, thinking, remembering. She didn't have a grave; but she had a memorial plaque in the hospital gardens, a garden of lost babies. I went there when I could drive no more, and walked among the trees which had grown, the shrubs and bushes which had grown, grown larger in time since I'd been there. Saw the memorials to the babies who hadn't.

Some of the plaques were set into the earth, some into a low stone wall. Amala's was right on the end of the wall, close to the base. I sat down and leant my head against it, allowing myself to remember every moment, from her first kick inside me to her closing breath in my arms. Memory was all I had of her.

When I got back home there were some irate messages on my machine; it hadn't been a good day to call in sick. An important meeting had had to be cancelled, some documents that had had to be finished had been left undone. I listened to the exasperated voice and fell apart. Olivia found me that evening, sitting beside the phone, crying helplessly. As usual, she was unable to help crying with me.

Eventually we realised how cold it was, and got up and made coffees for ourselves, sitting up at my overlarge dining table, shoved into a corner of the room.

"Great for dinner parties, though," Olivia commented, when I complained about the size.

"Dinner parties? Me?" I laughed cynically. "People will always find excuses not to come, you know. It'll be too far, or they'll be too busy, or they'll be vegetarian or meat-eaters or something like that. No one will want to eat out with the crazy person who is shattered day after day after day . . .”

"You're not crazy.”

"Maybe not. Maybe not, but I'm never going to be the way I was before. I'm always, always, going to carry this with me. Always the person with the extra load, the person you have to be careful with, careful about what you say, how you say it -”

I clenched my fists, brought them up to my face, hid myself behind crooked tense fingers. Unable even to relax enough to bend my head.

"Who isn't like that, Hannah?" Olivia asked me calmly.

Somehow the ordinary tone of her voice allowed me to come out from behind my hands and look at her.

"Almost right from the start you've known I can't have children. Can you honestly say you've never edited something you've meant to say, knowing that?”

I shrugged. "I suppose I have, occasionally.”

Olivia laughed. "I know you have. We all censor ourselves - well, everyone except Raha, of course," she added, rolling her eyes. Then she leaned forward. "Everyone has a story, Hannah. Everyone. There's rarely a person on earth who doesn't have something painful in their past or in their present. I'm not saying everything is equal, that everyone understands; we know that's not true. But you can see the difference between an adult and a child by looking at their skin, you know. The dark, weathered, scarred skin of an adult would look frightening on a child; but then again, the pink soft skin of a baby would look kind of terrifying on an adult, too.”

I had to laugh then at Olivia's attempt at metaphor, but the laughter didn't last long. "I think I want to be a child, then.”

Olivia grabbed my hand. "I like you the way you are. It's not fair, you know - about your child, about mine. Not fair, not right. But -" and then she sighed - "it is.”

I nodded once, then. Then I got up. "I think we deserve something stronger than coffee -" I had a nice red wine I hadn't yet opened. I grabbed some glasses and poured us both a good draught.

"To Amala; I'm glad to have met her," Olivia said. Then she drank.

"Me, too," I said, tasting the wine, feeling it smooth in my mouth, swallowing it down. The fire filled me, like a life, like a memory.

~*~

I never emailed Sally back about Tarek; as it happened, I didn't need to.

I'd gone into the city, into the main branch of my organisation's bank there, because an error had come up which they hadn't been able to resolve over the phone. It was annoying to have to spend a morning waiting in line there for a mistake which I knew wasn't mine, but that was part of working in a small organisation - having to do some of the boring legwork myself. After both the manager and I were happy with the result of our meeting - and I'd elicited a firm promise that I wouldn't be having to come in again - I rewarded myself with a walk by the ocean, along the walkway by the beach. It reminded me of walking with Hannah, when we'd met again after so long. It was a good memory.

I turned to go, turned to cross the road towards the carpark, after about an hour. It was crowded, and someone knocked me passing the other way. I swung around angrily, and immediately I wished I hadn't. It was the middle of the road and the lights were already flashing, but I was stuck there, frozen. Tarek had turned around at the same time I did, but he was on the pavement, watching me with wary narrowed eyes.

A car horn sounded; Tarek reached out and pulled me roughly from the road before the cars gave up on me in impatience.

"That hurt," I said.

"A tyre in the face would hurt more.”

He was as edgy as I; we both looked as though the slightest sound would make us run. Then Tarek laughed, shook his head.

"I met a friend of yours, not so long ago. Did you know?”

"Yes - Sally told me," I answered. "What were you doing there?”

"Work," he answered absently. "She told me you were adopting a baby or something like that.”

"Yes.”

"You're happy, settled, then.”

"Yes," I replied again, but the way he said that word - settled - made anger begin to rise in me. "Yes, I am.”

He nodded once, and then turned and began walking away. Then he stopped, looked back.

"I want to come to see you again.”

"No." I found that I was clenching my fists. "No, you can't.”

But he'd already walked away.

For days afterwards I was tense, nervous, jumping whenever there was a knock at the door or a phonecall. I hesitated before putting my hand in the mailbox, as though a spider had made its home there. Strange dreams assailed me; I'd be dragged back to Iraq, back to the little rural town where Tarek had found me, back to the city, back to the days when he was around all the time. In some of them I was pregnant. One time I was begging Tarek to tell me whether he was the father, and he was laughing as I pleaded. Another time he was begging me. Once I was carrying Amala.

Those dreams disturbed me, reminded me of the early days when I was still hoping the infertility results were wrong. I tried to reassure myself, that in a way I was carrying a child, carrying the hope of a child, at least. But they also brought me back to the day Tarek had found out. The sadness and the closeness of that time. I didn't want either of them.

The only way I could calm myself was by telling myself that Tarek was almost certainly involved in something wrong, something illegal. It was more than likely, anyway. I tried to recall the dark loathing I'd felt, that day I'd discovered about the child labour charge. How he'd tried to say that his work was separate from himself, from who he was. I knew, though, that what you spent your time doing, day after day, changed you, altered you, became who you were. There was no separation.

So I'd call to mind all the things Tarek had done to hurt me, and try to ignore the slight feeling of betrayal that I felt as I did. It was one thing to remember; another to deliberately dwell; and still another to invent even worse things that he might be involved in.

I had little idea how he had thought of me during the last few years, if he ever had, apart from in passing when meeting a mutual friend like Sally. He seemed to live very much in the present, however, and I couldn't imagine him attempting to exorcise me from his mind by tearing me down, recreating the hurtful things I'd said to him. Like me he was able to get angry very quickly, and show it; like me, the anger never burned forever.

In the past he'd just shown up at the door; there I was able to shut it or open it to him. Hearing about him had opened a different door, and I found it very, very difficult to shut it. I was very afraid that if he really did turn up that I wouldn't be able to show the kind of restraint I needed. That I had to have.

When the phone rang halfway through a cool November evening, then, I waited a moment, screwing up my courage before lifting the receiver. A familiar voice greeted me on the other end.

"Congratulations," Fiona said. "You have a daughter.”

~*~

We didn't have the kind of flurried panic with Amala's birth that I'd initially expected, because we'd scheduled a caesarean. There were no false alarms, inconsistent signs, minutes measured, lights going on in the middle of the night or hurried calls to the ambulance. There was an appointment, instead.

We got all that in a way with Olivia's baby. She was alone in the house when the phone call came, and it was late - definitely out of working hours for Fiona. The first thing she did was race over and come banging on my door.

I panicked, of course, when I heard the thumping at my front door. I'd just pulled a cheese and tomato quiche out of the oven, and when that crashing sounded, I dropped the food on the floor and ran.

"What is it?" I gasped, pulling the door open. "Are you all right?”

Olivia was dancing from one foot to the other, unable to keep still. I stared at her doubtfully. "Is your bathroom not working?”

She gave out a shout of laughter, grabbed me and nearly suffocated me in a hug. "I've got a daughter!”

I gave out an answering scream, hugged her back, and we ended up jumping up and down in a strange dance on the front step.

It was only when a passing car hooted at us that we realised what an odd sight we must have looked. I dragged Olivia inside.

"Tell me everything!" I exclaimed, sitting her down on the couch. "Who - what - when -”

"OK, Fiona just finalised it all today," Olivia answered, trying to bite back an enormous smile. "She has her passport, of course, and her adoption visa for our country, and her medical certificate from the embassy. And now, at last, Farinstan has issued her exit visa. Finally it is all coming together!”

"And next step?”

"Next step is easy. Farinstan doesn't have any adoption proceedings in their country; they just supply a departure visa and I adopt her in our country after we arrive. Which means no court sessions or anything there. I just arrive at the orphanage, prove I'm Olivia, and then - she's mine.”

The smile burst out again, and Olivia got up, unable to sit still.

"Fiona has already booked the tickets - she's coming with us, of course - and can you believe it, we have to fly in from Italy on InsaneAir, which will be an adventure. Fiona didn't seem to know anything about the airline, so I didn't enlighten her; she'll find out soon enough. Visas for us won't be a problem, we just need embassy letters and that's all. We just go in and carry her out, she doesn't need a booked seat of course -”

"We?" Now I got up. "What are you saying?”

"Well, you're coming with Fiona and I, of course!" Olivia said, grabbing my hands. "The tickets are already booked - I know you've got a passport, you needed it when you went to that conference a month ago -”

"The Middle East? But - but I've never been to anyplace where they don't speak English!" I argued, but I was already won over. "Are you sure about this?”

"Utterly," Olivia replied. "I cleared it with Child & Family after we had our meeting, and they were fine with it. And you have to be there, Hannah, you have to meet her, too.”

"And who is she, Olivia?" I asked gently.

Olivia's smile burst out again, and she moved towards the fridge to grab a drink.

"Her name is Tiya; she was named at the orphanage. They found her outside their doors one morning; she was only a few hours old, they thought. This was three months ago. There was no identification with her; they don't whether she was of Islamic, Christian or Yedizi background, so she's eligible for adoption - they generally won't allow Islamic adoptions, you know, but if they aren't sure then they just say "probably Christian or Yedizi" so that they are eligible -" Olivia took a deep breath, then stopped. "What is that?”

