The Longing: A bestselling psychological thriller you won’t be able to put down

He handed over the phial and stood up, aware of his own creased trousers and unkempt hair. Funny, he thought, how uncombed hair is attractively tousled when you are twenty-five but depressingly messy when there’s less of it and you’re over forty.

Juliet could see her Wellington boots were not going to fit any more. Her feet had grown so quickly over the last few minutes that there was no longer any hope of being able to pull them on and she picked one up and threw it at Michael. ‘Come on,’ she heard him say firmly in her ear, ‘all over now.’

When she opened her eyes, muttering and squirming as her conscious mind dragged itself unwillingly back to the reality of leather couch and bright lights from the strange, time-altered dream, she realised it wasn’t Michael but the anaesthetist who was speaking, and she sat up suddenly in embarrassment.

‘Careful now,’ the wildly grey-haired head bent towards her and a scrubbed pink hairy hand was placed over her forearm, ‘take it easy. You are a jumpy one, aren’t you?’

Anthony’s young, keen face appeared round the door. ‘Five!’ he announced triumphantly. ‘Five! And three of them excellent. I’m really pleased – that’s more than I expected.’

‘Oh that’s wonderful!’ Juliet felt enormously proud and relieved. She was wide awake now, and could hardly keep from leaping up in her excitement, but paused for a second as she pushed herself up on one hand to close her eyes and examine the line of little Mabel Lucie Attwell babies that had assembled in an instant in her mind’s eye; three of them plump, bonny and smiling, the other two more thin and serious.

The nurse, who had been hovering next to her elbow, took her arm and gently helped to ease her off the couch. ‘Come and sit down in the recovery room and I’ll fetch you that cup of tea,’ she said, and guided Juliet out of the brightly lit room and back through the small corridor into the comfort of a small side room furnished with a couple of armchairs and a table piled with magazines. She settled her patient into one of the chairs, covered her with a rather old-looking blue blanket, and gave an encouraging smile before bustling out of the room.

Juliet wished she’d asked for coffee instead of tea, but didn’t have the energy to call after the nurse. In any case, she was enjoying this moment far too much to spoil it by speaking. She wanted to examine the feeling of joy and elation inside her before the spell was broken. Stage one was achieved – she had made it! She dared now to unpack and look at the irrational thoughts that had been buried inside her beneath the recent layers of optimism – supposing there hadn’t been any eggs there, after all? Supposing they had been bad, or broken, or addled or whatever happens to human eggs when they’ve gone wrong? ‘Excellent,’ he had said, ‘excellent.’ She saw the magnificent word rolling around her head like a ball of wire wool inside a kettle, cleaning out the furry bits of fear and uncertainty and leaving a shiny, refreshed brain, ready for the wonderful new thoughts that she would let creep into it when she was ready.

‘Five,’ she whispered out loud, ‘and three of them excellent. Yes!’ She wiggled her legs, this time in glee and impatience, and laughed to herself at the very thought of it all. She could sense the image of five cherubic little babies hovering again on the edge of her mind’s eye, just waiting to be let in, but she resisted the temptation to look at it, and instead tried to picture the small glass dish containing the eggs that she supposed at this very moment was making its way down to the laboratory.

She was quite surprised to see Michael when he came into the recovery room, and realised she hadn’t given him a moment’s thought since she had come round from the anaesthetic.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said as he bent to kiss her. ‘How are you feeling? You look fine.’

‘Yes, I am fine.’ Why didn’t she tell him? What was stopping her shouting out the glorious news?

‘Julie – they found five, darling, did you know? Isn’t that wonderful?’

She felt cheated that Michael already knew. Not because she wanted the pleasure of telling him herself, but because she counted it as a personal triumph, a special secret between her and those hovering babies that she hadn’t been quite ready to share, and she resented his hijacking the moment for himself.

‘Of course I know. I was there, remember?’

‘I didn’t know how long you’d been awake. Anyway, it’s great news.’ Michael had grown so accustomed to Juliet’s irritability over the last few weeks that he deflected it automatically, almost without being aware of it. ‘Oh, here comes our tea.’