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We were sharing a bath one night, at a time when we did such things, Albie lying between his mother’s legs, head resting on her belly, and I made an observation that, while all of us might sometimes covet other people’s lives, their careers, their spouses (I coveted no one’s spouse, but knew from experience that others coveted mine), it was extremely rare — unheard of, even, and certainly taboo — to prefer someone else’s children to your own. Everyone thinks their own child is delightful, yet not all children are delightful, so why are parents unaffected by that? What is the reason for this fixed and unshakeable bond: neurological, sociological, genetic? Perhaps, I suggested, we’re hard-wired to love our own children over others as a kind of survival mechanism, for the propagation of the species.

Connie frowned. ‘You mean the love you feel for your child is not real, it’s just science.’

‘Not at all. It’s real because it’s science! The way you feel about friends or lovers or even siblings is dependent and conditional on their behaviour. With your children, that’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what they do. People with bratty kids don’t love them less, do they?’

‘No, they teach them not to be bratty.’

‘And that’s the difference — they stick with them and even if they don’t succeed, even if they stay brats, they’d still give their life for them.’

‘Albie’s not bratty.’

‘No, he’s lovely. But everybody thinks their own children are lovely, even when they’re not.’

‘And they shouldn’t?’

‘Of course they should! But that’s what people mean by “unconditional love”.’

‘Which apparently you think is a bad thing?’

‘No—’

‘Or an illusion, a “behavioural instinct”.’

‘No, I’m just … thinking aloud.’

We both went silent for a while. The bath was cooling now but getting out would have felt like conceding a point.

‘What a stupid thing to say in front of Albie!’

I laughed. ‘He’s eighteen months old! He doesn’t understand.’

‘And I suppose you know that, too.’

‘I was thinking aloud, that’s all.’

‘The eminent child psychologist,’ she said, rising suddenly from the bath, Albie in her arms.

‘I was thinking out loud! It was just a theory.’

‘Well I don’t need a theory, Douglas,’ she said, wrapping him in a towel and bundling him away. My wife has always had a gift for effective exit lines. I lay alone in the bath for some time, feeling the water grow more tepid around me. She’s tired, I thought, it’s nothing, and sure enough the debate was forgotten almost instantly by everyone except me.

At least I presume she has forgotten it.

134. lego incident

But from the beginning there was never any doubt that she was better at it all, so much more competent, kind and patient, never bored in that dull old playground, never reaching for a newspaper, happy to watch the twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second trip down the slide. Is there anything duller than pushing a swing? Yet she never seemed resentful — or only occasionally — of the hours and days and weeks that he consumed, the attention he demanded, the irrational tears, the trail of destruction and spilt paint and mashed carrot that he left behind, never repulsed or angered by the vomit that stained our new sofa, the poo that found its way into the cracks between the floorboards and is still there now, I expect, at some molecular level. As Albie got older, his devotion to his mother became more and more blatant and extreme. In early years this circumstance is so commonplace as to be barely worth acknowledging. Strain as he might, even the most fervent father lacks the ability to breast-feed, and the paternal bonding would come later, wouldn’t it, over chemistry sets and model planes, camping trips and driving lessons? He would beat me at badminton and in return I’d show him how to make a battery out of a lemon. In the meantime, there seemed little to do, except wait patiently for the day we became close.

But increasingly I seemed to have a particular gift for upsetting him, standing awkwardly while he wriggled and writhed in my arms, waiting for Connie to relieve me. Without her there, we were both on edge. The journey from baby to toddler will involve a certain number of mishaps, but something about her absence made him tumble and trip so that even now there are scars and dents that Connie can point to and attribute to me. There, that’s the coffee-table incident; that’s the fall from the tree; that’s the ceiling-fan affair. And always, always, his arms would stretch towards his mother on her return because he knew he would be safe.