Chapter 46

"She may want you, Audrey. She will be coming round now"

Audrey ran up the stairs, hesitating for a brief moment outside the bedroom door. With a sudden pang of desolation, she thought :

'If things had worked out between Alex and I, my children would have been born here in this house,... In that room'

She brushed aside such reflections and knocked on the door.

Penny felt as if she were returning from a long, long way... From eternity itself. She opened her eyes to see Audrey bending over her. For an instant she did not speak but she listened and heard the cry of a baby... Her baby, an amazing exciting sound. It was an incredible relief to be able to lie quite still without suffering, no more of that awful, racking pain, just to lie drowsily, contentedly, listening to the cries of the new born baby.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" she whispered, and was surprised at the effort it cost her to ask that question. Her face was drained of colour, her eyes huge, viol