"What? Oh - that was dinner." I replied, getting up and looking at the mess on the kitchen floor. "You startled me.”

There was now egg, tomato and cheese spread across the kitchen, with chunks of broken ceramic added in. The cupboards were splashed with it; even the fridge door was smeared.

"You were going to eat that?" Olivia asked in astonishment, and then we both began to laugh, looking at one another and bursting into fresh laughter again and again.

Eventually we managed to calm down enough to clean it all up. We dumped the whole lot in the garbage and went out to dinner instead, eating at a new seafood restaurant, heading to a jazz bar after that and coming home in a taxi as we both got slightly tipsy. I ended up crashing on Olivia's couch at about three; but before she headed off to bed I grabbed her hand, pulled her close.

"Congratulations," I said.

~*~

What I didn’t tell Hannah that night was that I had been given a day to make the decision, to choose whether Tiya was going to be my daughter or not. I didn’t tell her because it seemed ridiculous, unnecessary. Wrong.

You chose things in life, but you didn’t choose people. I was born into a family, into a culture and a background that I never chose but became mine immediately. When I took on a job, I took on the people I worked with; when I decided to spend time in another country, it really meant spending time with that country’s people.

Fiona gave me a perfunctory phone-call the next day to hear my decision - it was procedure - but she knew what I’d say, and it was mostly another round of congratulations. She didn’t ring too early in the morning, either; she probably guessed what I’d been doing the previous night.

I spent most of the next week in a kind of daze of excitement. I rang around the whole family, sharing the news, enjoying their individual surprised reactions. I let various friends know - the people at work simply saw the way I stepped into the office and began screaming, knowing instantly what my news must be. I sat in Tiya’s room and thought about her, who she'd be. Fiona was on the phone to me every day giving me what updates she could.

Funny how long it took for things to begin, to really begin. It felt like a whole life had passed, waiting, waiting. My daughter was just out of reach; I could never quite see her face, before. I could see her now, though.

The following week I took a trip into the city to pick up the documents from Child & Family that I would need. Fiona was away, but she promised that she would leave them for me at the front desk

I knew the building so well by then, and all the staff knew me by sight, too. As soon as I stepped out of the lift and walked across the strip of cream carpet, the receptionist looked up at me with a smile.

"Olivia - I knew you'd be on time," she said, grinning. "Fiona told me you'd be here around ten to pick up the documents.”

I laughed. "When it comes to this kind of thing, I'm punctual," I assured her. "If it was a dentist's appointment, well . . .”

"Nothing so painful," the receptionist promised, handing over a light brown envelope.

"No note?" I asked casually, weighing up the package. It seemed a little light.

"No, that was all," she replied. "Do you want to check it's all there?”

I slipped a fingernail under the seal and opened the envelope, allowing the contents to slide out onto the counter. The embassy letters and airplane tickets were there, as she'd promised. And something else - I turned over the square of white paper and realised it was a photograph. I think I gasped out loud.

"It's all there?" the receptionist asked again with concern.

"Yes - yes, it's all there. Thank you," I replied distractedly, quickly slipping the documents back into the envelope. I kept the photograph in my hand, however. I couldn't stop looking at it, walking to the lift, standing as it took me down ten floors, finding the carpark and my car.

It was passport sized, taken for official purposes. Black and white. The angle wasn't quite right - she'd moved, perhaps - but it was clear, unblurred. A picture of a little baby, the face of a little baby girl. She was looking to the side, perhaps at a carer, perhaps at a toy. She had a sprinkling of dark hair on her head, and her tiny mouth was open as though she was surprised. I couldn't stop looking at it.

I stopped three times on the way back to Tariton, to get the picture out of my wallet and look at it again. Finally it was quite real to me, and my heart beat with equal panic and excitement. When I got back to the house I found the baby book that Hannah had given to me and I carefully pasted the picture in the very front page. Then I stood it up, open, on my bedside table.

I'd made plans the previous day to have dinner with Hannah, and I went over there a little early to help her. She'd put up the picture that Dr John had given her - the large framed picture of Amala - on the wall in the living room. I stopped and looked at it quietly, and then I hugged Hannah, hugged her hard. Then I grabbed the potatoes to peel.

~*~

We spent the whole of Saturday getting the nursery finished and exactly the way Olivia wanted it. She had two shelves of books that would do Tiya until she was twenty-one; there was a toy-box with enough in there for three children, and a cupboard filled with clothes ready for Tiya to outgrow.

Once that was done, there was the rest of the house to child-proof, even though it would be a year before Tiya was up and around to grab at the powerpoints or the trailing cords. It had to be done then, though; the cupboards with their annoying catches, the height of shelves adjusted, labels stuck on cleaning bottles, extra medicines shoved into the bathroom cupboard.

By the end of the day, we'd both had it. I reminded her that these last few days would be the last opportunity she would ever have to actually sleep through the night for a long, long time; she promised me that she'd read all the books and knew how to sleep train any child within three weeks. We both laughed at that.

We ended up ordering Vietnamese takeaway - they would deliver, and we were too tired to go out - and Olivia dug through some ancient videos to find a comedy we would both like. The door bell rang and I ran to get it, hoping I had enough change for the deliveryman.

"Oh - hey, Hannah.”

It seemed impossible that for one second, one instant, I didn't know who he was.

"Hannah, I said I'd pay tonight -”

I think I turned then, I think I wanted to shield her. Maybe I even moved to shut the door, I don't know. It didn't matter anyway, because she saw him and she slammed the door in his face herself.

After that she stubbed her toe on the coffee table, and swore furiously at the jumping videotape, and burned her mouth on the Vietnamese, when it finally arrived. At the end of the night she dropped both our coffee mugs on the way to the sink, and hers cracked right across.

"Bloody Tarek," I said, trying to be helpful, but it didn't work. Olivia didn't say anything at all.

~*~

I expected that Tarek would turn up with a black eye the next day, after the force of the slammed door, or maybe a swollen nose or something. I expected anything apart from him not turning up at all.

He came the day after. I suppose he had sense enough to let me cool down a little.

"Olivia.”

"What do you want?" I asked coolly.

"It's been three years, what do you bloody think I want?" Tarek retorted. "To borrow a cup of sugar?”

I was in the garden - I'd just got home and was desperately trying to revive a cyclamen that Lin and Than had given me last time they'd visited. Tarek was outside the fence. He looked exactly the same. I couldn't understand how he could look exactly the same.

I looked at him directly. "I told you not to contact me, not to call me, not to come back.”

"And I didn't.”

"So what are you doing here now?" He didn't answer me. "Right, so you need something from me - let's see, some justification for your latest scam? Sorry, I still haven't changed my views on exploitation and theft -”

"Yeah, you've changed.”

I had the hose in my hand and it was just too tempting. I wished afterwards that I hadn't soaked him, though, because he didn't look ridiculous, didn't look a fool dripping wet. He just looked at me, and turned back to his car and drove away.

I didn't bother telling Hannah about his second visit. Instead I brought her inside when she got home and showed her the tickets, showed her the letter from the embassy, got the atlas out and explained exactly where we'd be going.

"Flying to Rome, first, flying from there on InsaneAir - I mean ZaneAir - to Farinstan, to the capital. Right across the Mediterranean, see? There'll be someone to meet us at the airport, an official who'll take us straight to the orphanage. Look, there's where Sally lives, do you see?”

"I still can't believe I'm going to the Middle East," Hannah admitted. "OK, let me work out where all the other countries are in relation to it - Turkey's up, Syria's down, Iraq to the right - oh, I didn't realise that was where Lebanon was! - and there's all those ones I can never remember, Omer and Dubu and -”

"Oman and Dubai, you mean," I corrected, laughing. "We won't be going there, though. One step at a time.”

I realised that I didn't need to be angry with Tarek any longer. I was holding in my right hand a ticket to a whole new world. He was in my past, and my future was within my sights.

I told him as much when he came around that evening after Hannah left. I invited him in more graciously, listened to where he'd been, what he'd done since he'd left three years earlier. Smiled at him, nodded in the right places.

"I'd rather you slammed the door in my face than be so bloody patronising, Olivia," Tarek said bluntly.

I'd been about to offer him a beer, but I got up instead. "Thanks for coming, Tarek. Have a nice life - and no, I'm not your bloody patron. Do you think I don't realise that I legitimised you, legitimised you staying in this country all those years? I'm not doing that again.”

"Of course I wanted to stay in the country," Tarek answered, getting up himself and pushing the chair back in with some force. "I wanted to stay with you, remember?”

"There's one, and there's the other. You know, I was sick for so many years - sick inside, because I was stuck to someone who was rotten through and through. I'm cured now. In a week's time I'll have everything I've ever wanted.”

Tarek snatched at my left hand then, lifted it up. It took me a moment to realise what he was doing.

"I never wanted you to marry me. The idea made me sick then, and it makes me sick now. Get out. And listen to me this time. Don't come back.”

Tarek had a strange half-smile on his face, a smile which stayed there as he grabbed his things to leave. "You hate that you were so happy back then.”

"You're wrong." I pulled open the front door. "You're wrong, Tarek. I didn't like you like that. I hated you.”

This time when I slammed the door I was almost sure it hit him on the way out.

~*~ I usually had the radio on in the car; it came on as soon as I turned the ignition switch. As it happened, it was exactly on the hour, that Tuesday morning, the Tuesday after Olivia and I ate together, held the tickets in our hands, got out the atlas and marked our journey to Farinstan. I got into the car, turned on the engine, and it was exactly on the hour, the right time to hear the news.

"It's the Eight O'Clock news. Here are the latest headlines; Farinstan plunged into chaos as a group calling themselves Farin Freedom Party takes responsibility for the bomb which killed five members of the interim government, including the prime minister. Interest rates set to rise with the new budget figures released today. The wedding of the heir to Britain's throne is called off yet again. Stay tuned for the full stories . . .”

I turned off the engine, got out of the car, and ran into Olivia's house.

