“Rachael.”

“What?” She uncrossed her legs, hopped off the pink My Little Pony sheets of her bed and went over to the door frame where she hung off the door, letting it swing with her body-weight and felt the smooth white paint under her fingers. “What?” she repeated.

“Come downstairs,” her mother said. Rachael sighed, flicked her head back towards the TV. The adverts were on now anyway: blonde girls dancing with glittering plastic hoops in the sunshine, spiky-haired boys in sunglasses chewing gum, blowing bubbles. Rachael slumped downstairs, letting her bare feet fall heavily on each step, while, in the cramped kitchen her mother tried to comfort Michael, Rachael’s baby brother, and unpacked shopping from white and green Asda bags. Entering the kitchen Rachael began to root into one of the bags, searching for sweets and chocolate, making the thin plastic crinkle as her slender hands moved over a packet of mince, a bag of carrots, some folded up magazines.

“There’s nothing for you in there,” her mother said, gently slapping her arms away.

“What’d you shout me for then?” Rachael asked.

“Because I have a job for you,” she replied, bouncing Michael up and down in the crook of her arm and rattling a colourful little Humpty Dumpty with a bell inside its stomach for him. Rachael sighed. For a few seconds the toy quieted the chubby little boy, then his wailing began anew.

“I want you to take this bag over to your Nan’s” her mother said, abandoning the toy and raising her voice above the noise, “she rang me up earlier and asked me to pick up some Lemsip and a couple of other things for her because she felt ill. I meant to drop it off on my way home, but what with Michael and all the traffic I forgot.”

“Why don’t you just take it now?”

“Rachael, please, I’ve been working all morning, then I had to go shopping and pick Mike up from nursery, and the traffic was bad, and he’s been crying ever since because he’s teething. And what have you done all day? Sat in your bedroom watching cartoons. It’s not healthy. So you can do this for me and get some fresh air while you’re at it.”

“Fine,” Rachael said. Argument being futile; mother, stressed, being absolute. She scampered upstairs and pulled on some socks, then searched through her drawers and the piles of clothes on her bed and chair and desk for her favourite jacket, a denim one that was once upon a time a violent, strawberry red, but had since faded to a lusty salmon pink.

After switching off her TV she ran back downstairs and slipped into her battered trainers, the ones with the red LEDs in the soles that lit up with every step. They flashed their way to the kitchen where Rachael’s mother handed her the bag and gave her a pound to buy some sweets on the way back.

“I’ve just rang Nan, and told her to expect you knocking at her door, so don’t dawdle your way there.”

“K, Mum. Bye.” Rachael said, leaving.

Outside the sunlight was bright, brighter than the primary-coloured cartoons, as it reflected off the pavement and the windows of the surrounding semi-detached houses. Rachael turned away from the glare momentarily, sun-spots in her eyes, to bid her mother goodbye and close the door. Instantly the wail of her brother was muted and now came those myriad suburban sounds to her ears: the shouts of children playing, the hum of traffic, the car alarm somewhere, the lawnmower somewhere else. Into this world of light and sound Rachael had now stepped, and would have to walk about a half mile to reach her grandmother’s flat.

Halfway down her own boring street, Rachael glanced into the shopping bag she was carrying. In it was a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk, a packet of Lemsip, some cakes (Cadbury’s) and, beneath the purple cake packaging, a pair of apples in a transparent plastic bag. Apples reminded Rachael of Snow White. They were always showing Snow White on the Disney Channel. Rachael, impatient for sugar, decided to buy the sweets before going to her grandmother’s, and so turned left, instead of right, at the bottom of her road, so she could walk to the Newsagent. Walking the other way down this road was a man, Rachael noticed, with greying hair and a large gut hidden under a dark blue polo-neck shirt. As she neared him he stopped abruptly and began to speak to her.

“Oh, hello,” he said, “how are you? How’s your mother?”

“Uh, do I know you?” Rachael asked, looking at him, at his thick brows that perched wolfishly over his dark eyes.

