‘Can you tip your head forward for me?’ Alison said just then, and Molly bent at the neck obligingly. ‘Maybe I should have got it out of my system at the time, but . . . Well, I was trying to pick up the pieces and protect my daughter, and keeping going seemed like the best way to cope.’

‘Whatever gets you through,’ agreed Molly. ‘Still, it’s good if you’re feeling able to talk about what happened now, even if it’s just to me. I could give you the number of the counsellor I went to see, if you want. I found that really helped – just getting everything off my chest to a stranger, who sat there and listened, who didn’t judge me or tell me to pull myself together. Honestly, it was very cathartic.’

Alison had been rather dubious about counselling in the past; she’d grown up as part of a generation where you toughed things out and got on with life, rather than indulging in anything more emotional. It was on the tip of her tongue to say: no, thank you, she would be fine, she didn’t need help. But was she fine? she thought despondently in the next moment. Because maybe it would do her good to release the whole terrible story out into somebody’s quiet consulting room. To say it out loud, at last, to unburden the details from where they’d lain like a heavy, damp blanket on her for so many years. Even better, to have someone say, ‘It wasn’t your fault’ in reply, which was really all she had ever wanted to hear.

‘Thank you,’ she said after a moment. Maybe this was the universe telling her that her old coping mechanisms were no longer fit for purpose, she thought to herself; a sign that she should stop being such a coward, as Robyn had accused her. Maybe this wise new client of hers was offering a means of conquering those old demons and getting her life back in order. ