Could she go to the police? This man is molesting my eleven-year-old daughter... questions asked. This man is the agent of your daughter’s father, his family. Your daughter’s father has rights to your daughter. It could become complex, more perilous. Keep the child in. For how long? She must confront the man, drive him off. But now he never showed himself when Rachaela was there.

‘You’ll have to go to school. I’ll take you.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. But this is serious.’

‘He only said he’d buy me a Pepsi. I didn’t go.’

‘He might—I don’t know.’

‘I won’t talk to him again.’

‘Ruth, you must do as I tell you.’

Do as I tell you. Her mother’s voice, angry, at its wits’ end.

Ruth finished her food and left the table. She went behind the screen and Rachaela heard the familiar rasp of pencil on paper.

Rachaela got up and went to the edge of Ruth’s sanctum.

‘Ruth, if ever he catches you alone I want you to scream—scream as loudly as you can—and run away. Will you do that?’

‘Scream and run away,’ said Ruth. She gave Rachaela a cool and adult glance full of irony.

‘I mean it,’ said Rachaela.

‘There was a radio programme we heard at school,’ said Ruth. ‘This man said daughters take after their fathers. If I’m like my dad, I must be nasty too.’

Rachaela stared at her.

Why was she trying to protect this creature? Had she forgotten the way it was, the way it had grown? Now she was acting out the ill-fitting role of a protective mother, and protective of what? All about Ruth, in her grotto, hung weird pictures, bits of stained glass, bells and draperies. It was a crock of shadow and dull rich colour, and Ruth crouched there like a white spider in her web, her beautiful ugly little face pierced by the blackness of the Scarabae eyes.

Rachaela swallowed.

She wanted to say to Ruth, Do what you want. Talk to the man. Find out what you like.

Ruth knew it all already in her eleven-year-old bones.

‘You’re not like your father. Your father doesn’t want you. The family is nosy and possessive. You don’t owe them anything. Do as I say.’

‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Ruth, and bowed her head to her drawing of a witch.

Rachaela could only take Ruth to the school in the mornings; at least she saw her to the gates. In the afternoon she had to trust Ruth on the way home.

Sometimes still Ruth was late.

‘Where have you been?’

Ruth had been to the shops or round at the flat of some girl child never previously mentioned. Probably it was true, for Ruth did not lie, she only evaded.

‘Has that man been near you?’

‘I haven’t seen him.’

Tell me if you do.’