‘I’ve got scissors,’ I interrupted as the contractions began again. They were very close together. Sandy was kneeling by the bed saying, ‘It’s all right, Lisa – you’re nearly there.’

‘Have you any string?’

Margaret calmly held up a twist of white twine. ‘We’re all prepared. All we need now’s the babby.’

The woman suddenly hauled herself up from the bed on to her knees, her teeth clenched.

‘Oh, lor’ – ’ere we go,’ Margaret said. I found her stolid calmness reassuring. ‘Here, Sandy – cop ’old of ’er other arm. We can ’old her up between the pair of us.’

Once the baby started to come down it was very quick.

‘It’s ’er fourth,’ Sandy said. ‘So she ain’t no beginner.’

As the two women held her in a half-sitting position, her knees up, I guided the baby’s head out. I saw the strength of her body, the self-control, even in that crisis, of not crying out. The little sticky body slithered into my hands. I looked up at her mother who shimmered in front of me through my tears. She craned her head up to see.

‘You’ve got a little girl,’ I told her as the child roared in healthy protest between my hands.

‘Oh, a little girl – at last!’ Weakly she sank back on to the pillow.

‘Eh – ’ Sandy was at the window. ‘Looks as if the doctor’s got ’isself ’ere at last.’

I had wrapped the baby in a strip of sheet, and was tying off the umbilical cord as the footsteps grew louder up the stairs. Seconds later I found myself face to face with my father.

‘Katie!’ he exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

Margaret and Sandy stared from one to the other of us, bewildered.

‘Delivering a baby,’ I said briskly.

He watched as I deftly knotted the string tight round the quivering cord and cut the child’s lifeline from her mother.

‘Placenta?’

‘Not yet.’

As she began to moan a little, I went and massaged her stomach. Minutes later the birth was complete, and Margaret and Sandy washed her down and covered her up again. As they tended to her I noticed that the soles of her feet were black with grime.

She saw the direction of my gaze. ‘I went down to the shops just before,’ she said apologetically. ‘That’s what must’ve set it off.’

‘Tea,’ Margaret said. ‘That’s what we all need. You got time for one, doctor? Even if it was your daughter done all the work.’

‘Nothing I’d like better,’ Daddy said courteously.

Stately, Margaret clumped off downstairs.

I looked round shyly at Daddy, who was watching the new mother suckle her baby.

‘A miracle every time, isn’t it?’ he said quietly to me. And to the baby’s mother: ‘She’s a fine child. Another, I should say.’

She smiled, her face softer now. I knew there was something familiar about her, as I had about the house when we first arrived.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘In the heat of the moment I didn’t think to ask your name.’