‘Place out here is as good as any, I reckon,’ Vernon said, not seeming to really listen to her. Then he added, ‘People have to have a place to do their time.’

‘I suppose people are afraid.’

‘Suppose so.’ He smiled. ‘It’s right up here on the left.’

They rounded a bend. On the right a house being built. Soon they’d come to a bridge, with a road to the left. He nodded at it as they went by. ‘Just down there,’ he said.

‘You said that on the way over.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yeah.’

‘We’re already at that stage, are we? Repeating stories?’

She smiled. ‘Hope not. Make for a boring life.’

He nodded at her bump. ‘He or she will change things. Make a few new stories.’

They’d started late, the two of them. He was in his mid-thirties, had been in his late twenties when they’d married. He said he’d had some sorting himself out to do after the war. She didn’t blame him. She’d waited. He seemed hesitant about most things. Preferred to think before diving in. She enjoyed that about him.

She heard something strike her car door. As Vernon turned to look something else struck the windscreen. She gasped and held her hands across her stomach. Vernon yelled. The glass cobwebbed, became impossible to see through. She held her hands up to ward off what was coming. The car was turning. She put her hands back on her belly before the car slammed into something.

In this panic she could still see but her mind was absent and she blinked a lot to try to rid her eyes of the haze. All she could think of as she sat there trembling was a nursery rhyme her father had taught her, but in this rhyme there were no words, only sounds of varying pitches and rhythms, so she hummed it, and willed her consciousness back to life.

Soon she held her hands up to her face and saw some of her fingers were broken. They were at odd angles. Blood was covering them from some unknown place. Her thumb. She had to blink to clear her mind to acknowledge them to herself and as she did so the pain became sharper. It solidified like so many needles. It was not in her fingers she felt it most acutely, though. It was in her stomach.

She forgot Vernon in this dread and ran her hands over her belly, fearing so deeply for the child within her that she almost lost her breath. She squeezed herself, more tightly than she should, and could feel the lump of the baby. No movement, no flutter in her belly. She was lucid enough to know it for sure. Knew it deep inside her that the baby she and Vernon had sang to and cuddled and dreamed for and planned for was no longer alive.

She started screaming. She screamed, just looking at the dash and her mangled hands, until she couldn’t scream any more. She could feel blood between her thighs, sticking her skin to her dress. Then she turned and saw her husband. His cap had fallen off and blood covered one side of his face. She pawed at him, hurting her fingers, said his name a few times. One of his arms looked funny, as though it had only recently been attached. She felt his fingers, gave them a squeeze, hoped he’d squeeze back. The side of his door was bent.