There was a little round face – white and sticky, as though it had been painted with Lane’s Emulsion. A patch of black hair. Two slicked eyebrows. Blue lips. Blood.

‘Who does he look like?’ Mum asked. She was wrapping the leftover mess in newspaper, full of happiness.

‘Like the moon,’ I said. Mum took this moon baby from me and placed him in the bassinet. Mum was wet and bloody and, taking a little container of hot water with her, went out to the wash-house holding her stomach together with her other hand.

Though Grandfather’s mouth had every second tooth, Grandmother’s had none. She was sitting under her plum tree making butter when I arrived. She smiled her gums and eyes at me, and when I told her what had happened she asked a few questions and decided there was no big reason to hurry.

‘I’ll just finish this and get my things,’ she said. ‘Won’t be long Aki. Go feed my pig. Take this milk across the river. Call my cow.’

I fed the pig and took the billy of milk across the river, leaving it on a post for Daisy Biscuit to collect. Grandmother finished making her butter and collected a bundle of clothes into a blanket.

Mumu wouldn’t come when I called her. When I whacked her on the stomach, she looked at me, dribbled and didn’t move, but she set out after Grandmother when we started on the track home. Mumu had the same kind of walk as Grandmother: head going from side to side, body swinging from side to side in the opposite direction to her head, and at the same time managing to move forward. I had to slow right down to walk with them.

By the time we arrived, Mum had washed and dressed. She’d tidied the kitchen while Moonface slept on in his little bed. My baby stuff had been given away long ago, and this was a brand-new canvas bassinet that we’d bought a month before. New nappies and blankets, too. Mum and my sisters had made gowns, knitted jackets, hats and bootees. That was another part of Mum’s nagging: ‘There’s people got no hope in life, babies wrapped in rags, so don’t forget that, Aki.’

What Grandmother did was take the baby from his bed and lay him across her arm with his head tilted a little. Placing two crookedy fingers on his chest she began to move them round and round, and soon bubbles and fluid were flowing from the nose and mouth of this squeaky brother who had looked at me with coloured-glass eyes. It was all very interesting, but soon I had to get out and feed the pig, let the dogs off and open up the chookhouse door. I was looking forward to breakfast. The boil-up smelled pretty good.