“We’ve met before, yes?” he said, “I’m a friend of your mother’s. She introduced you to me, but it was a while ago. What was your name? Uh, L…Lucy, yes?” His smile encouraged her to speak, so genuine it was, and so Rachael shook her head and spoke her name, even as she noticed the yellowed teeth, the hairy arms.

“Ah yes, Rachael, that was it, yes” he had been leaning in close to her, she hadn’t even noticed, but now he straightened up. “And where are you off to, Rachael?”

“To see my Nan,” she said, “I’ve got to take her this food.”

“Ah, of course. And how is your Nan? It’s quite a while since I’ve seen her.”

“Well, she’s a little ill at the moment, that’s why I’m taking her this food and some medicine too.” Rachael was a friendly and talkative girl, in spite of her better instincts.

“Oh,” the man said, his thick brows sinking down over his eyes “I’m sorry to hear that. I shall have to go see her sometime. Yes. though I can never remember what number she lives at, my memory not being quite what it used to.” He smiled again: a practised charm.

“Twenty-seven B,” Rachael said.

“Ah, yes, Twenty-seven B, at, ah…oh now I can picture the place but I just can’t remember the name of the road…twenty-seven B at…”

“Hansel Court.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have said that, she thought as soon as the words left her mouth.

“Yes, that’s it, of course. Yes, I might pay her a visit later. I really ought to be on my way now, though,” the man said, “tell your grandmother I said hello and shall see her later. Yes?”

“Uh, yes, I mean, okay, Bye,” Rachael said, glad he was leaving. The man turned away and carried on walking, a slight spring in his step. Rachael watched him but he never turned back, and then he disappeared around the corner. Rachael put him out of her mind: sweets, now.

Soon a Sherbet Dip Dab and a Milky Way joined her grandmother’s groceries in the Asda bag. She ate the Dip Dab first, awkwardly holding the yellow packet in the hand that held the carrier bag while she used the other to plunge in the scarlet lolly, like a cat’s tongue lapping up the tingling sherbet. Eating in such a manner, stop-starting so she didn’t spill sherbet, wiping the white powder off her red jacket when she did, meant that it took her twice as long to reach her grandmother’s as it ought to have done. Eventually she was climbing the stairs in Hansel Court to knock on her grandmother’s front door.

“It’s unlocked,” a man’s voice said from within. Unsurely Rachael opened the door and took a single step inside to see the man she had spoken to earlier sat, one leg across the other, on her grandmother’s settee. “Come in, come in,” he said, “close the door, you’ll let all the heat out, and your nan’ll be getting cold, yes.”

“Where is she?” Rachael asked, still hovering apprehensively in the door frame.

“Ah, she’s asleep. I came over to see her, a little earlier than I’d planned, and we talked for just a little while, then she said she was tired and went for a lie down. I made sure she was alright, and was about to let myself out, when I remembered that you’d be coming. I thought it’d be a shame for you to knock and wake her up when she was feeling so rotten, yes? So I decided to wait for you and let you in myself.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” Rachael said, slowly stepping inside, into the musty smell of static dust, and the stuffy warmth of the electric fire, closing the door behind her. “I’ll just go check on her, see if she’s awake.” She felt awkward.

“I really don’t think you should disturb her,” the man said, standing, “she needs her rest, yes? Why don’t you go put some of those groceries away for her? It’ll be a nice surprise when she opens up her cupboards, yes?”

“Uh, okay.” Rachael said. She noticed that the man was moving incrementally towards the door, but felt all she could do right now was as he suggested, so she went into the kitchen, put the bag down on the counter. In the other room she heard the rattle and click of a chain. She leant towards open door to see what the sound was, but was greeted by the man, stood now at the entrance to the kitchen.

“You didn’t put the door chain back on. You should always put the door chain on, because you never know when there might be a wolf at the door, yes?”

“Oh, right,” Rachael said. It wasn’t the unfamiliar turn of phrase that made her uncomfortable: it was the eyes she could feel moving over her body, making her skin tingle, even through the red jacket, like the sherbet had made her tongue tingle. She would have to look soon. Glancing up quickly she met dark, hungry eyes. She did not look again.

