The mother’s face, on the other hand, was blood-red. A deep cut in her forehead was bleeding freely. That didn’t stop her from grabbing the baby. My sweater fell to the floor. The woman wound a blanket around her daughter with such speed and skill that this couldn’t possibly be her first-born child. She tucked the little head inside the folds, pressed the bundle to her breast and yelled accusingly at me:

‘I fell! I was moving along the carriage and I fell!’

‘It’s OK,’ I said slowly; my lips were so stiff that I had difficulty speaking. ‘Your daughter isn’t hurt, as far as I can tell.’

‘I fell,’ sobbed the mother, kicking out at me without making contact. ‘I dropped Sara. I dropped her!’

Freed from the troublesome child, I picked up my sweater and put it on. Despite the fact that I was on the way to Bergen, where I was expecting pouring rain and a temperature of plus two, I had brought my padded jacket. Eventually I managed to get it down off the hook on which it was still hanging, miraculously. In the absence of a hat, I knotted my scarf around my head. I didn’t have any gloves.

‘Calm down,’ I said, tucking my hands into the sleeves of my jacket. ‘Sara’s crying. That’s a good sign, I think. But I’m more concerned about…’

I nodded in the direction of her forehead. She paid no attention. The child was still crying and was determined not to be consoled by her mother, who was trying to tuck her inside her own fur coat, which was far too tight. Blood was pouring from her forehead, and I could swear it was freezing before it reached the sloping floor, which was now covered in snow and blood and ice. Somebody had trodden on a carton of orange juice. The yellow lump of ice lay in the middle of all the whiteness like a great big egg yolk.