Andreena’s expressions were vivid, extreme. Like an expanding thundercloud, they spread rapidly over her face, only to disperse just as quickly. Some people found that unsettling. Jenny had met her when she’d been temping at the Council Tax department three years ago, just before her stint at the doctor’s surgery. She was warned about the fearsome HR manager who had refused to give up her office when the rest of the department went open-plan; who wore huge gold crosses and signed off her emails with a blood curdling bible verse.

But Jenny had soon discovered that Andreena was nowhere near as terrifying as her reputation, and it was probably the fact that she was a Union representative that genuinely scared the management. Charmingly, she had a childlike love of cat memes and a genuine, fierce loyalty to those close to her. And the bible verses? They weren’t that bad once you got used to them. She tended to stick to the Psalms anyway, and avoided Leviticus after one of her nephews came out as gay.

When Jenny heard Andreena’s little Fiesta putter down the drive, she ran to open the back door. Her friend was carefully unfurling her six-foot frame from the small car. The turban she wore added a further four inches to her height. She advanced with her arms open, like a statue of the Virgin Mary, and Jenny was enveloped in a strong, almost painful, hug.

Over coffee in the kitchen, Dree held Jenny’s hand, glared at her affectionately and asked: ‘How are you?’

Jenny frowned. ‘I’m not sure. Shocked, still, I think. I find myself doing normal things and then thinking I’m weird for being able to function normally. It’s… I—’

Andreena held one hand up and managed to smile and frown at the same time. ‘You shouldn’t feel guilty.’

‘No?’ Jenny looked at her clasped hands, serious eyes under knotted brows. ‘I wasn’t with her. If I’d been with her I wouldn’t have let her go out for a walk. The one night I spend away…’

Andreena’s brows pinched. Her mouth pulled down at the edges. ‘Are you eating?’ Andreena thought food cured just about everything. ‘I brought some things over—’

‘Oh, Freddie bought loads of food—’

‘Fruit. And some curry, and, what’s this? Cake? Banana bread…’

‘Oh, Dree, you didn’t have to do that—’

‘And brandy and soursop tea to help you sleep.’ She seemed to have come to the end of the bag of provisions. ‘Eat and sleep. It’s important. If you try to be too strong, you’ll break,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ve seen it. I know.’

‘I don’t feel very strong,’ Jenny muttered. ‘I can’t seem to pull myself together. I need to go to college. I’ve got to call the council.’

‘Now, you see, you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.’ Andreena’s face shone with delight that she’d found such an appropriate idiom. ‘Listen; when my brother called me, told me “Mummy’s passed”, I was strong, too. I went to work. I cooked. I cleaned. I was’ – she emphasised the last word with a little hand squeeze – ‘fine. I booked my ticket and didn’t cry on the plane, or when I saw Hopeton waiting at the airport; when I saw Mummy in her coffin, I didn’t break. “Who needs to cry?” I said. All these fools are crying, and it wouldn’t do a bit of good, and Mummy didn’t like crying. Now, you know what happened when I came home?’

‘What?’ Jen whispered.

‘I went to bed and I didn’t get out of bed for a month. It all hit me – pow – like a plank, and I was no good to man nor beast.’ She grimaced with an odd sort of satisfaction.

‘Mmmm.’

‘It’s not healthy to be British. Carry on, carry on until you die. No. Cry. Don’t be afraid. Don’t think about other people. Stop that now,’ she said in a low, serious voice. ‘You look after yourself, you take help from your friends. You grieve.’

And she stared meaningfully at Jenny, until she did begin to feel herself crying; first, quietly, and then loud, ugly tears. And Dree patted and cooed, gave her kitchen roll, made her sip tea until she calmed.

Then she said: ‘Tell me. Tell me what you’re thinking.’

Jenny’s voice was wobbly; she looked at her knees. ‘I did a rotten job of looking after her. I’m a rotten daughter. I know it. Everyone knows it.’

Andreena made one of those noises peculiar to her, a kind of quizzical, amused squeal. ‘How were you a bad daughter? And who is this everyone? Tell me?’ She waved one bangled arm around the room.

Jenny took a deep breath, dabbed at her eyes with more kitchen roll. ‘There are things I should have done. I should have stayed the night with her, Dree, I should’ve. If I’d done that, she’d still be here.’ She watched fearfully as Andreena sat back, her face a curious mixture of conflicting expressions. ‘You see? You do think I’m—’

Andreena’s voice was as sharp as her face was kind. ‘Don’t tell me what I think. Tell me what happened.’

‘No. No, you’ll think badly of me,’ Jenny answered. Through her tears she could see Andreena’s face soften. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

‘Tell me,’ Andreena said softly. ‘Tell me and maybe you’ll feel better. Nothing can be that bad, can it?’

‘I don’t know about that. It feels that bad,’ Jenny sobbed.

‘Jenny,’ Andreena’s face was world-weary now, ‘if you think I can’t guess what happened, you’re silly. Believe me. Nothing gets past me.’

