The baby was not pretty. It was a baby. Primeval and unfinished, crawling about like a busy white slug.

All night the baby cried.

Rachaela got up and fed the baby. She rocked it roughly, loathing it, and the baby grew hysterical. It was strong. With every day its voice got louder, its punches and kicks more hefty.

Rachaela touched it as little as possible.

In the end she left it to cry.

It screamed for hours, probably waking the entire house. Near morning it burned itself out.

Rachaela got up and looked at it. Its bluish-black eyes seemed to focus on her for the first time. It had learnt something.

They took the baby for rides in the pram, to the shops, and up to the tiny park with its three or four flowerbeds and margin of trees. Cold winds knifed at them but the baby was snug in its portable bed, the blue and pink rabbits bobbling between its face and the real world.

‘Lucky she wasn’t born on Christmas day,’ said Emma. ‘She’ll still miss out on presents, poor little sweetheart.’

The baby now had a name. It was called ‘Ruth’.

‘Rachaela and Ruth,’ said Emma, and to the baby, ‘Whither though goest, I will go.’

Emma had actually named the baby, reeling off name after name, pausing to assess their merits, recommending, persuading, until at last to stop her, Rachaela assented.

It sounded like a Scarabae name. It was unavoidable, Biblical. Ruth, daughter of Adamus.

‘You must be getting awful cabin-fever stuck in all day,’ said Emma, as they pushed through the lancing wind. ‘I know what it’s like. My oldest nearly went mad with Richard. She used to ring me up, just to hear an adult voice that could talk.’

Rachaela thrust the pram between the bare trees.

‘So if you want to go off on your own for a bit, and you’ll trust me,’ said Emma, ‘I can look after Ruth.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rachaela. ‘But what I really need is to get a job. The money’s run out fast.’

‘But you can get assistance, Rachaela, and you must.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s foolish to try and manage on your own.’

Rachaela had not repaid Emma for the plethora of pink clothes, the blankets and toys, the pram and cot.

Emma had told her several times she did not wish to be repaid. Ruth was payment enough. Her ‘share’ of Ruth. They connived together: Emma taking a little more of Ruth at intervals; Rachaela gladly giving a little more.

‘I need space to think,’ said Rachaela.

‘Let me have her, then. As I say, if you can trust me... I’ll look after her if you want to go back to work. Only if you’re sure...’

‘Yes. I’m no good with—her. You’re marvellous,’ she added stonily, a meaningless accolade.

But Emma flowered in the winter park.