She was just getting out of bed, bleary-eyed, reaching for a coffee. "What?" she asked, frowning as I came into the kitchen.

I didn't bother answering her; instead I walked over to the television and switched it on. "Oh, no -”

The coffee was forgotten.

"No, no, this can't be happening, not now, not now!”

The images flashing on the screen were similar to those of a year before; chaos in the streets, people with blood pouring down their faces scrambling out of a smoking building, gunshots, screams. Reporters crouched down, talking urgently into the camera, ducking occasionally.

"In addition to the latest terror attacks in the Farin capital of Zalho, there have also been reports of a build-up of troops on both the Turkish and Syrian borders. There is a real possibility that the UN brokered peace could dissolve under the pressure both within and without of Farinstan," the political analyst assured the viewers. "There is now no unified government, and those who signed the peace accord with Turkey and Syria are in fact dead. If the Farin Freedom Party does take control, they are likely to try to seize land from both those countries which they claim belongs historically to Farinstan. I think we will see a declaration of war within the next few days . . .”

The phone rang.

"Get it for me, please," Olivia said quietly. She stared at the television, at the images replaying again and again.

"Hello?”

"Olivia? It's Fiona. We need to meet today. As soon as possible, if you can get here by nine -”

"It's Hannah. We'll be there.”

I put the phone down, and then grabbed Olivia's hand. "Get dressed, and then get in my car. The radio always has more up to date news, anyway -”

We drove into the city in silence. Olivia moved restlessly in her seat, turning the dial from one radio station to another, trying to find any hope in their words. There seemed little to add to what was already known, however; parliament had been bombed, people had been killed; the capital was in chaos, and there was a build-up of troops on both Syrian and Turkish borders. Although the reporters tried their best to restate the facts in different ways, it was all they could say. I knew what Olivia wanted to hear, however. She wanted a reporter to state clearly that Tiya was all right, that she was safe, that she was in no danger.

We managed to get into Child & Family in record time, despite the early morning traffic. Fiona ushered us into her office quickly, looking pale and tense.

"It's no good, Olivia," she said immediately. "I've tried everything, but it's no good.”

"What are you talking about?”

"I've got orders, right from the top. All files on Farinstan are to be closed. There are to be no more adoptions from there - none. They're going to hand the whole database over to the Red Cross once more, and close the books.”

"You've got to be kidding." Olivia got up, grabbed onto the back of Fiona's chair almost menacingly. "You can't be serious!”

"It's nothing to do with me, Olivia!”

"I have not come this far to stop now, because of regulations!" Olivia shouted. "Forget rules, forget what someone in a suit miles away has said! I have a daughter, and I am not leaving her in Zalho!”

"She's not your daughter. She's a baby in an orphanage - oh, I should never have given you that photograph -" Fiona brought her hands to her face for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I can't go with you to Farinstan. I'd lose my job - more than that, I'd come under investigation, most likely, and be charged for child smuggling." Then she leant forward. "Sit down, Olivia.”

"No. No, I won't sit down. Child smuggling? That's ridiculous! We have all the forms, everything is legal! There isn't anything left to sign - it's basically out of Child & Family's hands, now!" Olivia argued, pacing in front of her. "I don't understand -”

"No, you don't understand!" Fiona retorted, standing up herself. "There's a reason why they've decided on this course of action; it's a war zone there! I don't want to go there, and I don't want to send you there. You haven't got a clue what it's like, you don't know anything about the dangers!”

I got up then, held out my hands. "Stop it. Stop, both of you.”

There was a silence, and then they both sat back down quietly.

"We lost someone, last year," Fiona said finally. "We lost one of our caseworkers in Africa - she was abducted and murdered. It was under different circumstances from these, yes. But they are not sending anyone into a risky situation again. You're thinking of saving one life - but you'd lose all three of us to do it.”

It was quiet then, quiet for a long time. Then Olivia got up.

"Don't you tell me what I do and don't know. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me!”

She grabbed the documents from the table and left the room.

"Hey! Hey, you can't take that with you!" Fiona called after her, as we followed her out past reception to the lifts.

"I'll do whatever the hell I like." The lift doors snapped open and Olivia stepped in, motioning me to follow her. "It's all words to you, isn't it? Well, fuck you. This is my daughter we're talking about. No one tells me what to do with her. No one.”

~*~

I punched the wrong button on the lift and we ended up stepping out into the basement. When the doors opened we got out automatically; we blinked in the sudden dark and heard the lift door shut behind us, heard it begin to trundle back upwards.

"I don't think this is Station Street," Hannah said cautiously.

It smelt odd. I looked around for some light, a sign pointing to an exit. There was nothing. Apart from shadows and grey concrete walls, there were boxes of different sizes, some dusty sheets covering strangely shaped objects, an aluminium ladder, some tins of paint. A buzz of machinery noise came from our left; from our right, a vague howling from some kind of air flow.

Hannah had already punched the lift button, but the numbers flashing showed it was still moving upwards. She got out her phone, but there was no signal. We were under the ground. When I moved to look for an exit, she grabbed my arm and held me firmly. "We wait," she said.

I shrugged and obeyed. I found myself moving the packet of documents I'd snatched from Fiona from my right hand to my left, from my left to my right, over again and again.

"What are you thinking?" Hannah asked suddenly. Her voice sounded strange, and I looked at her curiously. She was very tense and pale, and I could hear her breathing loudly.

"Are you sick?”

"I don't like this, I don't like it here -" She took a deep breath. "Tell me what you're thinking.”

"I'm thinking about blowing up this building," I answered honestly. "I want a nice empty hole in the ground instead.”

It was suddenly very quiet.

"Oh, Olivia.”

Hannah's voice sounded so tired and sad.

"Oh, Olivia; I wish it didn't have to be like this for you." She took the package of documents from my hands, slid them into my bag, sighed again. "I wish it didn't have to be like this for you.”

I turned my hands into fists and pressed them into my eyes. They hurt so much. I stood there, stiff and tense while Hannah lifted her arms up to embrace me. She was so much smaller than I that it was almost difficult. I wouldn't bend my head to her, I could release my arms to hold her. I stood and waited.

A mechanical sound made us both jump; then the bell sounded, and the lift opened behind us.

"Come on," Hannah said, moving back. "Let's go home.”

"Don't drive straight home," Olivia said suddenly.

We had finally found our car, and had managed to get the person who'd double-parked us in to move their car so we could actually leave.

"All right," I promised, and so I drove to the outskirts of the city, to the coastal road. We passed by the main gardens, and then through the suburbs, and then past the airport. We got stuck in some traffic near the domestic terminal turn-off, where the road from the airport joined the main freeway. I heard a strange sound from Olivia, and then I looked over at her, and saw someone in the car next to us staring in at us. It was a two or three year old, her face pressed against the window, frowning.

There was a blast of the horn and I saw that a space had come up, and so I forged ahead. I kept driving, right along the coastal road, along the cliffs. The roads wound tightly around the hills; I had to concentrate hard. It was not until we left the sea and headed back through the farmlands that I realised the radio wasn't on. I reached forward to switch it on, but Olivia laid her hand over the controls. "Leave it," she said.

I got a phone call on the drive back, and pulled over to answer it, getting out of the car to get better reception. It turned out to be an interrogation from work as to why I hadn't turned up, hadn't rung them either. I think they were worried; they'd left a few messages on my phone which I'd missed. When I finally reassured them that I was fine and I was also sorry, I returned to the car and to Olivia. I apologised; she started out of her own thoughts, and I realised she'd barely noticed that we'd even stopped.

The farmlands quickly gave way to small towns again, and the sign for Tariton finally appeared. "Do you want to go home, or get something to eat first?" I asked.

"Home," she answered briefly. "Home, but come in for coffee. I need some coffee.”

"All right," I agreed, and turned right towards our street. It was late afternoon now, nearing twilight. We hadn't had anything to eat all day, I was starting to remember. A kind of dull sadness was filling me; a kind of ugly helplessness. I slid into the parking space outside my house, and then slammed on the brakes as Olivia flung open the door and jumped out.

"You bastard!" she screamed, running up to her front garden, running up to the man who stood in her front yard. "Get out of here! Get out of here now, you sick, sick bastard!”

She lifted her hand and I winced, waiting for the sound of a slap; but Tarek grabbed her hands. His face didn't change. He just grabbed her hands and waited. She struggled for a moment, but then she dropped her arms, and burst into horrible, wrenching sobs. She sounded less like she was crying than she was being sick; I could see her holding her stomach, half bending over with the force of her sobs.

"Get out of here, Tarek, get out of here!”

I was with her by then, and I put my arms around her and pulled her to me. Tarek released her hands then and left. I nearly offered him some kind of explanation, before I remembered he had no right to any at all. Then I went into the house with Olivia and got her her coffee.

~*~

Hannah sat with me for an hour, sat with me in silence. She took me to the couch, put me there, went into the kitchen, made coffee - the good stuff - found and washed out my favourite mug, put the drink on a tray with some biscuits. Moved the small table to the side of me, set it all up. Sat beside me. Waited.

I still had the documents with me. I read each one carefully, shuffled them through in my hands, stared at them, going over what Fiona had said. I put the news on at each half-hour, but there was nothing new.

"All right," I said finally. "I'll email these top people in Child & Family. I'll go over Fiona's head and talk to them directly. And I'll talk to Red Cross, too, maybe between the two of them something can be worked out.”

The TV news update blared out, and I stopped; but it was the same as I'd heard that morning, the same as I'd heard all day long.

"They can't just make a rule today, when the tickets are booked and everything is ready to go. They can't do that - any delay could mean it all has to start again, right from the start, months of waiting. She can't wait any longer in that place, not when things are so unstable." I began to shuffle through the documents again. "I'm sure it says somewhere they can't do that -”

"By the time you get an audience with whoever's running Child & Family - let alone the relevant people at the Red Cross - it'll be weeks. Days and weeks," Hannah said quietly. "You know that.”

