liked Samuel best when he was asleep, though even then his drooling and the curl of his little marsupial hands irritated me. No one had told me it was possible to dislike your child. Or at least if you did, it was supposed to happen later, when they were bratty teenagers and then ungrateful, smug adults. I didn’t like Samuel right off the bat. Don’t get me wrong: I loved him – in the sense that I had every intention of discharging my obligations towards him – but, to be frank, he was annoying.

He was fussy, for a start, fussy about temperature and sunlight and noise. He had a series of illogical phobias: he was scared of denim and windshield wipers, and would scream if he could smell bananas. When he danced, he used moves that were weirdly sophisticated, even risqué – rolling his body, thrusting his hips – things he must have dragged up out of the collective unconscious, because he certainly didn’t see me or Connor dance like that, or at all. In some ways I was looking forward to the inevitable bullying he’d receive. I was hoping that the cruelty of other children would effect developmental changes that I couldn’t seem to trigger.

Worsening all of this was the fact that Connor seemed oblivious. He took no responsibility for his part in creating a defective human being.

One night, in bed, I’d tried to talk to him about it.

‘Do you think Samuel’s a little . . .’

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to finish the sentence.

‘A little what?’

I rolled my eyes in the darkness.

‘What?’ Connor hissed. He still had some grit about him then. He wasn’t spending his days on forums, trying to chat up faecal donors.

‘You know. You know what I mean.’

‘You’re talking about our son here.’

‘I know that.’

‘And there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s perfect just as he is.’

‘Okay, geez,’ I said. ‘No need to get defensive.’

Roger had no ethical qualms whatsoever about building weapons that could cause massive, instant carnage. I know this because, unprompted, he told me. It was my first week, and I was in our staff kitchen heating up some noodles in the microwave. He was on his way back from lunch. He stuck his head into the room.

‘I think your ramen days are over, don’t you?’

I looked at the spinning bowl, thought of the invisible waves causing the molecules to go haywire.

‘It’s good to stay humble. Isn’t it?’

He scoffed at this.

‘Don’t ever be ashamed,’ he said. ‘Not of the work, the money – none of it. That’s what the little people want. To shame you. They don’t understand.’

He came close and his voice was low and conspiratorial. Even his halitosis smelled expensive, like beurre blanc and fennel.

‘The way I see it,’ he said, ‘it’s like karate. You learn karate so that you never have to use it. And no one looks askance at a man for learning karate, do they?’

I had to agree; they didn’t.

‘That’s the thing you need to remember Fifi,’ Roger said, pleased with his own wisdom. ‘Everyone holds their fire. It might come down to the last minute, the last second even. But no one really wants to press the button.’

I told Connor about this view of my new position, and he was only too happy to agree.

She looked like the thick-waisted but winsome model who would appear in a magazine next to the words fabulous at any age.