Some of the younger nuns did give Birdie a chance to hold little Momo, when Sister Bernard was sleeping. Birdie’s feet slapped the linoleum all through the night as she paced up and down, singing about elephants and piggies and the three little bears. And the young nuns pitied her.

‘Are you not exhausted, ye poor creature?’ they’d say. But Birdie wasn’t exhausted. Not if she was to stay up all night. It was better than shaking that yo-yo at the other side of the glass window and frightening the little creature in her cot.

Sometimes there were parties on the street outside and Birdie could see people from the nursery window, as they strolled home in the dark. Men like wolves stalking the streets and women with their arms linked, giggling and following behind.

She could hear the bottles and glasses clinking in the pub across the street on Saturday nights. She could hear the front doorbell downstairs whenever someone came to the door of the convent, and she prayed each time that it would be Daddy, and not someone saying they wanted to be little Momo’s new mammy.

‘Momo,’ says she, in the refectory one morning. There was no one to ask and no one to tell. So she said Momo, one morning and that was it.

‘I’m calling you little Momo.’

She informed the nun the next time she was up to the nursery.

‘Oh don’t be ridiculous,’ the nun said, ‘sure she has already been christened Jennifer!’ and then she burst out laughing. But Momo was cross. Really cross. And getting worse. Hours without end she could scream into all the nuns’ faces, till the holy women went from guilt to rage and wanted to dash little Momo’s brains against the radiator on the wall. And then five minutes afterwards the child would fall asleep, and Birdie would be astonished at how much she loved her, and wanted her, and needed her. Like little Momo was the best thing ever happened. She’d sit there beside where Momo was sleeping until the nuns shooed her off and told her not to be wasting so much time in dilly dreams with the baby. The child was seven weeks old.

‘Her new mammy is coming on Sunday,’ the nun said.

You said that last week, Birdie thought. You lying fucken bitch!

‘Just go away, Bernadette Waters. Go and get to your bed.’

Birdie went to her cubicle in the dormitory and read herself bedtime stories. The Wind in the Willows. ‘The Princess and the Pea’.

And she couldn’t wait till little Momo had teeth.

Yes. Teeth. Because there was no way the nuns were going to take little Momo away from her then. When Momo got the teeth. No way! She’d go home to Daddy in a few weeks and everything would work out well.

Couldn’t wait till Momo could talk. Till she could eat with a spoon and they’d make up baby talk together having their breakfast. The last day was a Sunday. She spent all her money on a white frilly bonnet so that Momo would look pretty for her new mammy. It was the end of March. She asked the nun could she wear her own clothes instead of the convent uniform. She was afraid that she might not look well dressed. Small things can humiliate. The nun just tu-ttutted her and remarked how vain some young girls can be!