"I know that, I know that -" I was up now, and pacing. "I'll try today, then. We'll go back to the city now, and we'll find these people, and we won't leave there until -”

"Until security throws you and your application out the window," Hannah finished.

I stopped. "Don't tell me to give up now.”

"I wouldn't. I'm telling you the opposite." Hannah leaned forward and grabbed at my hands. "Olivia, you have all the documents you need right here. You have the ticket. You've got it all. All you don't have is Fiona. Do you need her?”

The audacity of what Hannah was suggesting threw me entirely. I sat back down, hugging my papers to me, and stared at her.

"No," I said finally. "No, I don't need her. But I can't go into a war zone without a word of Arabic. Without knowing the country or the people, without having anyone to meet us, to show us where to go. I don't need her, but I do need her contacts. I need the people she was setting up over there. I need her phone numbers, her addresses, all those things. I don't have any of them!”

"You need someone who knows the country and the people," Hannah said steadily.

I looked at her without comprehension. "Hannah, I've told you that my Arabic is almost nil - and I've never been to Farinstan!”

"I'm not talking about you.”

Neither of us spoke it; but his name hung in the air

"No," I finally said, speaking through frozen lips. "No, I don't want him there. I don't want him near me and I don't want him near my child. I don't want to take anything more from him. Don't you understand? I told you, I've told you what happened! He isn't good, he isn't good for me. I told him to go away and he went, and that's what he has to do!”

I got up suddenly and the documents showered over the floor. I quickly fell to my knees to pick them up.

"Olivia, it's all right," Hannah said, distressed. "I didn't say he had to come back or that you did. You need to ask him one thing, that's all. Just to help you, once. It doesn't have to be anything or mean anything. You haven't got a choice!”

I stopped, hung my head for a moment. "It's not right.”

"Tarek will do it, if you ask him," Hannah said gently.

"I know he will." I stopped, started again. "I know he'd do it, if I asked him. But what would he want in return? If I took him to Farinstan, what would I be taking him to? A new place, ripe for spoiling? There's things he might do there, and I'd allow him to do it, because it would be for my daughter!”

"Olivia-”

I got up. "No. No, there has to be another way. Let me alone to think about it. Let me decide.”

~*~

I never found out how Olivia managed to contact Tarek after that. Did he come around again - did he turn up in her garden the next day, hoping it would be finally the right time? Or maybe she tried his old number, or called a friend of his, or surmised somehow where he was staying. But then, she was ready to move heaven and earth for her child; finding one man would be the least of it.

In any case, she seemed to be out all the time after that. I didn't see her for two days; I finally found a note slipped under my door one morning, in Olivia's practically illegible hand. "We're leaving Friday morning.”

Friday morning had been the original date. I wondered for an instant whether Olivia had managed to twist the arm of Child & Family after all; but I knew somehow that that wouldn't have happened. Instead she'd approached Tarek, and he'd agreed. I thought he'd probably agreed. I would find out for sure on Friday morning.

I had already applied for short leave from Lowell's, and had already gone through with Olivia what I needed to bring. Putting together a light-weight bag was a challenge for me - I generally found myself lugging two suitcases for just a weekend away - but I knew that the last thing I wanted was to be dragging a suitcase after me through unknown streets. I knew Tiya wouldn't care whether my shirt was unironed or my face not made up. That was who we were going to meet - that was why we were going.

I went over to see Olivia the night before, but stopped a moment to watch the news. Still the same. The same chaos and uncertainty. No one knew who was in charge, no one knew exactly what was going on. More car bombs in crowded places, more grief and pain. I listened, then I went to Olivia.

"You're coming?”

She answered the door in her oldest clothes, her hair piled up on top of her head, one arm filled with old magazines.

"You're cleaning?" I answered incredulously, stepping into her house. "Olivia, we're leaving first thing tomorrow - you'll be exhausted!”

"So you're coming, then," she answered, and smiled at me.

I looked around the room - there were piles of books, scattered papers, half-filled boxes, and a strong reek of ammonia. "Don't tell me that today you finally decided to spring clean!”

"Well, I'm not going to get time to do it afterwards!" Olivia protested. "Those books were really dusty, and totally out of order, too -”

"She can't read, Olivia," I reminded her firmly. Then I sighed. "This is going to take us all night, do you realise?”

It didn't take us all night, but it was well past midnight before Olivia was satisfied that the place was as clean and neat and ordered as it could ever be.

"Take a good look around, Olivia," I said sardonically. "It's the last time it'll ever look so good . . .”

"Soon it will look better," she replied quietly, and then collapsed onto the couch. "Thanks for helping out.”

"Well, there's some things you just can't let a friend do alone - like defrost the refrigerator -”

"Or travel to Farinstan?" Olivia finished, with an odd smile on her face.

"Or travel to Farinstan," I agreed, sitting beside the couch, grabbing her hand. "There's some places you just shouldn't go alone.”

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut then like a child making a wish.

"In a week's time she'll be here and it will all be over, won't it?”

"In a week's time everything will begin," I corrected her and then I got up and went home.

~*~

Fiona had cancelled her ticket, of course; which meant there had been a spare seat on the plane, which meant Tarek had been able to take up that spare seat on the plane, been able to travel to Italy with us.

I'd found him at Rebwar's house - his friend with whom I'd played soccer - and I had explained quite steadily what I needed from him.

"What's in it for me?”

I had expected that kind of response, so it didn't really hurt, not really, to hear him say it.

"What do you want?”

He raised his eyebrows consideringly. "That's an interesting response. It's the kind of answer I like to hear, actually." He turned his back on me - we had been standing by the doorway - and found the softest armchair, flopped down into it. "What do I want? Usually when someone says that to me, it means it's an open field. I can ask anything I want. It means the person is pretty desperate, actually.”

I shrugged. "That's no secret.”

"But it doesn't have the same ring about it, when it comes from you," he went on, as though I hadn't spoken. "I can think of times when you've asked me that question before, and you asked it because you wanted to know. In these circumstances, though - nope, you're thinking to say yes to anything I ask, and get out of it afterwards. Doesn't really make me too confident about the whole arrangement, actually.”

Rebwar stuck his head into the room to ask whether we wanted tea. I stared at him; he left.

"The real answer is that there's nothing in it for me, right?”

"Right, right, whatever," I said impatiently. "Give me a yes or a no, just tell me, give me your answer, damn you!”

"I’ll be there on Friday.”

Suddenly I wished I had taken Rebwar's offer of the tea. I wanted him to interrupt us then, walk in with ordinary conversation, hand us hot teacups, change the mood of the room. I didn't have the energy to hide my relief and my surprise and my lack of comprehension. Then I suddenly realised I had been staring at Tarek - who was sitting forward looking at me as steadily - and I turned around and left the house.

He didn't meet us in the airport, he wasn't in the lounge waiting, he wasn't part of the long line for boarding. The aeroplane filled up. Hannah was sitting in the window seat, I was in the middle, and then an elderly man slipped into the aisle seat. The last locker overhead slammed shut; there were no more people standing around in the aisle. I was surprised at the kind of grey disappointment that settled in my stomach then. Hannah didn't say anything; she just held my hand.

But they hadn't quite shut the door. Two more people came in, and then Tarek, lugging his familiar black carrybag. He shoved it into the overhead locker and then slammed it shut, before looking around quite obviously for me. For Hannah and I. He caught my eye, raised an eyebrow, then calmed the flight attendant by sitting down in his seat.

Then we went to Italy.

~*~

I've been on aeroplanes many times before, but I've always been nervous before a flight, especially before take-off. I was especially nervous this time, of course; I even had to excuse myself before we boarded in order to be thoroughly sick in the airport bathroom. I think it's great that the Wright brothers invented flight; I just wish they'd gone one step further and invented teleportation. Far less nerve-wracking, I'm sure.

When we didn't see Tarek at the airport, I thought that was that. I didn't look for him at boarding, although I could tell Olivia was; I didn't expect him at all after that. When he finally appeared, I was utterly astonished. Relieved - a thousand possibilities had been running through my mind of what would happen to us without an interpreter - but astonished all the same.

Olivia just seemed relieved. She was relaxed throughout the flight, or comparatively, anyway. She'd always claimed to enjoy flying; not even the turbulence we went through before we refuelled seemed to faze her. I saw her watch a movie and enjoy it; get out a book, heard her tell me about the reviews she'd read about it, heard her tell me her own opinion of it. Heard her tell me again not to worry, that the airline we were travelling with had a perfect safety record. But she read the safety booklet; and I watched her touch the pouch in the seat in front of her, where her documents lay. She just touched them now and again, making sure they were secure.

We had to change planes twice - Child & Family obviously went for the cheapest flights - before we got to Italy. Both times Tarek disappeared, and both times I was slightly alarmed when he got on the plane at the very last minute. Olivia shrugged and said he was probably getting the best out of duty free while he could. I didn't see him in any of the shops, though.

The spring cleaning that we'd both done the previous night turned out to be a good idea, because we both slept towards the end of the flight. Olivia woke before I did, though; when I opened my eyes I saw her, staring past me out the window. We were passing over a desert in the middle of the world. I wasn't sure, but I thought that maybe she knew it.

~*~

I'd been to Italy before, of course - I'd been to Rome, where we had to stay a night before going out to the overgrown field where InsaneAir planes took off. Hannah hadn't, though, she'd never been to a country where people spoke a language apart from English. I wished we'd travelled before, because she enjoyed it all so much. Showing her through the streets, showing her the ancient places and buildings familiar to him from pictures, eating with her in noisy restaurants and letting her try out a few words in Italian - it was almost a holiday, it was almost a trip we'd taken together for pleasure.

We booked into our hotel when we arrived, and then spent hours and hours in expensive taxis, going from place to place, walking where we could and then hailing taxis once again. We didn't get back to our hotel until very late, and then we stayed up talking until it was too late to go to bed.

"I'm glad we had to stop here on the way," Hannah said thoughtfully as she brushed out her hair. She had grown it since that first day I'd met her in the cafe, when it was very short. "I thought it would be easier to go straight there, but I'm glad we had today. It was a good day.”

