‘She’s mad about babbies,’ Lisa said, after we had been admiring the little girls together. Daisy slid from one to the other, kissing them and stroking their heads until Lisa had to say, ‘Go easy now, Daze, eh?’ The babies followed her with their eyes, giving gummy smiles.

Lisa looked robust and content. ‘She was the easiest of the lot,’ she told me. ‘She got ’ere in a couple of hours.’

‘I’ll have to get more practice, obviously.’ I laughed.

‘You’re looking all right on it, though.’

I played with Daisy for a while, giving her a Ladybird book I’d brought with some pictures and simple words in. Daisy pointed and said, ‘Dog. Flower. S’easy, this is.’

‘’Ow’s your friend coming on?’ Lisa asked.

‘Bit by bit, I think. It’s a slow business, though. Have you seen anything of Joyce, or Jackie?’

Lisa shook her head. ‘Not really, now you mention it. Funny thing is, they said ’ardly a word about it after. I thought they’d be full of it, you making a fool of him like that. But they all just went.’

‘They were ashamed.’

Lisa’s brow crinkled into lines of surprise. ‘Ashamed?’

‘When it came to facing him like that. I was ashamed too. Wouldn’t you have been?’

‘Me?’ Lisa hoiked Alice further up in her arms. ‘Nah. There’s a lot of men around’ll use you for anything – wipe the floor with you if it suits ’em. Don’t see why we should spend our lives kowtowing to ’em.’ With her free hand she topped up my cup of tea. Then, as if a connection had been made in her mind, she said, ‘How’s your ’usband?’

I longed to be honest, to say, he’s a detached stranger who I don’t know how to be with any longer and I’m not sure I even like. But who is ever so honest?

‘He’s well,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ But I found myself adding, ‘Lisa – has Don ever minded, when you’re feeding Alice?’

‘You mean is he jealous?’ She thought about it. ‘Can’t say as I’ve ever asked ’im. ’E just ’as to put up with it. Why, is your old man?’

‘It is rather difficult at the moment,’ I told her stiffly. I found it so hard to confide about my marriage. Lisa was much more matter-of-fact about the subject of hers. But I had been brought up to regard this subject as the proverbial closed book. It was only Granny Munro who had let me into her feelings, shown me that her marriage had survived despite so many things.

‘Course, I know some do carry on a bit. Come to think of it, Agnes over there’ – she jerked her head in the direction of a house along the court – ‘ ’as some right ding-dongs with ’er old man. On and on ’e goes, and it’s always worse when ’e thinks the babbies’re getting ’is share of ’er titties.’

I laughed. ‘That reminds me of Marj Redmond, an old Health Visitor I used to work with. She said they only ought to allow people to get married if the wife spoke only French and the husband only German.’