At exactly that moment there was a knock on the door. With huge effort Grace turned her head, expecting to see Charles stride in, flustered and bewildered but here to help her in her moment of need. The contraction was dying away and she took short breaths as she recovered her composure. But it wasn’t Charles.

Richard stood at the door, reluctant to enter this intimate female environment. He spoke to the midwife in hushed tones that Grace couldn’t catch, but there was no mistaking the shake of his head. Grace watched him walk away down the corridor as the door to the labour room closed behind him.

Then the contraction was back and Charles was pushed from her mind as the baby forced its way into it. The pain was hot now, she saw it red behind her eyelids as she struggled to remember what she was supposed to be doing.

‘Push now, Grace,’ urged the midwife. ‘And then pant when I tell you to wait.’

‘I can’t,’ Grace whined. She didn’t even recognise the voice as her own. ‘I can’t do it. I can’t . . .’

‘Now then,’ the midwife replied kindly. ‘Of course you can.’

But Grace couldn’t see how she could possibly be expected to go on. ‘Can’t you give me something? For the pain,’ she begged, but she already knew the answer.

‘It’s a bit late for that now, pet, but you’re doing just fine on your own.’

Before Grace could tell her that of course she wasn’t, the next wave was upon her. She pushed and she panted and it felt as if her insides were being torn from her body, but still there was no sign of the child.

As the pain waned briefly, the midwife said something that Grace didn’t catch and stepped smartly out into the corridor. Had they left her on her own? They couldn’t have, surely. She needed help – now! But there was another midwife in the room with her, Grace noticed now, hanging around quietly at the edge of the room busying herself with things that Grace couldn’t see. She approached the bed and Grace saw that she was very young. A virgin midwife, she thought. Now there’s a thing.

‘Fiona has just gone to get the doctor,’ the girl said. She looked anxious, as if talking to the patients wasn’t something that she usually had to do. ‘Baby doesn’t want to come out. I think we might have to use the forceps.’ She pressed the word slightly as she said it and her eyes widened as if this was a new twist in an unlikely adventure.