I pushed her off me impatiently. ‘Olivia, come to your senses. You’re behaving like a blithering idiot. What d’you think you’re doing? You’re like a dog on heat.’

‘I just wanted a little bit of fun,’ she carried on, in the same silly voice.

I lost my temper completely then. ‘If you go on like this you’ll end up getting pregnant again. Or you’ll get VD. Or both.’

She looked at me smugly. ‘I’m not that stupid, Katie.’

In a hard, clear voice, I said, ‘One more night like last night and you’re out of my house. Understand? Out. I’m not going to put up with it.’

The tears came then, hers and mine again. She stood bereft in my arms. ‘No, Katie, please. I can’t manage without you. I promise I won’t do it again. I love you – I’ve got no one else. Please don’t send me away.’

And I stroked her and soothed her, my anger bleached to tenderness, and told her, as I knew I should eventually, that she could stay with me as long as she liked.

Anna. You were born in Selly Oak Hospital into a beautiful April dawn. Your birth was short and harsh, and even in my release of you I felt your energy. You wanted to be born, thrusting towards it urgently. The midwife in the hospital said, ‘That’s one of the best first births I’ve ever seen.’ And you screamed with all your force, all eight pounds of you, your hair wet and smooth on your head.

I might have had you at home, but I decided not to for Olivia’s sake. She was with me when the first pains began and she was the first to see you, even before Douglas, who came after work.

They had brought you for me to feed when she came in that afternoon. I was still in that exhausted, dreamlike state after giving birth, suddenly both empty and joyful, watching your face, letting your existence flow through me.

And there she was, standing in the doorway, dressed smartly in a coat and wide-brimmed hat, both of which would need shedding in the warmth of the hospital. In her hand was a generous spray of freesias. There was a look on her face which was the most genuine and naked she had allowed herself in a long time. It was both hungry and profoundly anxious. I saw that her eyes were fixed not on me, but on the tiny child at my breast.

She smiled suddenly and half ran forward. ‘Katie, oh Katie, you’re marvellous!’ She kissed me, laying the flowers beside my bed. ‘They told me it’s a girl. How was it, darling? Was it terrible?’

‘Not for long.’ I smiled. The experience was so close to me still, yet suddenly utterly irrelevant.

Olivia’s moment of exposure had passed. From then on she was the model visitor, listening, concerned. When the feed was finished there was a nurse hovering to take you away again.