"It's the first day I've had when I haven't had to - fight," I said, wondering if Hannah would know what I meant. But she smiled; and I knew she understood.

"So - that makes it a good day," she answered softly.

That was right; she was right. I got so tired of fighting everything, sometimes. Fighting with people. I remembered the days Tarek and I had shared, the occasional days when it had just been fun. When I hadn't had to fight with him, or fight the guilt in myself. Those had been the best days.

He met us in the hotel lobby; he was already there when I came down with my bag. He was standing by the main desk, looking not at the concierge but up at the staircase, waiting for me. When he saw me he smiled; but I felt stricken. It had been years and years since the first day we had talked to one another in Iraq at Emma's party, but for a moment I thought it was that same day.

"We'll be practically able to throw a stone into Iraq," he said, as though he'd been thinking the same thing.

"Or a block of concrete," I couldn't help but add. He laughed.

"Might set off war on another front - don't you think Syria and Turkey are enough?”

I looked away, then. "Yes - yes, that's enough.”

Hannah came down then, and we settled our bill then piled into a taxi.

InsaneAir - and a few other small occasional airlines - flew not from the main international airport but from a tiny aerodrome in the opposite direction. The low building looked deserted when we arrived. There were guards who checked out passports as we drove in, and another at the door, and then there was a waiting room. Tarek went to find out what was happening, starting with the cleaner idly pushing a filthy mop through a filthier puddle. A few other people joined us in the waiting room, but none of them spoke English.

"Hmm, well the officials here are fairly sure that the flight is leaving from here today.”

I turned around - Tarek had come up behind me. "What do you mean?”

"I mean that things are so bad there that they won't be flying into Farinstan much longer. As I say, the official is pretty sure today's flight is still happening.”

"Pretty sure?" I repeated.

"Well, he's not a hundred percent certain," Tarek shrugged. "I guess we'll find out soon enough.”

"Not quite sure? Tarek, that isn't good enough! I have a ticket, they have to fly me there!" My voice began to rise. "They said they were going there, and they've booked my seat - they have to fly there today!”

"Well, they have indemnity clauses in case of war -" he began.

"I don't care about that! I don't care about clauses and some distant board's bloody rules! We have come this far and there's no way we're not leaving this morning, there's absolutely no way!”

Tarek looked at me approvingly. "Well, don't worry, if it comes to that I'll hijack a plane and fly you there myself.”

There was a sudden quiet then.

I turned around and realised that the InsaneAir officials had finally turned up and opened their gate for booking-in. Everyone had left to line up already. Even Hannah had grabbed my bag and had begun to line up.

"See, he was pretty certain," Tarek said then. "You'll be flying today after all." Then he grabbed his own bag and moved towards the line.

Forget the rules. Forget the decisions and the laws people made. I'd finally turned into Tarek.

He looked back at me. "I was kidding about the hijacking, OK? Come on.”

~*~

Olivia had mentioned that the flight from Rome into Farinstan would be on a smaller airline. ZaneAir, it was called, apparently. She seemed to stumble sometimes over the name - perhaps it wasn't familiar to her.

I wondered why it wasn't leaving from the main airport, with all the other international flights. Olivia explained that it was a very, very small airline. She failed to mention that the plane itself would also be very, very small.

At first I couldn't work out why we were walking out onto the tarmac. I'd only ever gone straight from the airport terminal into a plane through a tunnel. There were no tunnels there. We walked out, saw the plane, and climbed up the steps to get in it. It was like catching a bus.

I hadn't actually realised there were still really little planes left. The kind that didn't have three sections of seats and three classes. The plane we went on didn't even have economy class. It went right past economy and kept going. It also didn't have sections of seats, just a single seat on each side. I decided it wasn't planned that way so that everyone got both a window and an aisle seat. There were also no pouches in the back of the seats. No armrests, either.

"I think I can do without armrests, but if there's no pouches - does that mean no inflight magazines?" I whispered to Olivia.

"Er - yes. It's the language problem, you see," she said hastily. "They wouldn't know whether to publish it in Farin, Arabic, Italian, or English.”

"Oh." I thought a little more. "And what about safety instructions?”

"Same reason.”

The seats were dirty. I felt glad I'd brought some antiseptic wipes with me, and gave the plastic a scrub. I decided I wouldn't accept any water the flight attendant gave me unless the bottle was sealed. Then I looked around. There were no flight attendants.

"Olivia, is this a real plane?" I asked suspiciously.

"It's just a small plane, you know, without all the luxuries," she answered quickly. Too quickly.

"Luxuries like emergency exits?”

"Well, there's the door, we're really not that far from it.”

I looked around. There were only seven of us in the plane. I decided I could fight for the door if I had to.

The pilot stuck his head around. "Buckle up," he said. At least, I assume he said that, because the other passengers began to do so. I wasn't quite sure what language he was speaking, but someone there obviously understood. I decided to nominate that person as leader in case of a crash. Not that we were going to crash. We weren't, of course.

"That - rush - you feel when we go up will feel a little stronger in a small plane," Olivia warned me.

"Oh yeah," Tarek murmured.

"Oh no," I whimpered. She was right. The whole plane began to shake. A loud mechanical noise filled our ears. I squeezed my eyes shut, grabbed onto Olivia's hand across the aisle, and murmured, "No throw-up bags?”

"I brought one with me," Olivia replied, shoving one into my free hand.

I didn't throw up, but it was mostly because I was so far into sensory overload that I couldn't do anything. The noise was deafening, the feeling as we rose up into the sky nauseating, the vibrating almost painful, and the terror quite overwhelming. My seatbelt fell apart at the first jolt in the air; I gave up the fight and left it where it was.

I thought that it would steady out once we got above the clouds, but it seemed to alternate between bouncing and vibrating. Occasionally the plane would drop suddenly - at one point I felt faint, and looked up to see whether they had oxygen masks overhead. Funnily enough, they didn't.

"Why is this airline allowed to fly?" I whispered.

"That could be the other reason it's only got a few days left before it closes," Olivia said grimly.

At that point I felt my feet become suddenly cold and wet. The floor was flooded; it turned out that a bucket of dirty water had overturned from the back. Maybe the cleaner from the airport had given the floor a once over. At least there were no toilets on board, so I could be assured it was just water. Unless that was why there was a bucket of water in the back.

Olivia was glued to the window, apart from the occasional smile at me, or a few words about the blood returning to her right hand. I could hear her murmuring a few things - there was the Mediterranean, there was the Aegean, that was Turkey - but most of it was lost to me. I heard myself asking plaintively a few times "Are we there yet?" but they stopped answering that after a while.

The pilot suddenly turned and said, "Buckle up, we're about to crash." At least I assume he said that, because people began hastily attempting to put their seatbelts together again. I didn't bother. I just squeezed my eyes shut so I didn't have to see death coming.

"Hannah, look out your window - it's Zalho. We're landing!”

Maybe that's what the pilot said. I looked out the window and saw a great ragged circle, and saw us descending into that circle. It rose up to meet us; and then we were in Farinstan.

~*~

It was wonderful flying in a small plane over that part of the world. Seeing the landscape of my daughter's country. Watching the plane descend lower and lower into her world. It was a beautiful journey, and it calmed me.

Seeing Zalho, the capital, itself was amazing. It was an ancient city, with a citadel raised up high in the centre. The newer parts had grown up around that inner circle, and roads spanned out from it, like a great wheel. I also saw that there was smoke rising up from the city.

The plane taxied to a halt before a small building, where our bags were searched by a guard from who knows what army. He let us through, anyway. Outside there were huge metal gates, with barbed wire and an electrical current running through it. It was because of all the people outside the gates, clamouring to be let in. Before we could get out two armed guards had to step out and threaten the people, to let enough room pass for us to leave.

"Is this a good idea, Olivia?" Hannah asked nervously. "I doubt those guards will do anything for us once we're out there -”

"They're not guarding you, they're guarding the airport. And the people aren't interested in you, they're interested in the flights out," Tarek said suddenly.

I gripped onto my bag and stepped out of the gates, hearing them crash behind me. I didn't care if they never opened up again for me. I'd arrived; that was the main thing.

"Tarek.”

A small balding man approached Tarek, gripped his hand, kissed him formally on both cheeks. I realised that was what Tarek had been doing when he'd disappeared on the way here. Calling a friend, setting something up. "I didn't think you'd been to Farinstan before," I said. "You met Sally in Syria, I know, but I didn't think you'd been this far -”

"I haven't," Tarek replied brusquely. "But I know people in different places. This is Ibrahim - he runs a taxi business - he has a car. He'll want to be well paid," he added.

When we got into the car, Ibrahim tossed us two black scarves, nearly as big as blankets. "Cover yourselves - and don't speak in public," Tarek warned us. "It's safer.”

I nodded, and showed Hannah how to fold it so it covered her hair, her face, her body. I pinned it into place and hoped no one would look too closely at our eyes.

The car swung out onto a dirt road which was bounded on both sides by large grassy fields, speckled with white rocks, coloured with wildflowers. In the distance I could see mountains; dark, angular shapes against the clear sky. In one of the fields there was a boy watching over unusual looking sheep, and a man wearing the traditional wrapped headcovering of the Farin people, the blue and the white cloth worn by both men and women. He was evidently watching over the boy.

I don't think I had ever seen so many guns in my life. All the guards at the airport had had Kalishnakovs, and quite a few others I saw wore them strapped across themselves, their hands resting lightly on the trigger. There were guards scattered all the way down the dirt road from the airport, right until we reached the outskirts of the city.

It was a difficult drive. The roads were in very poor shape, rutted, pot-holed, with various obstacles blocking the way. The grassy fields gave way to housing - on the ouskirts, low huts built from mud and stone, the roof a metal sheet weighed down with rocks. Further on there were concrete houses behind walls, with glass embedded into them. There were a few crumbling apartments, with shops underneath. All the shopfronts were barred. We wound around narrow streets, past homes, past the remainder of homes. Once we found ourselves at a busy intersection. Ibrahim quickly locked all the doors; and as he did, a large number of beggars descended on the car, pulling at the handles, tapping at the windows. We looked away and hated ourselves.

