The two women got hysterics laughing at each other; they couldn’t stop.

‘Yes, that’s my laugh, what’s wrong with it?’ Tara snorted, her eyes streaming.

‘Oh, don’t make me laugh, don’t make me laugh, it hurts worse,’ said Connie, clutching her stomach with one hand and fanning her face with the other.

Over the next few hours, Connie taught Tara to relax, to let go. She taught her to move her body in the way it needed to move to get the baby out. She taught her to breathe and moo and growl and shriek and not care what it might look or sound like. The contractions started to get more regular, then more frequent. Things were finally happening.

‘So, you know what you’re having?’ Connie asked, as they finished breathing through another contraction together.

‘A boy,’ Tara said.

‘Got a name sorted?’ Connie asked.

‘It’s too much, it’s getting too much Connie … I can’t,’ Tara started whimpering.

‘Don’t waste energy crying,’ said Connie. ‘Come on, stay with me, do what I’m doing, we’ll get there. What are you going to call him then?’

‘My husband likes John, after him. I don’t know, maybe Roger?’ said Tara, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of a hand. Connie wrinkled up her nose. Tara laughed. ‘Not Roger then.’

‘Sorry,’ Connie laughed too.

Another contraction, both women’s bodies were now strangely in sync. They held hands, squeezing hold of each other, breathing in unison.

‘Where are the midwives?’ Tara wailed. ‘They need to call John.’

‘Trust me, I’ve only done this once before, but men just get in the way,’ Connie said, panting through the last pangs. When she looked up, she saw Tara had crawled over to the bed and was banging her head against the foot rail. Connie waddled over and stroked her back.

‘Hey, this’ll be a bad memory tomorrow. Look at me, you want to hear the name I got planned for mine?’ Connie pulled Tara away from the bedstead. ‘I had this name planned since I was little.’ Tara turned to look at her. ‘Quinn. It’s a family name goes years back. My grandma was a Quinn; she used to say it held the luck of the Irish, said she never knew a Quinn who didn’t lead a charmed life.’ Tara continued to rock back and forth. Connie couldn’t tell if she was listening. ‘I had a boy first, Bill insisted on William after him. I said, whatever we got next, boy or girl, it had to be Quinn.’

The midwife returned to find both women kneeling on the floor, holding hands.

‘You’re going to have these babies at the same time by the look of it,’ said the midwife, guiding Connie back to her bed. ‘Come on, let’s see where you’ve got to now, Mrs Cooper.’