There was no time for Tommy to run for the midwife, but hearing the sounds, Mary Ankerby came, in time to see the child, a small, dark-haired girl, lying next to Eve on the bed, mad as a wasp and still attached to the cord, which Mary cut deftly, having had seven of her own and all born at 5 The Cottages. ‘And what better place to start in life?’ she said, handing the girl to Eve, who lay dazed, the birth not having been expected for another week. ‘Jeannie,’ Tommy had said from the beginning. ‘Jeannie Eliza,’ though where the names had come from Eve did not know for there was no one called either in their families. Jeannie Eliza Carr lay tight-swaddled in the white flannel sheet like a small chrysalis, dark blue eyes looking out. Tommy drew the curtain against the first sun streaming in through the window onto them but Eve made him pull it back again, wanting their daughter to be touched by it and to have a sight of the wide sky. From the first, she was a quiet, watching child, only crying for her needs, and when they were satisfied, lying peacefully, not always sleeping, and as she grew, always looking for her father at the sound of his voice, following his movements.
