Margaret is at the foot of her daughter Cerys’s hospital bed holding an eighteen-inch helium balloon.
‘Hunted high and low for it,’ she says.
‘It’s pretty,’ replies Cerys. ‘Really pretty.’
The balloon obscures half Margaret’s face: the bulge of its coral pink surface echoing an eruption of rosacea on Margaret’s cheek. Printed on the surface of the balloon, in lemon-sherbet lettering, are the words ‘It’s a GIRL!’
‘Tescos, Wilkinsons, Aldis, you name it! Pipsqueak in Asda couldn’t speak English properly. Said they didn’t sell them ‘no more’!’
‘Sounds like a nightmare mum. You didn’t need to.’
Cerys’s husband Jim rises from his seat beside the bed with a sigh and says he’s off to get coffee from the machine. Margaret winds a length of curly balloon string around the baby’s bassinet, pau
