I went into labour at my husband’s funeral and my mother-in-law told me to call a taxi. Twelve days later the two of them were at my door asking for their grandchild.

The doors shut. Then the bolt went.

I got as far as the wall of the alley and the next one came and took my legs out.

I am not going to write about the next two hours. It is mine and it belongs to my daughter as well and I have decided that neither of us is putting it on the internet.

What I will say is that an ambulance came at nine minutes past six because a man called Ferris who runs the kebab shop on the corner came out for a cigarette.

Both of us were all right. She was five pounds eleven.

I named her Marguerite, after nobody in that family.

And twelve days later there was a knock on my door at eleven in the morning, and it was Eleanor and Arthur, and Eleanor had a folder under her arm.

“We’ve come for our grandchild,” she said. “And to talk about the estate.”