From outside drifted in the distant hum of traffic, the rustle of leaves as a light breeze blew through them, insulating the oppressive silence of the kitchen. Rachael had never remembered Nan’s house to be this quiet; always Nan would be talking, usually to Rachael’s mother, usually with the TV on in the background. Even when she nodded off on the settee she would snore loudly. Where were her snores now, the comforting rumble of musty air through ancient nasal passages?

“You’re a very pretty girl, Rachael.” The man said, “very pretty. So pretty I could just…eat you up.” A pink tongue poked out between his thin lips as he said this, ran across them, leaving a saliva trail like an agitated slug, and then he shuffled ever so slightly towards her, making her body tense and her mind freeze, like a doe cornered by a wolf. Rachael took a step back, watching him warily. “I bet you have all the boys chasing after you at school, yes?” He smiled, chuckled slightly. The afternoon sunlight sparkled in his eyes, bright like the sun in children’s adverts. Rachael felt sick.

“Why don’t you, uh, why don’t you come here and show me why, yes?” he said, taking a very deliberate step towards her. It was enough to make her run, though since he stood at the only exit, it was towards him that she ran, and he grabbed her by the collar of her red jacket. “Now, Rachael, don’t cause a commotion, yes, don’t make a lot of fuss and noise; you’ll wake your Gran up. Why don’t you and I sit on the sofa and have a little chat, yes? It’ll be all the better for everyone if we just do that.”

Rachael screamed and slipped out of her red jacket and made for the front door. Grabbing the handle she wrenched at it with her slender, skinny arms, pulling it only a few inches before the chain pulled taut. She reached to unhook it, but already the man stood over her, a hand on the door, so she ducked under his reaching, grasping fingers, and ran, tear-blurred, to her grandmother’s room where she slammed the door behind her.

“Nan. Nan!” she screamed, shaking the old lady in her bed, wrenching the white-sheeted duvet from the fully-clothed figure, revealing the lolly-pop red stains in the window-blind-dappled light. “Nan,” Rachael sobbed, slumping down from the bed onto the floor.

“Don’t cry, Rachael,” the man said, having casually crossed the sitting room and entered the bedroom, “I’m here. I’m here for you. Yes I am.”

Rachael screamed again, and tried to pull herself under the bed, kicking the bedside table as she did so, causing something fall off: her grandmother’s little panic button with its long white neck-cord. Quickly, she snatched it up, and jabbed the smooth plastic again and again as she wriggled further under the bed. A light lit up on it, but it made no sound, then Rachael felt a hand around her ankle as the man, having gone around the other side of the bed, tried to pull her out from under it. She kicked at his hand, her trainers flashing wildly through the air as they connected again and again with flesh and bone. After the fourth or fifth hit he let go.

“You little bitch,” he shouted, momentarily losing his temper. “But I know you’re upset, yes. Don’t worry; I still want you. And I can wait for you to come out. Yes. Yes.”

“Go away go away go away,” Rachael sobbed, curling up into a ball under the bed, hugging her skinny knees to her chest and feeling still the grip of fingers at her ankle.

“I-” the man began, when he was interrupted by a sharp rapping at the door.

“Mrs. Hudson?” a concerned woman’s voice called through the door, then the letter box, “Mrs. Hudson, are you alright?” The woman called twice more, then tried the door handle. The door opened a little way before it was stopped by the chain. “Mrs. Hudson, it’s Linda, are you home? You pressed your panic button. I…I’m going to try and get in now.”

The man was silent. Rachael thought she heard him move, but any sound he made was drowned out almost immediately by the social services worker throwing her weight against the door. Eventually the chain was pulled from its fixture, or snapped, and the door flew open. Linda stumbled in and went to the bedroom. She screamed when she saw the old lady, and gasped when the little girl crawled out from under the bed. The man who had attacked them both, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen, having escaped through the bedroom window and disappeared like a wolf into a forest, leaving behind only the red-stained sheets of a dead woman and a mark the colour of a faded red jacket on the ankle of a terrified girl.

“So there’s this girl,” Matt said suddenly, having taken a sip of his tea and now clasping the mug with interlocked fingertips.

