Kathleen let them stay the night at hers.

‘But tomorrow you’ll have to go. He’s a clever bastard is Marc; he’ll find you, and he’s from bad stock. Remember I went out with his cousin, and he ended up in Rampton? No offence, love, but I don’t need a visit from another Doyle.’

It was Kathleen that called the helpline, got them their place at the refuge. It was Kathleen who helped them move into their gloomy room at the back, and strutted around like a little general. ‘It’s big, isn’t it?’ She looked at the cornicing. ‘Needs a bit of a dust around the corners.’ She looked critically at Sal. ‘You look done in. Have a rest. Have a lie down. Me and Jen’ll have a cup of tea together. There’s a place up on the hill that looked like it did a nice breakfast. Jen, get your coat, it’s spitting out there. Chop chop.’

* * *

Outside, Kathleen spent a few seconds studying the building. ‘You’d never know, would you? What it is?’

‘Well, nobody’s meant to know what it is. Safety,’ Jenny answered.

Kathleen pointed at the security camera poised above the doorway. ‘That gives it away though, doesn’t it?’ She sighed, and moved briskly on. Jenny had to trot after her.

Kathleen was one of those women who liked to tell people that they ‘don’t mince words’ and ‘tell it like it is’. She expected children to get over themselves and understand the world around them with clear, hard eyes. She treated them like miniature adults; that was probably why her own daughters were so intimidating. As soon as they sat down, she got straight to the point.

‘Right. I need you to look after your mum. She’s been through a lot,’ Kathleen said seriously. ‘She’s been through too much. It does things to you. But you, you can take it; you’re like me – you’re tough, that’s why I’m telling you this.’

‘No, I’m not,’ Jenny muttered.

‘Oh, you are though, like it or not. And, you’ve got to get her to stop drinking so much.’ Kathleen sat back. ‘No drinking, no calling him, none of that. You’ve got to keep an eye on her. And don’t look at me all gormless. You’ve got to step up.’

Jenny looked at the tabletop, clenched her jaw. ‘I can’t,’ she managed, and her voice was slightly more forceful.

Kathleen’s eyes widened in exaggerated surprise. ‘What d’you mean, “can’t”? ’Course you can. You’re very capable. You’re like me. Now, what’ll you have? Bacon sarnie?’

‘I mean I shouldn’t have to look after her,’ Jenny said. ‘It should be the other way around. She should be looking after me.’

Kathleen scowled at her. ‘Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself. She has looked after you! Look, you’ve always had a roof over your head, a meal on the table. Plenty of kids don’t have that, you know,’ Kathleen said sharply. ‘She gave up a lot to have you. Think on that. She didn’t have to have you at all.’ She paused significantly.

‘So I have to be grateful she didn’t abort me, is that what you mean?’ Jenny’s voice was raised.

‘Shhh!’ Kathleen flapped her hand, looked around anxiously. ‘Keep it down. And no, that’s not what I meant. I mean that you and Sal, well, you’re a unit. A woman has a baby, and that’s… that’s a special bond. Nothing comes between you.’

‘Marc did.’

Kathleen’s face creased with irritation. ‘Yes, but not any more. Now it’s just you and her, isn’t it? She did the right thing eventually and she’s going to need you. You’re her darling.’ She smiled, held out a hand, patted Jenny’s cold fist. ‘Yeah?’

‘Let me tell you something.’ Jenny tried to keep her face still, tried to keep the raging emotions from showing, knowing that, if she cried, Kathleen would dismiss her as a baby and stop listening. ‘Marc. He didn’t just hurt her. He hurt me too. He did things to me. I told Mum, but’ – she looked up – ‘she didn’t believe me; she said I was jealous of her, trying to split them up. She said I’d let it happen. She was jealous.’ Tears started then; she couldn’t help it. ‘So, you know, I’m really not her darling, Kathleen.’

Kathleen’s face stiffened. Her mouth opened, then closed. She made a show of getting out her cigarettes.

Jenny raised her voice just a little. ‘She’s never looked after me, and now you’re asking me to carry on looking after her, even though—’

Kathleen closed her eyes and made an irritated gesture with her unlit cigarette. ‘Why’re you telling me this now?’

