‘It’s because I’m the calm one,’ she said to Will as she readjusted the pouch straps around his back. ‘It’s not that I’m strict.’

‘Of course not,’ he replied, smiling calmly.

‘And it’s not that you spoil them.’

‘No.’

‘Though all that maple syrup at breakfast might not have been a good idea.’

But that was all later. For the first time, the birth of their first daughter, there was no joking in the lift. It was as if the world was holding its breath and, even for Holly, the nerves, the spotlight, made her anxious, aware of the importance of what she was doing.

Her mum still didn’t understand – neither of her parents ever had. But she didn’t expect them to, really. The parents who had explained to seventeen-year-old Holly that they couldn’t afford to send both their children to university, but that university wasn’t really important for women anyway. Her mother hadn’t gone, and things had worked out well for her. Spoken by her father, of course, although her mum certainly didn’t contradict him. She felt the injustice so sharply she didn’t know how to fight it, so instead she shouted the truth at them.

‘That’s stupid,’ she said. ‘I’m cleverer than him.’

Her dad had glared at her and left the room, and her mum had asked her to help chop the vegetables.

No, they’d never understood, but her mum did try, after her dad died, Holly had to admit – and she’d come round to visit Daphne often. She’d accepted Will, in the end. She’d even grown to like him. But her mum hadn’t been there to see her enter the building and change the world. That was what Holly and Will had done together.

The press had gathered outside the glass doors, not allowed in except for that one journalist who had been granted exclusive access to take the first photo after the birth was complete. As their camera flashes glinted in her eyes she held her head high but drew her arms around the pouch, as if protecting her baby from the media’s glare. She had worn a dress, a bright dress with a bold pattern of flowers, and looking back she thought perhaps that had been a statement too – that she would not hide. They were shouting her name, hers more than Will’s, and they walked together up the steps to the entrance as if they were on a red carpet. Then they’d walked through the glass doors and into the most peaceful building she’d ever been in.