Jenny didn’t stay in the house for long. Half an hour later she texted Freddie to make sure he was at his parents, and then took a taxi to the train station, keeping her head down; she didn’t want to risk anyone in the village seeing her, wondering where she was going, mentioning it to Freddie. That was the problem with villages... they were boring places filled with boring people who had nothing better to do than Notice Things. At the station she bought a ticket to the city and, in the train, sank into a still meditation, here and not here, present and past, and when the train stopped she merged with the rush hour crowds in the dark streets, under the dark sky, just another grey bobbing face.

Then she turned east, and the streets were emptier here. Striding through the semi-derelict covered market, past dirty drifts of swept-up snow, past a pub with broken panes covered with plywood, named, incongruously, Pretty Windows, and up the hill, the winding, bleak hill to what, years ago, was Home. Her mind meandered around the narrow alley of the word. Was this still Home? Home is where the heart dies. Home is where the hatred lies. You can’t go home again. The years hadn’t dimmed her memory. If anything, going over the same memories again and again had scored them deeper into her brain like scars. Here was red brick on red brick under a lowering sky; halal butchers and Polski Skleps; dull-eyed teens and overtired toddlers. Here was The Fox, the pub where Mum had worked, where she’d met Marc. Here was the taxi rank they’d run to that night. Here was the drain down which her family photos had swirled. Here was the wall against which she’d been pinned, legs dangling, his fingers crushing her windpipe. Everything was the same, and everything smelled of rain, coppery and dense as blood.

She got to their old house, the front door still scabrous black. No handle, just the flimsy Yale lock that a child could open using any old bit of plastic. The only things different were the curtains. These were nets with grimy bunched bottoms, whereas theirs had been blue with little grey flowers. Maraid had run them up on her sewing machine when they’d first moved in with Marc. Quiet. It was so quiet on this street. You could hear everything on this street. You learned not to say anything on this street. You had to keep secrets on this street.

Like a sleepwalker, Jenny walked down the alleyway to the back of the row, stopping just at the edge of her old back garden behind the still-broken wall. The garden had been paved since they lived there, and all the sad little flowers that Sal had planted must have died years ago.

She stared at the house and felt the scummy tide of pain, of grief, of rage rush towards her. Home was where it had all started. Home was where everything wrong…

From far away, she heard a car backfiring. Jangly music in some guttural language pumped out of a nearby window. A thin cat, one-eyed and friendly, undulated over the broken bricks. She put out one hand and stroked its ears. The animal purred, tense, purred and tensed and, in Jenny’s mind the two Sals merged and detached, merged again a blurring confusion, a foggy duo. Dancing Sal, who sang like Dusty Springfield. Dresses and shiny hair, red nails and laughter. Older Sal, cut down short like her hair, trembling before Marc, and never singing a note. And behind them both? That was the thing she didn’t want to see. Blood in her hair. She imagined small dykes carved in the snow, first deep then shallow, then mere grazes: the evidence of a useless struggle to right herself. Sal wasn’t a natural struggler. It would have been better if she hadn’t bothered. It would have been quicker.

The wind picked up, blowing fresh sleet, limey light filtered through the black clouds hovering over The Fox and spreading towards the city.

The cat crouched, shivered. Up close, Jenny could see that it didn’t have one eye; its left was just so infected that it had closed behind a gummy scab of pus. No collar. Fur sparsely covering its bumpy, knotted spine. It gazed at her, closed its good eye into a cat smile. Even now, it wanted to please, even now, when it looked close to death. Jenny gently picked it up, feeling it curl gratefully against her chest with a rusty purr. ‘I’ll keep you safe,’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’

She stopped at the shop on the corner to see if they had any boxes and maybe a bag to keep it dry?

The woman on the till shook her head sorrowfully at the animal. ‘I’ve seen that around for the last few weeks. Poor thing.’

‘She doesn’t belong to anyone then?’

‘No. She mustn’t. Nobody would let a cat get into that state.’

‘I want to take her to a vet,’ Jenny said.

The woman shook her head again, with just a touch of smugness. ‘Not sure that’ll do any good. Look at her. She’s on her last legs.’

‘She’s purring though,’ Jenny said, a little wildly. ‘Listen!’

‘Oh, they purr when they’re dying,’ the woman told her. ‘It’s to make it easier for them. It means they go happy.’ They both gazed at the cat.

‘I want to try though,’ Jenny said.

‘Tell you what.’ The woman disappeared into the room, and came back with a dusty cat box. ‘Put her in this. And if she gets better, let me know.’ Together they shoved the cat into the carrier. ‘Keep the carrier.’

‘You’ll need it for your cat though, won’t you?’

‘No. He died. That’s how I know about the purring.’ The woman smiled. Her eyes were wet. She gave her some cat treats for the journey.

And so, Jenny made her way back down the hill, the bulky cat box pressed against her chest. Behind her, her old house, her old school, the pub, everything was grimly bathed in darkening grey, and so she began to trot to stay ahead of the snow, back through the market, past trundling pensioners, and made it to the city centre just before the storm broke, huge and thrilling. She huddled with others under a shop awning, everyone infected with that giddy friendliness that bad weather brings.

‘Coming down fast!’ A man said half to her and half to himself. ‘Look! It’s as bad as the other night, isn’t it?’

In the box, the cat shifted and mewed. Its one good eye shone huge through the grill.

‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered to the animal, ‘I’m going to get you better, and keep you safe. I promise. You and me, girl.’

As the snow thickened this small, hard kernel of resolve grew. She would be safe. From now on, she would be safe. She deserved to be safe.