“Well, it’s one thing to hear them in the market and quite another to have them roll around inside your mouth.” She took my dressing gown from the back of the door and helped me into it. “Some words are more than letters on a page, don’t you think?” she said, tying the sash around my belly as best she could. “They have shape and texture. They are like bullets, full of energy, and when you give one breath you can feel its sharp edge against your lip. It can be quite cathartic in the right context.”

“Like when someone cuts in front of you on the way to the cricket?” I said.

She laughed. “Oh dear. Philip calls it my motormouth. I hope you weren’t offended.”

“A bit surprised, but I think that’s when I started to really like you.”

No words then; Sarah just stood on her toes and kissed me on the cheek. I bent slightly to meet her.

ATTEND

To direct one’s care to; to take care or charge of, to look after, tend, guard.

TRAVAIL

Of a woman: to suffer the pains of childbirth.

DELIVERED

Set free; disburdened of offspring; handed over; surrendered.

RESTLESS

Deprived of rest; finding no rest; esp. uneasy in mind or spirit.

SQUALL

A small or insignificant person.

A sudden and violent gust, a blast or short storm.

To scream loudly or discordantly.

Light edged the curtains. The room was empty of its earlier crowd. The mess had been returned to order. Lavender masked the smell of blood and shit.

Shit. I’d said that word aloud, over and over. And I’d said others that Mabel had taught me. My throat was hoarse with them. I hadn’t dreamed it.

Though I did dream. And in the dream, a baby cried.

It was crying still. My breasts ached from the sound.

Their conversation was whispered, but I heard it.

“Better off not seeing it, else she changes her mind.” The midwife.

“It needs a feed.” Sarah.

“To keep a lie-child condemns her and it. I’ll fetch a wet-nurse.” The midwife.

I threw back the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Unfamiliar muscles moaned from their ordeal. A terrible sting made me squeal. I had a memory of that pain, blurred by ether.

I tried to rise, but my head throbbed and the sharp sounds of a moment before became dull, as if I’d just slipped below the water in a bath. I sat back down and closed my eyes. In the darkness behind my lids was the negative of a face, two points of unwavering light seared onto my retina. When I finally stood, I felt my insides slip out. I reached down to stop the flow, but there was no need; someone had fitted a belt and padded it with a towel.