Juddering through Bayswater in an old-fashioned red Routemaster bus I felt the prickly velour on the seat was bringing my legs out in a rash just like it had done since the 60s. It was my own fault because, just like every other Londoner, I had shed most of my clothes and was wearing shorts on the first hot day of the summer.

I had always sat in the same seat, the one on the top at the front. Looking down at my familiar blotchy legs and then out at a familiar view I reminisced. I’d watched London change for 30 years from that same seat and London had watched back at me changing. What did it think now of my angst and of me being no closer to finding a peace of mind?

My story was simple, three years before I had given up a tormented, but undeniably secure, career as a doctor and since had been struggling to find my place in the world as a writer. The cross that I now bore was attempting to justify this apparently self-indulgent existence over that of a selfless lifesaver not only to my friends and family but most problematically to myself.

I had reached a stage where I realised that endless worrying was getting me nowhere. I had decided that I had only one option left to me. I was going to hand everything over to fate and see what happened — I felt better already. But when I looked down as my pager bleeped, my new carefree outlook was not even half prepared for what was to come. The message flashed back at me:

PERIOD LATE. BUY PREG TEST - J... xxx

Though troubled, I’m not by nature a panicker but this situation was so far beyond my realm of experience it threw me off into a tailspin. As I bumbled down the stairs and was cast adrift into the heaving tourist sea of Queensway all my usual worries and insecurities flooded back. The state of confusion and the twitching eye, however, were brand new.

The fog in my head was so dense I hadn’t noticed that my trusty Routemaster had stopped outside a Boots or that now, steered by some mystical auto-pilot, I was standing glassy-eyed in front of the family planning section. I dealt with the situation using a technique that I had developed during my years as a doctor — a conversation with an older and wiser imaginary mentor. The only problem was that this learned sage had accrued his vast worldly experience from the trite clichés of a hundred Hollywood movies and a thousand airport novels.

How did this happen? Well I knew the answer to that one. Was it mine? I was ashamed that he’d even asked the question and if he’d been anywhere else but inside my head I’d have left him there and then. Am I ready for this? Are you ever ready...? Do I want this? Do I have a choice…? Things weren’t good, I was answering my own questions with questions. Then quick as a flash I switched to utilising another trick I had picked up on my rocky road through medicine; namely, when it looked like things were going to get tough, take that problem and lock it away somewhere deep whilst seamlessly turning your attention to something trivial before any real issues had to be faced.

“How could these villains charge eight pounds for one pregnancy test and eleven pounds for two?”

I left the chemist’s annoyed with a faceless marketing department for exploitative overcharging. Yet at the same time disappointed with myself for a peculiar Presbyterian / consumerist fed trait that left me clutching that double test box knowing full well that it wasn’t a bargain at all. The end result, a striving success, I had successfully deflected any thoughts or concerns about my possible impending fatherhood.

I opted for the long walk back to Camden along the Regent’s Canal. A mile in I hit the geranium-filled watering cans and brightly painted barges of Little Venice. My fog started to lift. Suddenly, I clearly saw that behind the posies and the pink-trimmed windows were poky metal boats that looked really cold. It was time to dispense with the assistance of my own Jiminy Cricket, take a step back and regroup.

As I wandered along the towpath through St John’s Wood, the space in my head that only 20 minutes before had told me to give myself up to the magical realms of uncertainty, now showed me to be a skint irresponsible drop-out on the road to nowhere with an enormous family to feed.

STOP!!!! Look at the facts, they don’t lie.

I’d been going out with Jac (Jacquetta) for over three years. I could safely say that I loved her. In fact, I’d go so far as to say, that she was the girl that I’d loved the most in my entire life.

Question: Why weren’t we married or, though I had conceded to giving up some drawer space and was unquestionably faithful, even officially living together?

Answer: I still cherished a memory of a youthful body coursing through with the same testosterone that had now turned its attention to thinning the hair on my head and promoting its growth on my back. I also lived with the media perniciously infiltrating my senses with their take on the perfect female. Basically what chance did I, or any other red-blooded, weak-willed male have.

Conclusion: The first decade of my adult life had been spent avoiding any deep level of commitment because I was waiting for a long-legged, rich, funny, intellectual type to whisk me away on a whim to Venice, for a weekend of sex and real tears at the opera.

Verdict: You misguided, shallow arse.

The reality of Jac getting pregnant was that she didn’t do it on her own and, when the chips were down, I had to admit, we kinda did it together. We had made the decision, perhaps not an officially formulated and discussed one, but based on the natural stage of our relationship, to go from being very careful to being not very careful at all.

Under the scrutinising gaze of the giraffes at London zoo I felt ashamed for holding out emotionally and not giving the relationship that was perfect for me the chance to flourish into something truly extraordinary. The wolves in Withnail’s enclosure reminded me that I didn’t deserve the love of such a good woman.

Back at home, I’d prepared something comforting in the oven for dinner. I’d read and re-read the pregnancy test instructions. Simple enough, one blue line for no and two for yes. All that was left was to wait for the creak of the front door.

I had always presumed, that as well as being able to stop instantly with no drippage, girls could wee whenever they wanted. As I was firmly informed that this was far from reality,

I pondered how my day was developing into one long-held notion shattered after another.

At eleven o’clock, armed with a nominally full bladder we adjourned to the bathroom. I showed her the little paddle she had to wee on. Explained about the blue lines and, without mentioning the spare one, informed her that this little piece of plastic, pound for pound, was up there with uranium — so don’t mess it up!

Perched on the side of the bath with Jac still on the loo, after an eternal minute’s wait we held up the test stick and looked. Nowhere in the instructions did it say what you were if the whole test window went blue. I went out, got the other test and smugly handed it over.

But I didn’t need to wait for the result. Suddenly I knew that she was pregnant, that she was the person I was going to love forever and that this was up there with my day in the Ferrari pit lane as one of the best moments of my whole life. I sat back on the sofa, poured myself a glass of wine and toasted the beautiful uncertainty that was going to be my new life.

Even so, when Jac woke me at one clutching an undeniably two blue lined stick, I did utter a little “oh, bloody hell!”. Then I saw her bewildered, beautiful face and I knew that from now on there would be two of us at the front of the bus and before too long we’d be taking up the other side too.