“Aude, you’ve had babies before.” Gwendoline tried to remain calm. “Don’t you know what to do?”

Audrey frowned. “But it was so long ago. Honestly, it’s a whole different experience when you’re on the other end. I hardly remember a thing.” She let out an anxious sigh. “Let’s just hope there aren’t any complications, although there often are.”

A loud moan came from the bedroom. Audrey and Nell hurried back in, Gwendoline returning to the telephone. Zelda was writhing on the bed in agony, the contraction lasting a few minutes.

Panic surged up inside Nell. “Is it supposed to be like this?”

“I don’t know.” Audrey’s voice was rising in fear. “That’s just the point. It’s too difficult to tell, and we have no training. Things don’t always go as planned. We could be playing with someone’s life here.” She took a big breath. “Two people’s lives.”

“I don’t think we have any other options,” Nell said. “We’re the only ones she has.”

Zelda’s contractions were coming closer together and more powerfully—and noisier. Nell had to shush the boys and force them back to bed, telling them that they were to get extra treats in the morning if they stayed inside their bedrooms.

Over the evening and into the night, the bedroom became progressively more disheveled, bedding everywhere, pillows dotted around, piles of damp or dirty towels, and some clean and folded, ready for use.

Zelda’s forehead was drenched with sweat. She was seething in agony. “There’s something wrong. It hurts so much.”

But all Audrey could do was smooth her forehead. “I’m afraid that’s how it is.”

“Why do women do this? Didn’t you go through it three times?”

“You’ll forget about it once it’s over. Trust me, it’s worth every ounce of pain.” Then she remembered that Zelda planned to give the child up, and blood rushed to her face. She looked over at Nell. “I think we’re nearly there now.”

    Nell had witnessed a birth only once before, when she was ten. A girl in the orphanage, only thirteen, had somehow become pregnant. No one knew how. The women who ran the orphanage called it “God’s baby,” but Nell somehow sensed that a man had been involved. The girl cried a lot, which also indicated that perhaps she hadn’t had a lot of say in the matter. After the birth, she was sent to work in a big house, just like Nell. The baby stayed in the orphanage. Nell couldn’t help wondering if that was how she had been born. Was she one of “God’s babies”? There were other, less fancy names for that kind of child. She knew them well.

“I think we’re nearly there,” Audrey said, gripping a towel.

“I feel it! It’s coming!” Zelda gasped.

Nell felt her head swim a little as she watched the head easing out, Audrey’s hands guiding it. “Now, with the next contraction, push as hard as you can,” she said, and as Zelda began to howl once again, Audrey slid the baby out onto the bed, covered with blood, but squalling with life as soon as she could.

“It’s a little girl,” Audrey said.

Here, right in front of Nell, was an incredible new life, stretched out, arms and legs already fighting. “She’s beautiful, Zelda. Absolutely beautiful.” What a miracle, that this tiny being could be formed inside her friend, released so perfectly into the world. Nell couldn’t help a little laugh of joy. “She’s just like you.”

Audrey cut the thick umbilical cord and gathered her in a towel. “I always said she’d be a girl.” She quickly wiped off the blood and passed her over to Zelda. “Look! You have a daughter, a baby girl!”

Zelda moaned, putting up her hand. “I don’t want to see her.”

“D-don’t you even want to look at her?” Nell took the baby over, feeling the weight and warmth of the bundle. “What about milk? Won’t she need feeding soon?”

But Zelda turned brusquely, pushing the bundle away. “You and Audrey can feed her until the woman from the adoption agency comes to collect her. Audrey has some bottles, and there’s some National Dried Milk in the kitchen.”

A flicker of unease went through Nell. She knew how it felt to be pushed away. Her arms unconsciously clenched the baby in close, as if to muffle the pain of rejection for the poor little thing. And as she stood watching Zelda’s poignant denial of her baby, Nell felt time stand still. Everything she had ever felt as an unwanted orphan flooded back to her. All her shame, all her fear, all her loneliness.