‘What d’you think happened?’ Jenny whispered. She stared at her own shaking fingers, knotted together on her quivering knees. The nerve by her mouth twitched like a fishing line snagged in weeds.

Andreena sat back on the chair, then opened the small bottle of brandy and poured a generous dollop into their mugs. It merged, turbid and nasty looking, with the dregs of the tea. She pushed it towards Jenny.

‘I think that your mum was a difficult woman. I think that she drank too much. I think that maybe she said something nasty, and that’s why you came here. For a break. I can understand why, it’s a nice house.’ She looked around the clean kitchen. ‘Is that what happened?’

‘Yes,’ Jenny whispered.

‘Is that all that happened?’

‘What d’you mean?’

Her voice was so soft now. Andreena put one firm hand on her knee. ‘Did she hurt you? That’s what I mean.’

‘No! God, no! Mum wouldn’t do anything like that—’

Andreena reached one swift hand to Jenny’s jaw. ‘You’re bruised here.’

Jenny hastily pulled her hair out of its ponytail. She let the tears come.

‘Listen to me.’ Andreena’s voice was low, husky, hypnotic. ‘You’re a loyal person. You’re a good daughter.’ She put up one hand to ward off any disagreements. ‘It isn’t easy to admit that bad things are happening, is it? And so you push it down and push it down, and you break. Eventually you break. And you do something that normally you’d never do.’

‘What do you mean? “Something you’d never do”?’ Jenny looked at her friend like a python’s hypnotised prey. ‘Did you do something… bad. To your mother I mean?’

Andreena blinked slowly, and when she opened her eyes, they were dim with memory. ‘I ran from her. I ran away from Jamaica because of her. I loved her, but she’d do things… ach.’ She pushed a rough hand through the air. Bangles clinked and clashed. ‘But you? You moved back to be with yours! And one night, one night only, you run away.’

‘And look what happened.’

‘You run away. To be safe,’ Andreena told her seriously, and touched the bruise on her chin. ‘That’s good. That’s a good thing to do.’

‘But if I’d been with her, she wouldn’t have died.’ Jenny looked at her. ‘That’s what people are going to think! I posted something on my blog about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have done. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m just so used to writing what I’m feeling, you know? But then some people started being awful, and there was a big row, and it just… That’s what everyone is going to think. That I… did something bad.’

Andreena smiled solemnly. ‘Well maybe they will. Crazy people make a lot of noise. And on the Internet?’ She puffed out some air, her hands made the shape of an explosion.

‘They’re right though, aren’t they?’ Jenny muttered.

‘They are? And how many of them have your worries? Hmm? Listen to me now. People will always chat nonsense. They’ve been doing that since the beginning of time but, unless they’re paying your rent? Pay. No. Mind.’ This was Andreena’s favourite maxim. ‘Listen. If you can look after other people, you can look after yourself. Am I right? Now it’s time for you to do that. No guilt. No excuses. Live for yourself now.’

‘That doesn’t seem right,’ Jenny whispered.

‘It is though,’ Andreena said.

‘How did you get out of work today?’ Jenny asked her after a pause.

‘I told them there was a problem with my daughter,’ Andreena answered. ‘And I was right, wasn’t I?’ Jenny was beginning to cry again, and Dree pulled her close. Her coat smelled of cinnamon. Her hug was, as always, fierce with love. ‘Start to live for yourself. Never blame yourself for things that happened in the past. Anything. Promise me?’

‘I promise.’

That night Jenny suffered through a heavy medicated sleep with nightmares that were not really nightmares but heightened memories. The sudden shocking thud of a head against the wall. The broken picture and the blood on the carpet. Sal’s stretched neck and the snow. I’m sorry to tell you that your mother has died.

Her shouts woke Freddie in the room next door, and he stumbled in, all bed hair and panic. ‘Oh God, what happened?’

‘Nothing, just a bad dream, I’m sorry. I kept trying to wake up and I couldn’t. Those sleeping pills I took…’ She was sweating, face clenched, the demon panic sitting on her chest.

‘You were screaming something.’

‘Oh God, I’m sorry! What did I say?’ She sat up in bed, still shaking.

‘You kept saying “Get up! Get up!”’

She settled back into the rumpled pillows. ‘You and I were being chased. We were being followed. You fell, and I was trying to help you up. The snow… the snow kept burying you and I couldn’t dig you out fast enough.’ She laughed shakily. ‘That’s all I remember. Shit. That was horrible!’ She passed a sweaty hand through her hair. ‘No more of those pills for me. I’d rather not sleep.’

‘I’ll stay with you, OK? Until you get back to sleep.’

And he did, though he dropped off first, his pink round face losing years as he slept. Cherubic and innocent. Jenny closed her eyes, went into her place of power – the blue room, that safe space, but it seemed to have lost its magic. Sal’s long neck snaked through the sturdy bars; her weak cries could be heard through the walls, and Jenny, unsafe, exposed, felt fear. It was dawn before she finally fell into an exhausted slumber. And she didn’t dream, thank God.