‘I’m saying it because … I need to.’ Jenny’s voice broke. She dug her nails into her palms, hoping that the pain would distract her from more tears. ‘I can’t feel safe. I can’t relax because, deep down, I still don’t think she believes me, and I think she’ll go back. She loves him more than she loves me. And I-I hate her for that, Kathleen. I’m sorry, but I do.’

Tap tap tap went Kathleen’s cigarette. Jenny heard the click of her lighter, the approaching footsteps of the waitress, ‘You can’t smoke in here,’ and Kathleen’s righteous indignation: ‘Oh for God’s sake, one ciggy? And I’m right by the door!’ and she knew that Kathleen had deliberately lit up just so she’d have to step outside for a few minutes to buy herself some time, some kind of wiggle room, a way to think how to refute Jenny and back up Sal. Of course. Sal was the priority – always helped, coddled. And Jenny? Well she was just a supporting player who should be grateful for being given any role at all.

It wasn’t fair.

When was it ever fair?

Jenny felt the two sides of her nature meet and clash. One half – the bruised, guilty half – adored strong, cynical Kathleen and treasured her spare, infrequent compliments: that she was a good girl, she was tough, she could cope with everything thrown at her. The other half – unwillingly precocious and bitter – bristled with contempt at Kathleen’s failure to believe her, protect her, take her side.

All this was depressingly familiar.

Then, suddenly, watching Kathleen greedily sucking down the smoke, her profile all vexed angles, raw bones, a new Jenny stirred, and this Jenny had had enough. This Jenny promised herself, with dispassionate clarity, that none of this will ever happen to me again.

Fuck Sal.

And fuck Kathleen too.

They’re never going to do the right thing. They don’t care about you, so you better start caring about yourself. You better do whatever you’ve got to do to make sure you’re safe, that no one can harm you, ever ever ever.

You’re the priority.

You’re the only one that matters.

You’re cleverer than all of them. I bet you can make them do anything.

This new Jenny watched Kathleen come back, sit down again, stiff with tension. The tension indicated that she’d wrong-footed Kathleen, unsettled her. New Jenny turned this over in her mind, savouring it. She stayed silent, waiting for Kathleen to speak.

‘OK. What did he do? Marc? No, wait.’ She held up one hand. ‘No. Second thoughts I don’t want to know.’

‘I’ll tell you though.’

‘No.’ Kathleen looked her hard in the eyes. ‘I don’t want to hear it. There’s no point. It’s over now, isn’t it? Whatever it was that happened to you, you survived it and it’s all finished with.’

Despite herself, pain welled. Old Jenny’s eyes widened, tears shone, nearly spilled before New Jenny stepped in, squashed it all down. She looked at Kathleen, silently. Fuck you Kathleen. Fuck you.

‘Yes, I survived it,’ she said after a while.

Kathleen smiled. ‘’Course you did. You’re tough as old boots. Like me.’

Jenny smiled back. Fuck you Kathleen. ‘I’m glad I’m like you, Auntie Kathleen.’

Touched, Kathleen smiled again, softer. She took her hand. ‘I’ll tell you this: if you let her go back, it’ll all start again.’ She gently rapped their joined hands on the table for emphasis, and sat back, looking expectantly at Jenny.

‘We won’t go back.’

‘Damn right you won’t. You’ll leave, go to another town, get another school, all that. If you don’t, then you’ll end up back there with him.’ Kathleen sighed. ‘I love your mother dearly, but she’s a stupid mare when it comes to men. She doesn’t have the sense she was born with. But you, you’ve got sense. You can sort it all out – you’re very capable.’ She paused, looked up expectantly, but New Jenny didn’t feel like giving her what she wanted right then. Instead, New Jenny let the silence lengthen, and watched as Kathleen become more and more uncomfortable. She thought she could buy her off with compliments like ‘You’ve got sense’. Stupid. Stupid patronising—

‘Jen? I said you’re very capable.’ It was interesting, New Jenny thought, how Kathleen really couldn’t cope with silence. Let’s see how she copes with non sequiturs, shall we?

‘My dad. What was he like?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Didn’t you go out with him, too?’