Hannah looked out, transfixed. I'd forgotten how new it would all be to her. The people in their dark clothing - long shapeless dresses for the women, dark trousers and tunics for the men. The odd swirling writing of Arabic and Farin on signs and billboards. Everything seemed broken or forgotten - and yet as though not long before it had all been new. There were animals on the street, ragged dogs and thin cats, mostly. There should have been donkeys, goats, chickens; but people were hungry now and poor, and their animals were kept close. The few trees we saw were stripped bare.

I'd never been to Farinstan, but I recognised it. It was just poorer, but the people, the buildings, the landscape was not unfamiliar to me. I heard Tarek and Ibrahim talk in low voices to one another, and I understood a few of their words. I knew I'd come back here one day with my daughter, and I knew I would be comfortable here.

"What?" My voice got higher, suddenly. "Do you mean there's another way to the orphanage, or -”

"Or.”

"What's going on?" Hannah asked, but Tarek was just looking at me.

"Even apart from the fact that the flight which left just as we did could've been the last one -" he began, then he shook his head. "There's rumours of other planes, Olivia, that's what I'm saying. The kind that drop bombs on buildings and flatten them to the ground.”

"Oh, hell." Hannah went pale, gripped onto the doorhandle. "Who?”

"I don't think that's going to matter particularly when you're blown into a thousand pieces," Tarek said bluntly. "Look, if we go back now there's a chance that another plane will be taking off. Otherwise we might find ourselves in a situation of full war.”

"Full war," I repeated softly. "I see. Well, tell Ibrahim to hurry up then, because I don't want my daughter to get caught up even in half a war.”

"Olivia," Tarek repeated with frustration evident in his voice. "This isn't Iraq in the 'nineties. This isn't a safe city like Irbil. This is chaos. We could turn a corner and find ourselves faced with machine-guns. If a plane drops a bomb, they're not going to inquire first as to your nationality -”

"Well, here's a plan. Take Hannah back, and let me go on. But I am not giving up on my daughter, not when I'm so close -”

"She's not even your daughter!" Tarek shouted. "Why are you so bloody tenacious about someone you've never even met! It's insane!”

I thought then that he was right, that it was insane, that it was an utterly insane situation. It didn't make me want to give up, however.

"Drive on, Ibrahim," Tarek said finally in Arabic, and then he swore, swore furiously, hitting the dashboard with his closed fist. He turned around once more.

"If they shoot me through the head, it'll be too late for a doctor -" I rejoined, but I couldn't help smiling. He didn't smile back, though, just turned around angrily.

It grew darker - it was midday, but the sky was clouding over. Then Ibrahim turned a corner and stopped the car. I thought for a second he'd betrayed us; that there'd be people there ready to surround us, murder us. It was deserted however.

"What's going on?”

"It's the Christian quarter over there, Ibrahim doesn't dare take the car in. You'll have to walk. You don't happen to have a crucifix on a chain or anything?" Tarek asked hopefully.

"Funnily enough I didn't include that item in my luggage," Hannah said drily. "I didn't consider that we might be encountering vampires.”

Tarek just muttered something incomprehensible and jumped out, grabbing our bags. I moved to take them and he glared at me, telling me in Arabic to get lost. Then he strode out ahead, while Hannah and I followed a little way behind. It was only after Ibrahim had left that I remembered I hadn't paid him. It meant that Tarek probably had.

There was an old man ahead, a bent old man sitting on a broken wall. He lifted his head slightly as we passed. Tarek stopped, asked where the orphanage was. The man mumbled an answer, pointed - and then I heard a child's wail.

~*~

We heard the sound of a baby crying, and we all turned. It was in the opposite direction to the way the man had pointed, and Tarek began to speak angrily to him, gesticulating furiously. Then he grabbed the man's shoulder, shook him. I muffled a cry, looked over at Olivia. She was looking indescribably sad. Then she laid a hand on Tarek's arm, and began to walk towards the sound.

Down the alleyway behind the man was a two-storey stone and concrete building. There was a bolted metal door, and a barred window next to it. A kind of orange paint was peeling from the door. Tarek banged on it, called through the window. I looked up; there was a face at the window above, the face of a nun.

"Who are these nuns?-”

"They run the orphanage," Olivia replied hastily. "Nuns go in for unwanted babies -”

Tarek gestured at us, and we quieted. He banged on the door again, and finally we heard footsteps coming towards the door.

"Take off your veil," Tarek hissed. He stepped back. The door opened and he pushed us forward, let our foreign faces greet the nun, our pale eyes and hair.

"Welcome," the woman said in English. "Come in, and welcome." She left the door open and began walking back down the darkened hallway.

Olivia and I looked at one another and then, suddenly, we laughed. Tarek hissed something and pushed us inside, and shut the door securely behind him. "Doesn't she realise there's a war on?”

We followed the nun meekly along the hallway, up a narrow flight of stairs into an open room. There was a long table in the centre, with benches around it. On the far wall was a large crucifix; a picture of Jesus welcoming the children hung opposite. The nun gestured for us to sit. "Are you hungry?" she asked politely. "You must have come a long way.”

Suddenly I realised that I was hungry, that I was ravenous. But I could see Olivia was barely able to be still. "We've come a long way, yes," I replied. "But before we do anything at all, we want to tell you who we are, who we've come to see. Olivia - my friend here - is adopting one of your babies. Tiya, she's called. We were going to pick her up today.”

"Tiya?" the nun repeated, and frowned.

I could hear Olivia stop breathing. Then the nun's face cleared. "Oh! You must be Mrs Theopilis! You were coming with an official from the Child & Family department, I remember. And this must be your husband. Oh, I'm sure you're longing to see little Atiya. Let me get Mother Superior.”

The nun bustled away, leaving us alone. We looked at one another.

"So I'm Fiona - and he's Mr Theopilis -" I began.

"Well, if it gets me my baby -" Olivia said simultaneously.

"Atiya means gift.”

Olivia and I stopped and looked at Tarek.

"What?”

"I didn't think Tiya was an Arabic name. Atiya is, though. It means gift.”

A smile slowly broke over Olivia's face. She closed her eyes.

"Mrs Theopilis? The papers were in your name - Olivia Theopilis - will you sign here? And here?”

Mother Superior was very business-like, seeing all of Olivia's documents, having all the correct forms at the ready. But when it was all done, she smiled.

"I'm glad you came to get Atiya - we call her Tiya, for short. We thought that with everything that was happening, it might fall through, and that would be tragic. Things are going to get very difficult here, you know. We have been trying desperately to give all the children homes before war broke out. We will have a few that we can continue to care for - but it's not like having a family.”

Then she stood up. "I'll just get her for you.”

That was when the first gunshots sounded.

~*~

I think up till then that I had been afraid that they would not give her to me. That they'd see me, see who I was, and decide that I wasn't the person they'd imagined. I thought that they wouldn't want to give her up.

But instead they told me that they were glad I had come, and they were glad I was to be Tiya's mother.

We were in their dining room, sitting in the room where the nuns and the children ate three times a day. It had a rough concrete floor, a rough concrete ceiling. The windows were narrow, barred on the outside against thieves. The table itself was made from unpolished wood, darkened with use. I laid my hand against it; I wanted to be able to tell Tiya where she had lived. I looked at the nun standing by the door, looked at her again. I wanted to be able to tell Tiya who had cared for her.

"I'll just get her for you," Mother Superior said easily. She rose, turned towards to door. I saw her jump at the same time we did; jump at the sound of gunshots.

"That was close -" Tarek said, and disappeared down the stairs.

"Oh dear," Mother Superior said. "I think it may have begun." She hesitated a moment in the doorway, then went on.

Hannah and I looked at one another.

"What exactly might have begun?" Hannah asked carefully.

"I don't know. Except as soon as we've got Tiya, we're getting out of here. The longer we wait around, the more danger these people are in. Hannah, I shouldn't have brought you into this -”

"Of course you should have. You're going to need me," Hannah told me, and smiled. "I've already played my part.”

Tarek came back up the stairs, taking them two at a time. "We'll have to go over the roof - they're all connected - the road this way is blocked. There's some kind of fighting going on. Grab the kid and let's go!”

I turned around and saw that a nun had come into the room and she had a baby in her arms.

Then she was in my arms.

Tiya was a bundle, wrapped up in blankets. She was a sleeping bundle, long dark lashes on her cheeks, soft dark hair showing from under the blanket. She was so light, so little, so entirely perfect. I looked at her and I knew that she had always been my daughter.

Another gunshot sounded, closer, and I jerked, and pressed Tiya closer to me.

"She doesn't have much, but here's a few things -" The nun handed Hannah a small cloth bag. I realised that this nun was probably the person who had cared for Tiya, who had brought her up from her first few days, who would lose the most. I looked at her steadily. "Thank you," I said. "Sister?”

"Sister Cecilia," she answered, and smiled.

"Olivia, we need to get out of here," Tarek interrupted. "You've got access to the roof?”

"Of course," Mother Superior answered, "Just up the top of the staircase. At the end of this street - the last house - you'll find a Lina Yasmin. Tell her we sent you; she'll show you any hospitality necessary.”

"Thank you," I said again. "Thank you.”

There was a banging at the door. Tarek scooped up all the documents, all the bags, everything, then grabbed my hand and pulled me to the staircase. Just one more flight and we were out onto the roof.

Like all the houses in the city, the roof was flat, with a low wall around it. They'd built it slightly higher - perhaps so the children could play safely - and we crouched down behind it, edging our way to the next house, with their wall protecting us. I didn't look down at who was banging at the door. Perhaps it was just a frightened neighbour, or perhaps it was someone searching for the foreigners. I didn't want to know.

The noise grew louder. It was the noise of people running, people shouting, people screaming. I had never felt so vulnerable. People were people, but excited crowds were not a human thing. That was what was terrifying about them; they seemed human, but were not.