Wondered why he was quiet so long. Here we go.

“She works in Sainsbury’s.”

Her.

“You wrote a story about her.”

He nodded. He always gave Viccy his stories to read. She liked guessing which bits were real and which bits he had made up.

“I gave her a rose.”

February. Valentine’s Day. Bunch of roses from Jack. Dinner out. Chocolate mousse for desert. No more or less than a girl could expect. Some time between the sheets afterwards. No more than a boy could want. Wish he was. But I get too snappy at him this time of month, always can’t keep his hands to himself. Can’t blame him. I would too, if I wasn’t. Talk to him later. See him in a couple of days.

“Oh.”

She meant it to sound like a question.

He looked down at his tea, which was ochre-coloured, or was it more beige, like, like, no, it was no good, he was thinking about the rose and the girl too much. ‘I gave her a rose’. That was the gist of it, the most important part, there really wasn’t anything more to say. And yet there was the beating of his heart and the awkward way he gave it with a question: ‘Can I give you this?’ rather than ‘I want to give you this’. And then afterwards the beating of his heart never abating, growing more tumultuous and making him half-crazy and laughing. The way he had felt on the walk home. Was Viccy interested in it, or, now that the most important part had been said, was there nothing more to tell?

“Shall we go sit in my room?” Viccy said.

“Sure.”

He nodded and followed her through the living room, to the far door and up the stairs.
Jeans look soft. Frayed tear below the pocket. Can see her. Stripy. I’d love to. Not with her. The rose. ‘Anna’, her name-tag said. Rich atmosphere in this house. Because it’s old. Comes from the oak stairs, and the ivy by the door, and the light that comes in through that window at the top of the stairs highlighting the myriad dust-motes, and the moss in the gutters that you can see from Viccy’s skylight. This house has character. Viccy too. Quite unlike my house. Spiral staircase, I wonder if the novelty wears off.

They entered her room.

Music, sounds familiar. She sat in the computer chair by her desk, put her tea down on the desk and tucked her knees up. He sat on the bed, looked out the skylight. Sky, cesious like her eyes, no, greyer, sadder. Cold like the ocean. She clicks her computer mouse. Click. The music went down. What is she looking at? A white rectangle reflected in her eyes, like a blank piece of paper, full of potential. He looked around the tidy-messy room. Everything is full of potential. The rose too? He looked over by the door. Do I tell. What’s that? All splintered and fragmented, silver balls in the grain of the boards.

“What’s that?” He asked.

She looked at the plastic shards.

“A puzzle box.”

“What happened to it?”

“I solved it,” Viccy said with a wry smile.

Solved it? One way of solving something, I suppose. Viccy. Almost intimidating sometimes. Want to tell her more, want her to ask.

He looked at her looking at the computer screen.

Somewhat rounder in the face than. Oh, the surprised look in her eyes as I gave it to her, so lovely, like a deer, no, like a cat, no, what’s more. Like a shrew. Rodent. Rabbit. Is rabbit good? Her eyes shone, no, glittered, under the fluorescent supermarket strip lighting, putting me in mind of a rabbit. No, no good: mixed imagery. The flush of her cheek like the blush of an apple, an English Cox. Better, no, cliché. Ought make a note of that, work on it, write it in a story, might sound better than saying it face to face. Have to describe something as cesious, and something else as acataleptic. Ay-cat-a-lep-tick: incomprehensible. And what was that other word? Meant shadowy. Umbra something. Penumbra? Adumbral. ‘I stepped out into the still, adumbral night air, my heart quivering violently, the memory of the rose still in my fingers, small nervous laughs bubbling up on occasion as’.

“So you gave the girl in Sainsbury’s a rose?”

Now she asks. Rather write it in a story now. Might help to talk about it, get another opinion, balanced view, third-person omniscient, not first-person limited. Might write a story about me telling it to her, frame narrative, like Heart of Darkness. The Horror! The.

“Yeah.”

“On Valentine’s Day?”

“No, the day before.”

