‘You’ve been a terrible sister,’ I go on. ‘More an enemy than a friend. And some of the things you’ve done have devastated me.’

‘I am weak,’ she admits. ‘You were always the strong one.’

‘That nonsense has to stop now,’ I tell her. ‘You are a grown woman and need to take responsibility for yourself.’

‘Oh, Maggie,’ she weeps, ‘I think of the babe all the time. She was a perfect babe and I should have done more to help, but I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. I should have fetched the Baxters. I should have watched over you both.’

‘Yes, you should,’ I answer. ‘You are reckless, Joan. One day you will come to some harm yourself, if you don’t stop.’

She nods and looks awful, and I suppose she has suffered too. But we are both here now, and we are sisters, and I have troubles enough without falling out with her again.

‘The babe was perfect,’ I say. ‘The most beautiful babe I have ever seen in my life.’

‘What did you call her?’ asks Joan.

‘She did not have a name. I couldn’t think of one, for all the terrible things that happened next.’

‘But you must have thought of one by now?’

I have. It has taken a while, but now I am more certain of myself I feel I can name my own daughter. ‘Her name is Susanna.’

‘Oh, baby Susanna – our babe,’ says Joan. It is bitter and sweet to hear the name spoken. ‘And where is she buried, so we might visit?’

‘She has no grave that I know of. The anatomists have her.’

‘Our Susanna cannot rest like that,’ cries Joan.

The commotion wakes Ma, who rises from the bed and opens the curtain, rubbing her eyes and reaching for her kerchief. When she sees me, she has to put her hand on the wall to steady herself. Her kerchief drops to the floor. Ma’s hair is greyer and wirier, and her face is thinner and her body saggier, as though it has had some of its life drained out of it. Even the knuckles of her hands have aged and knobbled.

I did this to her. I could cry out for the shame of it, for as I sat and sipped gin and promised strangers that they would reunite with loved ones, and all things were forgiven beyond the grave, I knew nothing of the sort. I was not delivered. I am not God. My own mother withered as I sold stories and, if I had not come home now, forced to flee, I might have stayed in Edinburgh for years and she might have withered away to nothing.

‘Ma,’ I say, almost choking on her name.