‘I’m fine, I just keep getting these feelings – tired one minute, excited the next. I can’t explain. And then I feel fearful. It comes and goes over me like the tide. Leithy says it’s all to do with losing Rae, the disappointment and all that…’ Her voice trailed away and tears filled her eyes.

She could never talk about him without crying. Peg kept silent. The silly girl had had no marriage to speak of and now she was burdened with a bairn.

Netta was wishing her parents could have got to know him better, to appreciate he was not just any student but one who’d won prizes at the College of Art; how he’d supported himself with part-time work in a warehouse. What a brief marriage of might-have-beens. If only Netta could explain how it still hurt every time she thought of him. ‘This time last year’ kept ringing in her head.

‘You just take it easy, my lady. If Nurse Leithy says feet up and rest, then do it.’

‘Peg?’

‘What now?’

‘What’s it going to be like?’

‘Why ask me?’

‘You were a nurse.’

Just invalids and chronics, never a midwife.’

‘But you must know something. The only thing I know is cows.’

‘All I know about birthing can said in one sentence: castor oil, a hot bath, then use your pains…’

‘Why castor oil?’

‘It helps nature take its course and eases the passage ways, so I’m told.’

‘Will it hurt? Cows don’t seem to mind much.’

‘Of course it’ll hurt! Remember Eve’s curse: “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children”. But there’s joy at the end of your pains.’

‘What if I die. Who will take care of Bump then?’

‘Don’t talk such rot. Whatever put that idea into your head? You’ve been reading too many of those dreadful novelettes from the circulating library. Rest is all you need, and a good dose of castor oil. There’s some in the cabinet under the wash stand. If it’s a bath you’re after you’ll have to heat up the kettle and fill the tub yourself. This isn’t the Ritz, more’s the pity. But mind and wait until I’m back in the house, just in case.’

Netta couldn’t wait all afternoon for Peg to return and so dosed herself thoroughly, filled the tub and read Harper’s Bazaar in the bath. One way or another Bump would be making an appearance before the night was out.

*

Bump was in no hurry to obey orders so Netta spent an uncomfortable night in and out of the bathroom, but by the morning the ache in her back had worsened into a definite pain. That was the cue to swig down more castor oil, shutting her bleary eyes with a grimace. That should do the trick.