    But suddenly, the shrill sound of the doorbell interrupted her thoughts, then Gwendoline’s voice came as she showed someone in, footsteps trotting briskly up the stairs.

“The midwife is here,” she said, while a tired-looking middle-aged woman with a large black medical bag pushed past her into the room.

“Have I missed anything?”

Audrey

Audrey sat on the side of Zelda’s bed, the baby in her arms. The infant was a tiny little thing, all arms and legs flailing around. “She looks utterly determined to get out into the world, doesn’t she?” She glanced up at Zelda, who was lying on her side, her back to Audrey. “A bit like you.”

“I’m not going to change my mind, you know.”

The conversation had been put on hold all night—perhaps longer even, ever since Zelda had first come clean about her plan to give the baby up for adoption. A quiet hope in the back of Audrey’s heart had been that on seeing her baby, Zelda would change her mind. Alexander had brought the old crib down from the attic, and the mum of one of Christopher’s friends had given them an old pram. But the crib sat in Zelda’s room, empty, while every night the baby still slept in Audrey’s room, nestling in a pulled-out drawer beside her bed.

“I don’t want her near me,” Zelda said, her voice callous and determined. “She has to go. I called the agency, and a woman is coming the day after tomorrow to pick her up. I have to get on with my life.”

“But you can’t go to London, not now. With the new restaurant, you’ll be needed here, with us.” Audrey sighed with frustration. “And frankly we already have three children to look after, one more won’t make a lot of difference.” She rubbed Zelda’s shoulder. “It’ll be easy—you can have your life and keep her, too.”

    Zelda shrugged Audrey’s hand off her shoulder. “I don’t want to be an unmarried mother. I’ll be despised—or worse, pitied. And what about the child? Do you have any idea what names they’ll call her? She doesn’t deserve that.”

“Times have changed,” Audrey said softly. “A lot of babies are born these days without a father—either they’ve been killed on the front or, like you, the father was never involved. People can’t tell why or how. No one’s going to ask questions. A lot of women call themselves Mrs. instead of Miss—Mrs. Quince never married, so I don’t see why you can’t call yourself Mrs. Dupont, too.” Audrey took a deep breath. “There’s a war going on, Zelda. Men are being killed, people on the streets here being bombed, losing their lives, their possessions, everything they have—” She broke off, furious tears coming to her eyes. “Only vile judgmental people are going to take issue, and you shouldn’t let the likes of them dictate your life.”

“But my work, my job—I’m a chef, Audrey. I love to cook, to create new recipes, to experiment—break the barriers of what people expect and want. That is who I am, Audrey. I can’t let a baby take that away from me.”

“She doesn’t have to.” Audrey had got up and began pacing the room, rocking the tiny infant as she settled down to sleep. “We can be your family. Together we can support one another. With four of us, there’ll always be someone to look after the children, and there’s Alexander, too, and the others when they’re older.”

Zelda said stiffly, “Don’t you see, Audrey? Women have to choose. We are either mothers and wives, or we are workers. We can’t be both. It doesn’t work that way and never will.”

A flash of her own life passed before Audrey’s eyes. First as a bride, bright-eyed optimism flowing out of her as she embraced a world of children and domesticity. Then came the grief, the debts, the need for money forcing her to eke out a living with her cooking business. As she remembered the last few years, the lonely exhaustion of looking after children, working, and cleaning, always cleaning: clothes, dishes, children, a whole house that was catastrophically falling apart.

    “You’re right. It’s too much,” she gasped. “It’s all too much for one person. But we—we are four very competent, energetic women. We can show them that women don’t have to choose. We can be mothers and workers. And here you have a golden opportunity. You can be a mother and the top head chef of a successful women-owned restaurant. They will have to take us seriously. We cannot be ignored. We will be just as good as men—better.”

A sense of justice overtook Audrey. They could make it work—they were making it work.