Friday the thirteenth. Unlucky. The Horror! Ironic really, bequeathing (is that a good word?) a rabbit-pretty rosy-cheeked girl a rose on Friday the Thirteenth. The horror of it though. It was terrifying, ‘his heart beating against his throat, threatening to choke him, the awkwardness with which he handed over the rose, unable to meet her blue’, no, in the story they would be ‘cesious’, like Viccy’s, ‘eyes’. Never hurt to use a modicum of artistic licence, makes for a better story. He could change ‘can I give you this?’ back to ‘I want to give you this’, like in his original script too, and make it more definite that in the fleeting glance back she was smiling as well as blushing her rosy-apple-red cheeks. Still, it was terrifying at the time, waiting in the queue, rose on the conveyor belt in amongst the bread and the lemonade and the eggs and the chocolate. Nothing so terrifying as the everyday situations, the common interactions; waiting at a supermarket queue to give the checkout girl a rose. He would have to make a note of that. It could be the first line. The Horror! The Horror! A whole book and all anyone remembers is two words repeated twice.

“So what did she say?”

She said ‘for me’ and I said ‘yeah’, and then I left. ‘What did she say?’.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know what she said, I ran away. I waited there, and a man queued up behind me, and I watched a kid swinging on his mother’s trolley, and it made me smile, and I smiled at her, and I gave her the rose and then I left. I tried to not look back, to not look over-eager, I was embarrassed, but I did just once, when I had nearly left, and I saw her blushing and-”

She was smiling.

“- she seemed to be smiling.”

“Oh,” Viccy said.

Matt studied her.

What is he looking for, what are his eyes asking? Eyes turning away, now what is he looking at, silent and contemplative? Oh, the painting. One of Walter’s best: A child sat upright, his head tilted slightly forwards because of the backpack on his back weighed down with a teddy whose arms and ear and eye stuck out horizontally from its lid. A wooden sword in one of the child’s hands at an acute angle to the straight lines of the floorboards, while in the other he holds a ball of string which arcs along the floor to loop around one of the vertical wooden columns supporting the roof behind him. Parallel to the child, at a roughly thirty degree angle to the bottom edge of the wide canvas: a red and blue oriental-style rug overlaid on another rug causing a slight depression where the edge of the lower rug cuts across the floorboards. On top of the upper rug, between a globe slightly larger than the child’s head and an upright-angled telescope on one side, and an erect bust in the Ancient Greek style and a model ship on the other, leans a painting partially covered with a white cloth, that seems to give out its own light. This light strikes a horizontal shadow that reaches a radio, some crayons and some drawings pinned to a box upon which a cat sits, again behind the child. Even for Walter the detail’s impressive, if a little overdone. Funny, how he should go in for this rich detailed fine art, while I chose clean, minimalist technical, architectural drawing.

“Did your brother paint that?” Matt asked.

“Yeah,” Viccy said, “he gave it to me for Christmas when he came down at the end of January.”

Matt stood up and moved over for a closer look.

Child staring at a painting of a distant castle by a mountain, a wooden sword in his hand and his teddy bear in his backpack as if he was about to go on an expedition into the painting. He looks determined and he holds a ball of string, tied to a column so he doesn’t get lost. It’s very beautiful, so detailed. He wears a jumper the colour of a rose. On one side of the painting there is a toy wizard and crayons and child-drawings of a cat and a snake and the castle, on the other side are the artefacts of old-world adventure and expedition: a globe, a telescope, a bust of a bearded old man, a galleon. Clever that, it tells a story. Like the passage from childhood into, well, adventure I suppose. The boy looks fearless. He could look steadily into her cesious, no, blue, eyes with confidence as he handed her the. What do I say to her next time?

“I don’t know what to do, Viccy,” Matt said, after studying the painting, after staring again at the grey sky, after slumping back on her bed.

“About what?”

“About the girl. I’m so, I’m terrified. I’m so nervous and excited: I build up these ideas, all these romantic ideals and these day-dreams, me charming her and our relationship being perfect, and then it all breaks down because I have all this, all this cynicism about the whole thing, and I don’t believe in relationships, and I don’t believe they solve anything or make me feel any better or turn out at all how I want them to, and I always get hurt. I wish I could just believe in them, and not worry about it, and be charming, and have it work out perfectly with a movie ending, but I don’t believe any of that. And she probably thinks I’m crazy anyway, because who does that? Who just gives roses to random checkout girls?”

