They were waiting.

‘Well,’ I said flatly, ‘I’ve done it.’

They must have seen the shamed lines of my face, and I didn’t see in them any of the triumph I had expected: raucous, perhaps a little sadistic. Instead there was sadness, and shame in them, too. They had egged each other on, brazenly, to the idea of revenge, women drawing together against the vile seducer, all bravado. But now, seeing their faces, I knew it was not just for money that they had kept faith with Alec Kemp. He had aroused feelings in each of them which, whatever the cost to themselves, had bound them to their silence with a kind of tenderness.

* * *

OLIVIA

Once the WRNS have released me, six months pregnant, with my little suitcase, and once Daddy has stopped shouting and abusing me, he tells me, all sorrowful, ‘The only thing that matters is that no one finds out.’ He says, ‘My girl, my little girl. How could you? You’re spoilt now. There’s no going back.’

They keep me inside for nearly three months. Sometimes in the evenings I walk in the garden at dusk, feeling the new weight of my body.

They polish up my story about pneumonia and, fortunately, at the right time, when they are ready to let me out, my chest is bad. Mummy, of course, manages to believe the story at least half.

I am so afraid. I say to her, ‘What will it be like? What will happen to me?’ And, ‘I’m frightened Mummy, the baby’s getting so big. It’ll never come out, I’m so small.’

She fusses about me. ‘Darling, you must rest. Have a cushion. Eat this liver, drink that milk.’ She pours concern over me like cream, but cannot be with me in the place where I am. The word baby barely escapes through her lips. They keep me there, almost motionless, in the dark like a white puffball, feeding me, waiting for me to spill my terrible seed. Threads of feeling string themselves between the three of us, always tangling and knotted, never direct and spoken. Had they pulled straight they would have snapped, spraying blood metallic red.

They buy me a new piano. I refuse to play it. I sit staring at the world outside, forbidden me. More than anything I want Katie to comfort me.

They call Dr Penn when my pains begin and Mummy leaves the house as he enters it. I am terrified and there are no women at my delivery to lead or hold me. Dr Penn strolls in and out, often leaving me on my damp sheets, the pain crushing me.

‘I’m too small,’ I cry to him. ‘I’ll bleed to death.’

‘Your pelvis is perfectly adequate,’ he tells me over his spectacles. He is not unkind, but he’s a man and he doesn’t know.

After twelve hours he is born, my son. Daddy weeps when he sees him. He has always wanted a son for the business. My body is drenched and stretched and when I look down I don’t recognize it.