She cradled him in her arms on the tram, caressing his cheek with a finger. Ann kept saying, ‘So what are you going to call him then?’ So far Katie had not said anything. She knew she would name him, but she could hardly go to a priest and ask to have him baptized, could she? Not in her situation, or not without telling more lies. But then, if she didn’t baptize him, would he go to hell? That was what she had been brought up to believe. Would it be better to lie, to say that the father was overseas? She had already lied about that, but lying to one of the Fathers felt worse still.

In her heart she knew what she was going to call him. There was something in the set of his face, the thick, dark hair, that gave her a feeling she would not have named to anyone – that she had given birth to her father, or to someone who was so like him that it was as if, in a strange way, he had been given back to her.

Leaning down she kissed him. ‘Michael,’ she whispered. ‘My little son, Michael.’

She also knew that when she went to see Enid Thomas, her visit would be reported to her mother. And she wanted Vera to know – to realize what she was missing, and to know that she had named the baby after her father, who had not rejected her. Life had rejected him.

‘Oh!’ Enid gasped in amazement when she opened the door. ‘Katie, love – oh, come in!’

She was delighted at the sight of both of them and spent ages admiring the baby and holding him.

‘What’re you calling him?’ she asked as she took a break from cuddling him to brew some tea.

‘Michael Patrick O’Neill,’ Katie said confidently. ‘After my father and uncle.’

‘Oh, that’s nice,’ Enid said. She looked solemnly at Katie. ‘You haven’t seen your mother?’

Katie shook her head sharply, though she felt tears close to the surface. She swallowed them down. ‘But I suppose you have?’

‘Yes, love, I have.’

Katie wanted to hear how much Vera was regretting her decision and her cruel treatment of her daughter, how she longed to see her grandchild, but Enid went on, ‘I can’t believe it really, Katie, the way she is. I’d never’ve thought it of her. We’ve had words about it, I can tell you. But she’ll never say more than that it’s not my business – that she’s asked you to go, and she doesn’t want to hear any more about it.’ She shook her head, carefully spooning tea. ‘I can’t understand her: that she’d treat her own flesh and blood the way she has. I’ll stand by her – we’ve been friends to each other for too long to do anything else. But to tell you the truth, I can’t help seeing her differently after this. You know I lost my son, don’t you?’ She looked up, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I’d give anything, anything, to have my William back on this earth alive again. And I look at how she’s going on . . . I think it’s terrible. Really terrible.’