– What if he’s no head because of me?

– Why would the baby have no head because of you?

– I’ve done a bad thing!

– It’s okay, the baby will have a wonderful head and it will have a face, and a head to put the face on and a neck below that. It will have everything! Head, face, neck, the whole fucking kit-and-caboodle. Dinnae panic, Jessie! The baby will have all of the things. Are you listening to me? It’ll have aw the fingers and all the other stuff too, toes, teeth, everything – I mean the teeth will come later.

– What if it has horns?

– We’ll hide them under a bonnet!

– I’ll nurse him! You’ve not had time to get a nursemaid, let me nurse him?

– It’s a girl, Jessie.

– How do you know?

Elise looks back at me and I realise the pretty witch in this apartment is not in any way me.

There’s an animal roaring.

A beast.

Cloven hoofs pace underneath the city as I grab onto a metal bed frame.

– Bear down, Jessie. Push!

– What if I want tae keep the bairn?

– Part your legs further, Jessie, come on, stay upright, it’ll make it easier, I can see – a crown, it’s coming!

She has not mentioned horns. That’s good, she is not coming out horns first. I don’t want my little girl to come out horns first!

I could weep.

Crown!

It’s a crown she can see.

Something is stuck and my body judders.

Elise’s arm is inside me then – turning the baby – I am screaming with pain – begging for death – her delicate hands do not falter; they belong to a woman made of steel. I have never been so grateful for another woman’s presence in my entire life.

The baby whooshes out.

There is not a single solitary sound except for my ragged breathing.

– Smack her feet, Elise!

– What?

– She’s purple, smack her hard!

The baby is bloody and she has wrinkles.

A nose.

A perfect Cupid’s bow.

Squashed face, wrinkled fat, tiny fists unfurl and Elise smacks her feet and I cannot hear a single thing until the baby wails.

We are both crying!

– I am going to cut the cord, Jessie, is it okay? I don’t even know what I am doing, do you just cut it?

– Aye! Are the scissors clean?

– Aye.

Elise turns away from me with my baby in her arms.

Does she see something?

There is blood on my thighs and my hands. I glimpse in the mirror and it is on my face – she wraps the baby in a towel.

– She is so perfect!

Elise does not want to let her go. We eye each other. Mr Udnam appears in the door. He is as high as all the kites.

– It’s a girl?

– Our daughter!

The two of them inspect her.