We shuffled in silence from one roof to the next, crawling or crouching behind the walls. Tiya slept on. I felt her breaths against my skin; I felt her heartbeat, just as I felt my own, racing with fear and utter joy, altogether. She was in my arms!

"This is the last house," Tarek murmured.

Lina Yasmin's house had a single room built on the roof, with a door leading out. Tarek tried to handle, and swore. It was locked. He beat it again and again, kicking at it until it broke.

"We've woken the whole house," he muttered. "Let's hope they're friendly.”

I turned to Hannah and thrust Tiya into her arms. "Stay by the wall," I told her. "Wait until we come back.”

Then I followed Tarek into the house.

~*~

I leant, squatting, against the low wall, holding Tiya in my arms.

She looked nothing like Amala. Amala had been tiny, almost half the size of Tiya. She had had a thin pointed little face, where Tiya's was round and full. Tiya's skin was darker, and she had more hair. And I could feel her heavy in my arms.

She was utterly beautiful.

Tears filled my eyes, and I thought how funny it was that at last I was crying when Olivia was not. At the beauty of her daughter. At my gladness that we'd come to get her. At my own freedom, that I could love Amala and Tiya as well. At knowing again that there was nothing quite like holding a sleeping child in your arms.

Olivia had passed her over to me, passed the responsibility of watching over her, just as once I had passed the care of Amala to her. I'd been in recovery, and Olivia had stayed with my baby. And now it was my turn.

The noise and the gunshots had died away. I hoped Lina Yasmin would have some food, because I was hungry; I hoped she'd have a bathroom, too. I hoped the nuns had been right about her.

But before long, Olivia was up at the door, gesturing to me. I came over to her, returned Tiya to her arms. Then we walked together down the staircase into the house.

It was not like the place of the nuns - bare, decorated only by some religious icons. Here there were coloured rugs on the floor, and large pictures on the walls. The staircase was narrow, but the room we found ourselves in was large and light, furnished with long low seats, only a little way from the floor. A few closed doors led off from there, and Olivia drew me through one, to another flight of steps down to the ground floor. Now we were in the kitchen; concrete floors, like the walls and roof. There was a sink and a stove, both low down to the floor, and a woman squatting there, stirring a large pot of something which smelled quite delicious.

She was middle-aged, dressed in a long gown which fell from her neck to the floor, coloured a dark green, with lurid orange flowers all over it. Her head was bare, but her black hair was pulled tightly back away from her face in a long plait. She looked up as I entered, then stood and welcomed me, kissing me energetically on both cheeks.

“This is Lina Yasmin,” Olivia said, and waited as the woman took the sleeping baby out of her arms and cooed over her, stroking her face before returning her. "She's happy for us to wait things out here - and she's cooked a meal for us, too.”

Tarek was already sitting down at the table, tearing a piece of flat bread with his right hand, scooping up rice with it and pushing it into his mouth. I didn't take much encouragement to follow him; before long I was copying Tarek's method of eating rice with bread pieces.

"We'll stay here for a bit," Olivia told me. "Tarek's going to go and see if we can get some transport back to the airport. If there's any planes. Otherwise I guess it'll be one of the land borders.”

"Let's hope not," Tarek said with his mouth full. "The chances of making it through, even with a foreign passport, would be pretty slim.”

Olivia scowled at him, and he shrugged. "Just trying to be realistic.”

"Save your realism until we really need it," she instructed.

"You mean when we're not involved in a major war?" he asked. "Or when we are? This wasn't part of the deal, you know.”

"Just think of it as a bonus," Olivia assured him, but she watched him as he finished up his meal and got up to go, explaining what he was doing to Lina Yasmin. She watched him as he took his leave, as he stood by the window and looked out for trouble. And then, when he finally did leave the house, she stood by the window and watched him herself.

"You still love him?" I asked like a fool.

"That's not the right question," Olivia said seriously, still looking out the window. "You should say, 'how can you still love him?' “

~*~

I've been faithful to one single man my whole life. Days with him, days without him; years with him, years without him. Whether I loved or hated him, I was true to myself and so true to him. My whole life spent looking at him, hearing him, thinking about him. There or not there, by my side or away. Sexual faithfulness is one thing; steadfastness of mind another. I chose the first, but I think the second came in spite of myself. I loved against my will.

You and me against the world. Maybe it meant he didn't care about the world; but maybe it just meant he cared about me.

I'd brought two people into a war zone for the sake of myself and my daughter, and they'd come willingly out of love for me. Hannah had a goodness within her, so that she knew what I wanted to do was right, was the right thing to do. Tarek didn't have that goodness. He came simply because I asked. He walked through the streets of a city at war, with planes overhead ready to destroy it, all because I had asked him to do it. That was love. Maybe it was his only goodness, his love for me; but if that was so, then it was his goodness that I had loved all the long years, and not his darkness.

It felt strange to be freed in a city of war, but I was freed, freed of my guilt of loving him. I would love him the rest of my life, just as I'd love my daughter. And that was the way it was supposed to be.

Tiya murmured, and I laid her down, unwrapped her. Her little arms and legs waved around, her eyes half-opened, and closed again. Her mouth moved a little, and I decided I had best make up a bottle of milk for her while she was still quiet.

"Hannah - can you keep an eye on her for a moment -”

"Of course.”

Hannah laid down close to her, began speaking to her in a soft, low voice, perhaps telling her a story, or a song, or a poem. I moved to my bag. I had already a bottle of filtered water, and the powdered formula I needed. As I worked, I watched Hannah and Tiya together, and realised I hadn't seen Hannah with a baby since Amala.

It wasn't fair that Tiya wouldn't come home to play with Amala; that Amala wouldn't be there, the big sister, to watch over the new little baby. It wasn't fair that Tiya was no longer stuck in the future, but was in my present, while Amala would never be in our present again. It wasn't fair that everything about Tiya was hope, and there was nothing left to hope for Amala. But she had been our gift; she had been and she would remain that way. I remembered again that day with Hannah's daughter, and I was glad of it. She had been our gift.

"She's awake, Olivia," Hannah warned. "She's making these little movements with her mouth; I think she must be hungry.”

"OK, bring her to me." I held my daughter in my arms, and fed her for the first time.

"Shouldn't you angle it -”

"She'll choke like that!”

"Look, now she's not getting enough, and she'll get wind.”

"Now it's spilling out of her mouth!”

Finally Lina Yasmin stepped over, took the baby from me, and then put the bottle in her mouth.

"Oh.”

Lina Yasmin said something to me then, and although my Arabic wasn't very good, the meaning was clear.

"You'll get the hang of it!”

~*~

It was night before Tarek got back. The gunshots had started again as soon as it had begun to get dark, and Olivia had paced nervously from one end of the room to the other. I felt sick myself at the uncertainty of it all, and wondered that I had worried at all about the aeroplane. We were stuck in the house of an elderly woman we didn't know, with a language we didn't understand, and while a war was going on. With a baby. A particularly cute and clever baby, but still a baby.

We had watched put her on her stomach and watched her moving her head upwards; we had put her on her back and watched her reach up with her hands. She had even copied Olivia's face when she stuck out her tongue! It was clear that Tiya was a genius.

But she had fallen asleep as night approached, and we could no longer be distracted at her cleverness.

"I should have learned something from those two horror movies Tarek forced me to watch. Splitting up is always a stupid idea," Olivia said finally. "We should have stayed together -”

"Isn't that what I said three years ago?" Tarek said, surprising her at the front door.

"Tarek!”

"I'll check on Tiya," I said hastily, and went into the bedroom, where we had laid the baby on the bed between two pillows. I lay down beside her, suddenly exhausted. I had been in Italy that morning. Some people went to Italy and stayed there. We went from there to Farinstan.

I'm not sure when I fell asleep, but it was dark when I woke, and I heard Olivia's steady breathing in the room. She was lying on the other side of sleeping Tiya.

Suddenly I was glad it had all happened in the way that it had. Maybe if it had occurred in the tidy way Child & Family had hoped - maybe then it wouldn't have meant so much. Because I knew, then, that I'd forgiven Olivia long ago. That if I hadn't, there was no way I would be sleeping beside her and her baby in a foreign war-torn country. I don't know when that forgiveness had occurred, but the knowledge of it freed me, freed me entirely. I no longer had to connect Amala with a hatred of my dearest friend. I only had to connect her to love.

I heard a tiny whimper from Tiya, and I reached over and patted her gently. "Sleep, darling. Sleepy time, darling," I murmured. And she slept.

~*~

"The last flight out is tomorrow morning - early, at dawn," Tarek told me after Hannah left. "The planes with their bombs were just a rumour, apparently, but ZaneAir is taking no chances. We have to be on that flight, or we're stuck.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief. "Thank you.”

Tarek nodded once. "We can stay here the night, but we'll need to leave before dawn, so you'd probably better get some sleep. You look like you need it." He sat down on a bench beside Lina Yasmin's table, and looked up at me.

"Mmm, I do," I said, "but Tarek, I need something more." I sat down beside him, reached my hand up to his face, found myself filled with a strange energy. Then I leant forward and kissed him.

His hand had found mine in that moment, his fingers had threaded themselves through my own. I could feel his pulse quickening, and then I moved my hand from his face and laid it on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. I looked up at him and smiled.

I loved his grin, that smile of happiness he gave me.

"You mean all I had to do to win you back was bring you into a war zone?”

"Why didn't you think of that before?”

I kissed him again. "It's all right now, you know. I love you, and I think it will be all right now. And we'll soon be home.”

"Yes. Home." His smile dimmed a little, just for a moment. "It’ll be an early start - you really do need some sleep, Olivia.”

I was yawning, unable to contradict him, only able to keep my eyes open enough to squeeze his hand and make my way to the room where Tiya and Hannah slept.

"I love you," he said, and I smiled. It would be all right, now.

~*~

Tarek woke us before it was light; by the look of his blood-shot eyes, I guessed he had stayed up all night, watching. I got up immediately, wanting to be out as soon as we could.

