Across the table from me a scrawny girl who I thought was about thirteen sat picking her nose and sniffing, her brown hair in two rat’s-taily plaits. Round her feet a baby crawled on the floor, its nappy hanging heavily round its bottom and stinking of faeces. The child’s face and limbs were streaked with filth. I found myself bearing in mind one of Mummy’s nursing sayings: ‘Always breathe through your mouth.’

‘What’s the matter with your mother?’ I asked her.

‘She’s took bad after the babby,’ the girl said matter-of-factly. ‘Can’t get out of bed no more.’

‘This baby?’ I pointed at the infant who was now sitting down, having found an old scrap of bread to chew off the floor. Shiny worms of snot trailed from his nose.

‘No, the littl’un – she ’ad ’im last week.’

As we spoke I became aware that the sound I could hear of a small baby crying was coming from upstairs.

‘Have you got any other brothers and sisters?’ I asked. I supposed the girl must think me awfully nosy, but she didn’t seem put out by my asking.

‘Ar – there’m six of us. Three older ’uns, me, and then me dad buggered off, an’ then Bob moved in an’ she ’ad the two babbies.’

‘Oh,’ I said, barely able to imagine such a household. ‘So is Bob out at work?’

‘Nah. ’E’s buggered off an’ all.’

We heard Daddy’s tread on the bare boards of the stairs.

‘Now Lisa,’ he said carefully to the girl. She had a certain spark to her and was evidently taking everything in. ‘You know your mother is very poorly?’

Lisa nodded.

‘She’s got childbed fever and I’m afraid she’s so sick that we’re going to have to take her into the infirmary. She says you’ve been helping her a great deal, but she’s fretting about you missing work and about little Sid here.’ He glanced at the youngster by his feet who was staring up at him with enormous blue eyes. ‘She said your neighbour Babs Keenan would look after you both but she’s not well at present. So what I’d like you to do now is to clean Sid here up a bit. A new napkin at least, eh? This afternoon I’ll come back and take him on a little journey in my car. You’ll have him ready, won’t you, Lisa?’ Looking at me he said, ‘He’s coming home with us for a few days. Just until Mrs Keenan’s herself again.’

At the surgery I heard him explaining to Dr Williamson. ‘Puerperal fever, poor woman. In a shocking state – she should have been in days ago by the stench of her. The child didn’t look too hopeful either.’

When we drove home in the car with baby Sid Blakeley, he wasn’t looking in a much better condition than he had been that morning. Lisa had evidently tried to give his face a wipe over because the dirt was smudged and differently distributed. She had changed his nappy but this one was now nearly as full as the last, and the ammonia smell of it filled the car. I held the child beside me on the back seat.