What is he talking about now? Need to be in the right mood for Matt. Why’s it such a big deal? Could turn the music up, drown him out. Rather have Jack. He’ll be in a lecture now.

“Viccy,” Matt whined.

She was still looking at the screen. She looked at him, he was looking at her, again with that pathetic questioning stare.

For fuck’s sake.

She wheeled her chair over the floorboards, running over some papers that lay scattered on the floor. The papers crumpled. Sitting now in front of the bed, with a decisive awkward motion she lifted her right hand and spread her fingers across his left shoulder blade. She felt momentarily the hard dip where the bone joined the back of his ribcage as she pulled him towards her. Without giving him time to resist, if he even would have done, she kissed him aggressively, moving her hand up his neck, to the start of his short hair and the point where, beneath the skin and the tendons, the last vertebrae flowed into the base of his skull. Her tongue writhed against his. Either this or punch him, beat my fists against him, she thought. Hate the taste of sweet tea on someone’s tongue, too unnatural, sickly.

She pulled away. Matt smiled nervously at her.

“What,” He said, “what about Jack?”

She sighed frustratedly.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said, “nothing means anything. Just ask her out if you want to, or don’t. And if she says yes, then she says yes, and if she doesn’t she doesn’t.”

Matt looked down at the crumpled paper on the floor, which crumpled again as she moved the chair back over it. They were quick sketches of houses.

“Sorry,” she said.

Little hard on him. Not sure what I was thinking. Still, might do him some good. Jack kisses better, though not fair to compare really. Hope it works out for him. Shouldn’t have done that maybe, see him looking at me sometimes, see myself in some of his stories. Suppose that’s usual. Hate creased paper, have to throw it away, have to clear up that puzzle box sometime too, stupid thing, present from, from an aunt?, two, three years ago. Shouldn’t have broken it really, not its fault, shouldn’t have kissed. Not after he. But that was six months ago, no, more, eight. Just started seeing Jack, so I had an excuse. Think it hurt him, but we’re okay now, when I’m in the right mood anyway. Not the right mood today. Ought to get out the house, fresh air make me feel better, him too.

“I want some sweets,” she said, “do you want to walk down to the shop?”

He looked up.

“Sure,” he said.

She spun round idly in her computer chair. Cloudy, through the skylight, day for staying inside. I like days like this: cloudy, I like, but I don’t like. Her stomach seemed to throb and she felt like punching it. Wouldn’t do any good, make it worse probably, like hitting the keyboard, not the keyboard’s fault. She reached for her mug that had previously contained tea (camomile and spearmint). It was an elegant bone china mug, the lower portion shaped and painted like a tiger. Tiger, tiger, burning. Faded now though: too many times through the dishwasher. The tiger’s tail curled up to form the handle. Where had it come from? Present? Perhaps Mother had bought it, or it had been Nan’s and found in her cupboard after she died.

She put the mug to her lips, tipped it. Nothing came. Hate it when that happens, think there’s something left and there isn’t. Such a disappointment. Still, always make another. She spun again, the other way. Her knee collided with the desk. A small stack of coins fell over with a little jangle.

“For fuck’s sake,” she said, louder than John Williams, who conducted his orchestra through her computer speakers.

She stroked her knee, which was bare because of a hole worn into the jeans, and, as she did so, heard a rapping from downstairs, that came thrice irregularly. Who? Too early for Daddy or Mother to be home from work, and they would have a key. Jack didn’t say. Don’t feel like people today. The knocking came again, four times this time, and louder. Best go see, get some more tea while I’m down there. She hooked her finger through the tiger’s tail, stood up. Through her bedroom door, down two flights of stairs, one spiral, one straight. Halfway down the stairs is the stair where I. What was his name, Kermit’s nephew?