He explained to me about the ZaneAir flight while Olivia prepared Tiya's bottle; translated our earnest thanks to Lina Yasmin for her house and for her bed, too. She'd slept on a mat on the floor.

Then we walked out of the house. We walked out of the Christian area of the city, out to where Ibrahim waited with his taxi, sheltering under a leafless tree. There was a strange faded kind of light in the sky, and I looked up at it, remembering we had to be away by dawn.

Olivia was happy, nursing her child, watching Tarek. He was nervous, Ibrahim was nervous, and I was nervous too - but Olivia was happy, very happy.

We skidded around side streets, drove through narrow alleyways, avoided the main ways. "It's a curfew till dawn," Tarek explained bluntly, when I asked why we were taking so many back streets. "We're not supposed to be out.”

It explained why the streets were so empty. We were the only car driving out there. All the gates were shut, barred. If anything happened there'd be no place to go.

Past the apartment buildings with their grubby walls, the houses with their flat roofs, the huts whose doors were tied shut. I couldn't forget them. I would never forget any of them, any of the things I had seen.

The sky was clear, growing brighter as we travelled. A bright shining in the east, that faded as it came. A deep sound, more like a feeling than anything else, surrounded us, filled everything.

"What was - “

"An explosion - maybe a car bomb - it's not good, anyway," Tarek said grimly. "We're almost there. Almost." He drew paper tickets from his bag. "Hang onto these, and whatever you do, don't let go. They're more important than your passports right now.”

And then there were the gates, and the people beside the gates. There were more than ever. We had to stop far from them, pay Ibrahim and push our way through the crowd, push our way to the guards with their guns and press our tickets against the fence. They leapt out, pushed open the gates, and pulled us through.

I closed my eyes in utter relief, dropping my bag to the ground, covering my face with my hands. We were inside, we'd reached the airport before dawn. It would be all right, now.

An awful cry jerked me out of myself; I spun around, looked for Olivia, for Tiya, for Tarek.

"Tarek!”

My call was weak and useless against the shouts of the crowd against the fence, nothing compared with the inhuman sound coming from Olivia. Tiya had begun to cry, and I took her from Olivia's arms, and she dropped her arms down as though she couldn't move them. Still she made that awful sound, and then she shuffled forward, against the fence.

"Tarek!" I called again.

But the gates had clanged shut behind us; he had melted into the crowd, had melted into the clamour of begging people.

~*~

There were only two tickets. There had only ever been two tickets.

Tarek had gone to InsaneAir and had discovered that there were just two seats left out the next morning. He'd bought them in the name of Hannah and I, knowing that I would never leave without Hannah, knowing that the only way to get me out was to put the names of Hannah and I down on those tickets. He bought them not caring about what was right or good, not caring about Hannah or Tiya, but caring about me. Loving me.

He'd bought them before I told him I loved him, before he believed it to be true.

I stood at the gates, stood at the gates until an official took my arm gently - gently at first, and then roughly - and put me onto the aeroplane. It had to leave at dawn. It had to leave, because there were rumours of things that would happen after that. Bombs, and fighting, and refugees fleeing to borders overrun with foreign armies.

When I got onto the plane I saw Hannah there with Tiya. Both their faces were streaked with tears; Tiya was still howling. I smiled at Hannah. I said, "Take her back to my house, please?" Then I turned around and began my way back down the steps of the plane.

This time the official picked me up bodily and put me on the aeroplane, and shut the door fast.

"Olivia. He'll be all right, Olivia. He knows people here, he can fit in. He knows Sally in Syria, Emma in Iraq. He'll get out. You'll hear from him as suddenly as you ever did before.”

I began to shake with a sense of horror. The plane began to move on the runway and I stood up again but this time Hannah pulled me down. "Tiya's crying," she said. "I can't make her stop.”

I took her back from Hannah's arms, put her in my own. "Her ears will hurt when we take off," I said automatically. "I need to give her to bottle, something to suck.”

Hannah gave me the bag, and I found her bottle, and made her comfortable as the plane began to move down the runway, faster and faster, rising in the sky away from Farinstan, away from Tiya's homeland, rising steeply and sharply, out from the circular city.

There was turbulance as we came over Turkey; I handed a quieted Tiya to Hannah and was thoroughly sick in the bag she'd got ready for herself. I was sick and sick again, crying as I retched.

"He'll be all right, Olivia," Hannah said again, but she was crying too.

~*~

Another day, another, and we were home; tracking halfway across the world with ease, with the mild discomfort of carrying a young baby the worst of it. Managing feeds and nappy changes in awkward places, attempting comfort routines to ease early evening cries. Finding ways to pace up and down aisles while everyone else slept.

It was a strange way to get to know Tiya, in the minute bathroom of an aeroplane, in the emptiness of an airport lounge. A meaningless landscape to have such meaningful contact. We discovered how her hair sprang up into tiny curls if the air was moist, how her face crumpled up if she could not find her fist to suck. We began to hear the difference between her cries. We saw a smile.

When finally the colour of our land became clear beneath our plane we both breathed sighs of utter relief. The captain announced our arrival, and welcomed us. The flight attendant allowed us to leave first - probably because she was tired of the ear-piercing noise Tiya was making - and helped us out into the airport, right through to customs and immigration. They questioned Olivia closely, looking through all the documents carefully, then congratulated her. She smiled a little, then.

"You need to get some sleep," one of the officials joked, pointing at the dark shadows under her eyes. "Oh - I forgot, that's it for sleep for the next twenty-one years!”

"I'll sleep before long," Olivia replied quietly. It was her promise to herself that Tarek wouldn't be long coming home, I knew.

~*~

All I could think about was getting home, as though Tarek would be there, laughing at me, telling me it had all been some kind of joke, that he'd caught another plane five minutes after we had. I desparately wanted to get home; but I also dreaded arriving there and seeing the empty house.

After immigration we collected our bags and headed out. We'd caught a taxi to the airport and we would have to order another special taxi home, one with a baby seat in it. As it happened, we didn't need to do that after all.

"Welcome Home!”

Halfway out the door to the arrivals lounge we stopped, dumbfounded. Crowds of people stood out there, calling out our names, waving, holding up pink balloons and "It's a Girl!" signs. Someone - I think it was Dave - even had a Welcome Home banner. It was crazy. My parents were there, plus some people from work, even some people from Hannah's work were there. Than and Lin were standing a little to the side, staring at my family as much as Hannah and I. We were both frozen at the gate - until an airport official came up to us crossly and told us to get out of the way. Then we went out the barrier and were surrounded.

I don't know how many hugs and kisses I recieved, or who grabbed my bags from me - I know my mother took Tiya from me and burst into tears at her. They were all cooing at the baby, shouting at us, and dragging us out to the car park. Chris had put an old baby seat in Than and Lin's car, and then we all went to Con's place, and had lunch there. There was more gushing over Tiya, who seemed to enjoy it; there was more shouting at us for being fools enough to go into a war zone. My father had had long talks with Child & Family, apparently, while we had been away, and reassured us that Tiya was legally mine to take from Farinstan, and would be my adopted daughter as soon as the lawyer put it through the courts here.

No one asked about Tarek. I realised that no one knew he had gone with us. They thought we had gone through it all alone.

It wasn't long after lunch before I was claiming exhaustion and asking to go home. Than and Lin had offered us a lift back to Tariton, which we had gratefully accepted. The back of the car was now piled with gifts - it had turned into an impromptu baby shower - as well as our small bags. Chris went out with me, ostensibly to check that the baby seat was fitted correctly, but really to interrogate me.

"You look awful, Olivia. Absolutely awful. What on earth happened?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, leant for a moment on my brother's shoulder. "I'll tell you one day, Chris, I promise. Not today. Today is homecoming, Tiya's first day home. I'm bringing my daughter home today, as I've dreamed for so long.”

"I know - you should be shining with happiness -”

"I'm happy for her - I can't tell you how much I love her already. I'm happy for her, and that has to be enough for today.”

"Happy for her, but broken up for yourself," Chris said slowly. "Will you be all right?”

I straightened, looked at him steadily. "I will. Not tomorrow, or the day after, but after that - it will be all right. I'll be ridiculously happy then, Chris, I know it. Tiya's mine, everyone I love is mine and part of my life. I'll be absurdly happy.”

Chris knew then. He nodded once, held my hand, and then checked the baby seat for the third time. "It'll do," he said.

It would do for now, I decided, as we drove out of the city by the sea, through the farmlands, to the river, to my town by the river. I had my daughter, I had my friend, and soon - I knew it would be soon - I'd have Tarek, too. For now it would do.

~*~

I came back home late one night - it was near midnight, I think. I had been worrying over some taxation papers at work, but now I felt satisfied that they were complete and I could stop thinking about them. I pulled my little car into its space in front of my house, and waited a moment, listening to the silence in the street.

The whole place was bright, because the sky was clear and the moon was out, full. I saw a rose on my side of the fence bobbing slightly in the breeze; Olivia's gate swung a little, creaking. A light switched on in her house. Tiya must have woken again. I grinned a little; Olivia had obviously not read the right books.

Tiya had settled in well, though, to a new family and a new life. She was surprising us every day with some new thing that she could do, a new gurgle, a new wave of the hand. She smiled all the time, and she nestled into her mother's arms as though she had been born into them. The formalities had gone through without any difficulty - she was now legally adopted - and Child & Family were slowly becoming a distant memory.

She hadn't learned to sleep through the night yet, though.

I got out of the car finally, realising then how tired I was myself. My own gate was bolted and I pulled at the catch, scraping my fingers as I did each time. Down the path by the roses, to the porch, leaving the bright night and entering my dark house.

There was another slam of a car door.

I turned, my house key pressed into my palm, my heart racing a little. But the footsteps weren't approaching me, not following my path. There was a man at Olivia's gate, a man in her garden, making his way to her door with a steady tread. I knew his walk.

I left them to their reunion, turning back to my own door. But I smiled. "Congratulations," I whispered.

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