January, 1942

It’s quite clear to me now that, had it not been for the baby, I would have gone stark-raving mad up in my Rapunzel tower. Of course, without the baby I wouldn’t have been in there in the first place, but I’ve never been a fan of circular logic.

The baby was due any day, by Dr MacDonald’s estimations. I’d grown used to the sensations coming from within. Perhaps the beating of his little heart compensated for my broken one. I knew he would be taken from me, but as the weeks ticked by I started to wonder if I could keep him. If need be, perhaps we could pass him off as my little brother until I could move away with him.

I was bigger than an elephant, too hefty to lower myself onto my window seat any longer. Instead I took to a rocking chair, watching fat flakes fall from grey skies.

It was now a year since I’d made the train journey to Llanmarion.

During my exile I came to think things would not ping back to normal as soon as the baby came, whatever Mother said. How could they? What’s more, I wasn’t sure I wanted them to. The war rumbled on, my old friends were scattered around the country and my new ones were in Wales. Perhaps I would return to the farm after all. I doubted anyone in Llanmarion would care one jot if I returned with a baby in tow.

I awoke in the early hours of January 18th, a terrible cramp seizing my whole body. I knew at once I was in labour. The contractions weren’t painful at first; rather it felt like my spine and stomach were in spasm.

I called Mrs Watson and she alerted Mother and Dr MacDonald. The midwife was called Trudy Mayhew, a pretty platinum blonde, not too many years older than I. She arrived in a starched uniform. ‘Hello, Margot,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a look at you.’

She lifted my nightdress and I felt her poking around. There’s nothing like birthing live young to put you on an equal playing field with farm animals, it has to be said. Any delusions of humans being more somehow more evolved or refined went smartly out of the window once the pain kicked in. ‘Oh, I don’t think we’ll be waiting all that long,’ she said with perhaps too much cheer. ‘Off we go!’

It was long, painful and difficult. At first I panicked. I felt an almighty burst of adrenaline surge through my body and it took me back to the night the bombs fell – the desperation, the urge to fight. Suddenly I couldn’t get him out of my body fast enough, I truly thought I would die if I didn’t. And then the pain kicked in. Truthfully it felt as if my torso was being ripped in two. It was all I could think about – I no longer cared what I sounded like, what I looked like: I was panting and naked and screaming, writhing on the bed like an animal. Mother left the room.

Only then did I sink into it. Either the pain eased or I went numb, because my body and my baby seemed to find a rhythm. I worked with the contractions to push him free.

He was real! Such a silly thing to think, but all of a sudden he was a real, live baby and not just a shameful secret. So very real. I heard a gooey gurgle followed by a gasp and a squeal. He was alive and so was I. All the fight went out of me and I fell back into my own blood and filth.

Trudy held him in her bloody hands. He was tiny and curled up, gleaming and pink. He howled and howled, apparently dissatisfied at his arrival. ‘There you go, Margot. Well done. It’s all over. Would you like to hold him?’

God help me, but I did. The thing that had been growing inside me was flesh and blood and so, so small. We’d got through the ordeal together and now it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world to hold him. I reached out for him.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ Mother reappeared at my bedside.

‘We have a wet nurse waiting.’ Dr MacDonald reached out to take the baby.

‘Please …’ I said, exhausted, hardly able to hold my head up.

‘Margot, darling,’ Mother said. ‘It’s not your baby. It’ll be easier this way.’

Dr MacDonald swaddled him in terrycloth blankets. ‘He seems to be in fine health. All is well.’

‘Wonderful …’ Mother escorted him, and my child, out of the room.

Trudy silently began to clean me up. She carried a washbowl and flannels to my bedside and diligently worked. ‘You poor little girl,’ she whispered. ‘But don’t you worry. He’s going to a good home, I promise. Nice folks with money.’

I couldn’t speak, but nodded. I think I must have been crying, because Trudy wiped my tears away.

‘Did you have a name for him?’ she asked.

The strangest thing is, I did. Some subconscious part of my brain been telling me stories, stories of some parallel existence where Rick and I had raised him as our son.

I would have called him Christopher.