Peggy had managed to get upstairs with the baby unremarked, and now she sat on the edge of the bed and wailed in despair; she had no idea what to do. She looked into the face of the daughter she had prayed for with every pregnancy, had hoped and longed for over the years, and the baby’s perfect little face looked back up at her.

‘Look at you, I’ve nothing for you but the street, for they’ll take you off me when we get turned out.’

The tears poured down her face as she held the baby to her cheek and drew in the smell of her. How could life change so fast? This time last year the arrival of this baby would have made her the centre of attention in the street, the first girl after seven boys. Presents would have arrived through the door, home-made matinee coats, a plate of biscuits, a cake, a trail of women with their own babies would have walked in and out of the kitchen, to talk to her as she lay on the settle that would have been dragged in from Maura’s. They would have brought shovels of coal to tip in the bucket, a posy of flowers from the greengrocer’s to put in a jam jar on the windowsill; the boys would have gone to Kathleen’s and Maura’s to be fed and washed and return home to sleep.

The house would have been scrubbed from top to bottom by an army of women and Mrs Keating would have brought her a delicious lunch in every day. Twice a day, someone would have called in for her nappy bucket, replacing it with a clean one, and whoever was washing would have collected Peggy’s too. In the afternoons, she would have lain there, her precious daughter on her chest, wallowing in the bliss, the peace, the cleanliness, the daily grind and responsibility of a family assumed by others, because on the four streets the arrival of a new baby was an occasion, a celebration.

She would have rejoiced in the silence, the lack of pressure to get up and carry out one of a never-ending list of chores. She would have listened to her mother’s ticking clock, inhaled the delicious stew someone would have put on the range. Because that was what having a baby in the four streets was like. The women had nothing, but together they could create their own luxury. Her daughter would have been passed from mother to mother to be admired, or nappy changed and their own babes would have been laid on the bed with Peggy whilst they too met the new arrival.

Oh, it was not supposed to be like this! No child on the four streets ever came into the world like this, into this hopelessness, alone in the outhouse, not into this despair.