She reached the front door, put her hand on the once-gold, now-tarnished handle, hesitated a moment. The chain hung limp against the frame. Should she. No, if someone tried to push their way in, well, she was ready for a fight. She pushed down the handle and pulled back. The door scraped against the frame and came free with a grunt. It caught up the cellophane-wrapped magazines with its motion, causing the plastic to bunch and wrinkle. Now open, she saw outside Matt standing in the arched porch, grey clouds above him, red-brick Victorian terraced houses across the road, below the clouds, behind him. He was standing on the welcome mat on the red, red, black tiles of the arched porch. The Matt stood on the. She furrowed her brow. Robert, was that it?

“Hey,” Matt said, “are you up to much?”

She shook her head, said nothing. He said nothing.

“What was the name of…”

Robin! That was it.

“What?”

She shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter.”

There was a weight in her hand. What? Oh: Tiger Mug. She looped a second finger through the tail. Don’t want to drop it. Favourite mug, I think, as far as one has favourites.

“Can I come in?”

He looked at her cesious eyes, which had dropped down to an empty mug she was holding, but now looked back up at him. Really quite enchanting, eyes like that, made you want to get lost in them, like in a wide ocean. She shrugged. Slight shoulders, bony, like the ribs in a horse-chestnut leaf. Was that a bad simile? They weren’t really like that, he thought, but there was something about her shoulders that reminded him of horse-chestnut leaves, after they have fallen and curled and gone hard, though she was young and willowy.

“Sure.”

She stepped back, he stepped forward. She turned round, walked up the corridor and spoke over her shoulder.

“Do you want some tea?”

I was just about to make some, she was just about to add, but she cut herself short. She liked Matt well enough, but today was not a people day, and it would take some time to warm to him. Hopefully he wasn’t having one of his crisises. Crises? She couldn’t put up with that today and might snap at him. She felt snappish.

“Um, yes, please,” he said.

They went into the kitchen. The Tiger Mug clinked as it was put down on the counter. Sounded a bit like the coins falling over. Usually she would have stacked them back up straight away, put them all in line so that they formed a tapering cylinder, a cone almost, the five-pennies at the top, the fifties at the bottom, she was particular like that, but not today. She tried not to think of it. The kettle was still warm, slightly, but without enough water. She removed it from its stand, feeling the slight warmth against her palm, and poured the water down the sink. With a click the lid popped open and she filled the kettle from the tap, noticing first the thin layer of limescale that had formed around the elements at the bottom of the white plastic jug, and then her bladder, inside her somewhere behind those hot waves of stabbing, aching discomfort.

“I’m going to the toilet,” she said, pushing the kettle down onto its stand and pressing the button that lit up orange.

A short passage, barely more than a cupboard, and used as one for storing the mop and the bucket and a few other miscellaneous items, led off the kitchen to a toilet room. She stepped in, closed the door behind her, pulled down her jeans. Love these jeans, she thought, as they slid down to her ankles, wouldn’t go out in them, too shabby, but they’re comfy around the house, and fit just right so I don’t need a belt. Boxer-shorts next down, love the feel of them, especially now, pretty too, with rainbow stripes and stars for buttons. She sat. Cold seat. Ought to shave. Tomorrow maybe, no one’s going to see until at least then. A few seconds passed. Grey-white light filtered in through the irregularly-ridged window that looked as if it was made of glassy paint, all dripping down.

She squeezed a little inside, or relaxed. Hard to describe what goes on inside, no point of reference really: can’t compare it directly to anyone else. It was about to. There. She felt the pleasing trickle, heard it ring against the porcelain. Glancing down she saw a red taint to the yellow-clear water. Better change it. Remember the first time. This very room. Blood in my knickers, then the drop in the bowl. Couldn’t go for a minute, put it on hold while I examined the dark red stain, still wet, smelling quite strongly of iron, even though the window was open and there was a fresh breeze. Must have been terrifying in the old days, before the teacher sent all the boys out in the last year of primary school and told you about it; growing up a bit and suddenly bleeding. Poor girls.