Kathleen looked rattled, confused. ‘What? Your dad? He was nice looking. Nice-looking man. Nice skin – his mum was from Dominica, I think? Anyway. Nice skin. Daft though. Why?’

‘But what was he like?’

Kathleen stared at her. ‘I just told you!’ she said.

‘I mean, as a person, what was he like?’

Kathleen rolled her eyes. ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Jen. I don’t know. Nice enough. Daft though. Liked football—’

‘Where is he now, then?’

‘Oh God knows? God knows. Soon as you came along he went. That’s what happens, isn’t it? Or sometimes they don’t leave and, believe me, that’s worse.’

‘I was just thinking how funny life is, though; I mean, it could’ve been you that had a baby with him, and not Mum. I could have been your daughter, and not hers.’ Jenny smiled vaguely. ‘I always thought you were a good mum.’ She watched Kathleen’s reaction, noted the confused irritation driven out by flattered gratitude, thought she might as well push it a bit further. ‘It sounds awful, but, you know, when I was little? I sometimes wished you were my mum.’

‘Oh Jen! Come here!’ Kathleen reached over for a brief, awkward hug. Her clothes smelled of cigarettes. Her breath smelled of pennies. ‘Listen, my love. You’re just as much a daughter to me as Maraid and Ros. OK?’

Who would have thought it? Kathleen – the dyed-in-the-wool cynic, this abrupt, unsentimental force of nature – rolled over if you stroked her ego the right way. ‘Tell me what to do, Auntie Kathleen? Please?’

Kathleen sat back, wiped her eyes. ‘Right. This is what I’ve always told my girls, so pay attention: women have to stick together. We’re all born strong, but life kicks it out of most of us, and the ones who are strongest have to help the weaker ones. Like carrying a toddler when they’re tired.’ She shook her head bleakly. ‘It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Sal’s like a baby, and it’s your job to carry her. It’s not fair, but fair’s got nothing to do with it. She’s your mum, and that’s what you do.’ Kathleen sighed again. ‘Men are always going to take advantage of people like your mum. They always have and they always will. But not you. It won’t happen to you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m going to tell you now how to avoid it.’ Kathleen smiled craftily. ‘When it comes to men, they’ll always take advantage. It’s their nature, so you’ve got to do it to them before they do it to you. Take them for everything they’ve got – in a nice way, you know, and, if you can’t do that, then get the hell out of it. This Marc thing – whatever it was that happened – it taught you a valuable lesson.’ She crinkled her eyes in a conspiratorial way. ‘Don’t fall for the talk, the presents, none of it. Take them, say thanks, but don’t ever think you owe a man anything, and if they hurt you, hurt them back, worse. Do whatever you have to do. Does that make sense?’

It did make sense. It made a lot of sense. Jenny took her hand then, felt her hot, dry fingers. She said: ‘I love you, Auntie Kathleen.’ And, right then, she meant it.

Outside, Kathleen buttoned up Jenny’s jacket for her, and back at the refuge she hugged her again – two hugs in fifteen years and both in one day.

‘You’re a good girl, Jen,’ Kathleen managed, dabbed her eyes, stepped back. ‘Now, remember what I’ve said, all right? You’ve got to do it to them before they do it to you. All right. Call me whenever you want, OK? Promise?’

Sal wasn’t in the room when she got back. The bedclothes had been shoved aside and the pillow was cool.

‘Mum?’

A horrible certainty was edging into her mind.

Sal was standing with her back to the street, in a lone phone box just behind the refuge. She must have picked it because it was so secluded. That was the thing about Sal – she was cunning in that way. She even had Kathleen fooled on that one. Jenny crept up behind her, closer, closer until she heard Sal’s breathy telephone voice on their old answer machine: ‘And if you will leave your number, I will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible.’ Sal took a breath, about to speak. She was already crying.

Jenny grabbed the hand holding the receiver and smashed it against the toughened glass. Then, breathing heavily, grabbing Sal’s injured arm, she dragged her out into the cold still air and all the way back to the refuge. Sal cradled her arm, whimpered: ‘You’re hurting my bad arm, grabbing me like that’, but that only made Jenny dig her fingers in more, pull her along quicker. When they got back to the refuge, she marched her up the stairs to their room, propelled her towards the bed, all without saying a word.

