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the district nurse brushing her way past the people who always seemed to be sitting, giggling, chatting and smoking foulsmelling roll-ups on the stairs. The nurse was doling out dirty looks left and right, clouting slow-movers with her bag. ‘Out the way, you bastards, let me pass!’ she snarled. As she came up to the top floor, she was unfastening her navy-blue cloak and gazing hard-eyed at Clara.
    ‘Your mam up here then?’ she asked.
    ‘She is,’ said Bernie.
    Bernie led the woman through to the bedroom, showing her the washbasin where she could clean her hands. Clara stood aside as the grey-haired and red-faced woman eyed her groaning mother.
    ‘She’s been like this for
ages
,’ said Clara.
    ‘Right. Let’s see shall we?’ The nurse turned to Bernie, twitching nervously and watching with fearful eyes at the doorway, Henry round-eyed and clutching at her skirts.
    ‘Take that bowl. Boil up some water, fetch some towels too, all right?’
    Bernie ran off to do as she was told. Clara pushed the door closed behind her.
    ‘She needs some bloody help,’ said Clara heatedly to the nurse. But then she bit her tongue. At least the nurse was here.
    ‘Well, help is what we’re going to give her,’ said the nurse, still smiling though her voice was edged with irritation now. ‘Christ, she’s not the only woman in labour in London today. I’m rushed off my bloody feet. Hold your mother’s hand, girl, that’s it. What’s her name?’
    ‘Kathleen,’ said Clara.
    Clara grimly stationed herself at her mother’s side and took hold of her hand while the nurse pushed the covers back and hitched up Kathleen’s nightdress. She rummaged around. Kathleen let out a moan as another violent contraction clenched her midsection. Sick with worry, Clara closed her eyes. It was as if Mum’s pain was so intense she could feel it too.
    She could hardly recognize her sweet-natured, contented, sunny mother in the pitiful wreck of a woman lying on the bed. The triple humiliation of the firm’s collapse, their sudden homeless state and Dad’s abandonment had wrecked her, Clara could see that. And now this awful pain with the baby had left her chalk-white and sweating, her once sparkling eyes now bloodshot and rimmed with red.
    ‘Why won’t it come?’ asked Clara.
    ‘Shh, girl,’ snapped the nurse, trying to concentrate on what she was doing.
    ‘It ought to have come by now, why won’t it come?’ persisted Clara.
    ‘Shut up, let me see.’ The nurse was silent, probing with her hand. ‘Shit! It’s breach,’ she said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The head’s round the wrong way. You’ve sent for the midwife?’
    Clara shook her head. She swallowed painfully. ‘We can’t afford it,’ she said, and the words hurt her. They didn’t have ten shillings for a midwife; they didn’t have fuck-all. And oh God, tomorrow Hatton was going to be here, wanting the rent, the lecherous old bastard. She thought of the address he’d given her, burning a hole in her pocket, and shivered.
    The nurse’s eyes rested on Clara’s face for a long while. Then she turned back to Kathleen, still squirming and groaning on the bed.
    ‘We’ll have to do the job ourselves, then, won’t we,’ said the nurse with a brisk professional smile at the suffering woman. ‘All right, Kathleen?’
    Bernie came back into the bedroom, carrying the bowl of steaming water. With shaking hands she placed it on the washstand along with fresh towels. Henry followed.
    ‘Now off you go, you two, and shut the door,’ said the nurse.
    Bernie, with Henry hovering around her like a small satellite, left the room, closing the door behind her. Clara wished she could go too. She didn’t want to see this. But instead she stayed there, holding her mother’s hand.
    The nurse was silent between her mother’s legs. Kathleen groaned and twisted as the woman delved into her.
It must hurt so much
, thought Clara, tensing as Kathleen’s hand gripped hers again.
    ‘Damn,’ said