She unrolled a couple of sheets of toilet paper, doubled them over and wiped, then pulled at the dangling strand of cotton until the crimson-stained mass came out and swung wildly once, twice, before she closed a couple of white paper sheets around it. Has a weight to it, she thought as she lifted it out from beneath her and held it over the bin by the side of the toilet, and a warmth, like something recently dead. She lowered it into the bin. She liked the feeling of removing it, despite the pain and the soreness, it was satisfying, like peeling off a scab.

Poor girls, she thought again, reaching for the cardboard Tampax box from the top of the cistern. How frightened they must have been in those days, and what did they do? Stuff a bit of dirty old rag in their knickers? And did their mothers tell them it was going to happen when they reached a certain age, did anyone, or were they just left to find out for themselves? Must have been awful, and we complain about a few days of.

“For fuck’s sake!”

She threw the empty cardboard box to the floor and hitched up her shorts, her jeans, buttoned them aggressively. Some more upstairs, she remembered, catching sight of herself in the mirror as she washed her hands. No, wait, will I make it upstairs without. Better make sure. She unbuttoned her jeans again, unrolled and doubled over another few sheets of toilet paper and stuffed it down the front. Don’t want to stain them. Bad enough on the bedsheets.

She left the toilet room, went through the passage into the kitchen. Matt was leaning in the door frame, looking troubled. She barely noticed. The kettle had boiled, but still her Tiger Mug stood apart from it, and no second mug had been brought down from the cupboard, and no teabags and no milk gotten out and nothing had been done with anything.

“You make the tea,” she said, striding past him, “I’m just going to – I’ll be back in a minute.”

She had nearly reached the far living room door, and Matt had nearly reached the counter when she turned back and said:

“I want the spearmint and camomile one, you get whichever one you want.”

She went through the door, ascended the first flight of stairs. There’s no other stair quite like. The song in her head was lost in a snatch of the Indiana Jones theme that drifted down from her room. She entered the bathroom, locked the door behind her. There were five left in the box in here. Have to tell Mother to pick some up later, or tomorrow. Enough for another day or two at least. She unwrapped the white tampon from its crinkly green plastic. Want a sweet now. Some Yorkshire Mix, like Daddy used to buy. What do they taste of? Hard to say. Always seem to be different.

She pushed the cotton up inside her, feeling her finger follow it in a short way. Wish I could, she thought, not naming her desire; with Jack.

She withdrew, sure it was firmly lodged, and pulled her shorts and jeans back up. Better wash my hands again. Funny how one never reads about it in the old days. One knows all about the dirt and the disease and the squalor, about the sewage systems and the workhouses and all that, but never about what young girls knew of puberty and menstruation. Suppose that’s what comes with history being written by men. I can’t be dealing with one of Matt’s problems today. I wish Jack was here and I wasn’t. But I am. Maybe there’s a special degree in women’s history. Too late for that now though. Didn’t do it at A-level either. She dried her hands and went back down to the kitchen. Matt was stirring his milk-and-sugar tea.

“I didn’t know how strong you wanted it,” he said, pointing to the Tiger Mug where a dark green teabag floated in a dark green liquid.

Too strong.

She opened the drawer and extracted a teaspoon with which to remove the teabag. She removed the teabag and let it fall off the teaspoon into the bin. Matt then disposed of his teabag in the same manner and she realised that it had still been in the mug when he had been stirring. Something wrong about that, she thought; putting the milk and sugar in before the teabag is out. She sighed into her hot tea, then inhaled and took in its smell. Sort of like new-mown grass and summer gardens and countryside fields all rolled into one. Peter Rabbit used to drink camomile tea. Or, no, it was the Flopsy Bunnies, after they nearly got eaten by, what was his name? The fox. Mr. Todd. Mother Bunny made it for them. I remember Nan reading me the story sometime, when I slept over at hers, or else she stayed at the old house and saw me to bed. I remember the cotton of the duvet pressed up against my chin and the smell of the fabric conditioner that Mother used to buy (she must have switched brands at some point) and that blind I used to have in my room with the brown silhouettes of trees and the dark brown silhouettes of trees and the light brown silhouettes of trees against a white background.

Read Part Two