Sal curled up and kept on crying. It was almost like she was enjoying herself, savouring it, cuddling and cooing to herself on the bed like a big baby, while Jenny, silent, watched, and as minutes ticked, she found herself understanding Marc, thinking, maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t all his fault… Sal loved being the victim, the child, just as much as Marc loved being the bully, the Man. The more pathetic she got, the more contempt he had, and the more contempt he had, the happier she was. He hit her because she deserved it. Because she asked for it. She fucking loved it. That was what kept them together, and that’s what would make her go back, again and again, unless Jenny stopped it. But pleading wouldn’t work. Speaking sense wouldn’t work. There was only one thing that Sal understood.

And so Jenny watched her mother’s genuine tears stop and the fake ones begin. She watched her rock herself like a baby on the rumpled sheets, muttering to herself that she was so lonely and so sad and only wanted her stuff back and just thinking about you and how’d we end up here and why do bad things happen to good people and…

Jenny crossed to the bed, knelt at her feet. Sal looked up, hopefully, pathetically, through damp eyelashes. ‘You don’t know what it is to be lonely, Jen. You don’t know—’

‘Fucking shut up,’ Jenny told her quietly.

‘Don’t say that.’ Sal’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t talk to me like that—’

‘Here’s what’s happening. We’re moving away. You’ll never see him again. If you behave well, I’ll get your stuff back, but you’re never seeing him again, all right?’

‘But—’

‘No,’ Jenny said. ‘Listen to me now. I’ve had it. I don’t care how you feel. I don’t care any more. I’m doing this for me, and you’re not going to fuck it up.’

Sal’s mouth pursed. She looked like an angry baby. ‘Selfish—’

Slowly, almost dreamily, Jenny pulled one arm back. Sal watched her fist warily. ‘What’re you—’

Then Jenny slammed her fist into Sal’s quavering chin, paused, then did it again. Paused, then did it again, and again, until her bunched knuckles hurt, and her arm felt weak. Sal fell back, crying now with real pain.

Jenny walked slowly down the stairs into the kitchen to get some water. One of the residents, a woman called Karen, with rivulets of scar tissue running down her face where an ex had thrown boiling fat on her, stood by the window sipping tea.

‘You all right, darling?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, well, Mum’s got a migraine. Stress. She’s really depressed.’

Karen’s ridged scars contracted, rippled. ‘Oh, poor love. I’ve got some painkillers – you want some?’

‘Oh, really, you can spare them?’

‘Oh, I’ve got loads. Take ’em like Smarties.’ She laughed a little sadly. ‘They’re strong though – dihydrocodeine? She won’t do much but sleep if she’s not used to them.’

‘I want her to sleep, to tell the truth. She needs it.’

‘Oh, bless you.’ Karen’s ravaged face was gentle. ‘She’s lucky to have you, she really is. Come with me.’ She led Jenny to her room, dark and humid. Pictures of her children – all of whom were now fostered – had been tacked up on the wall above the bed in the shape of a heart. Beneath them, in careful, tumbling letters, she’d written ‘My Angels’ in lipstick. She gave Jenny the pills, almost a full packet. ‘You only get one Mum, don’t you? Got to look after her.’

Jenny nodded. ‘I know. She’s my best friend.’

Back upstairs, Sal had stopped crying, and was sitting on the bed, watching the door expectantly. She had a bloodied tissue in one hand.

‘I’m sorry, Jen.’ Her speech was slurred with blood – two teeth had loosened and she’d bitten her tongue.

‘Don’t make me do that again.’

Sal shook her head, grave as a child.

‘Because I will. You know I will now, don’t you?’

‘Yesh.’

‘Say you understand then.’

‘Yesh. Yesh I unnerstand.’ A thin trickle of blood ran down her chin.

Jenny shook out two pills. ‘Take these.’

‘Whudardey?’

‘Painkillers.’

Sal took them, and obediently lay down. There was a look of dazed gratitude in her eyes. It was the same expression seen on the faces of released hostages, facing the cameras after years in captivity.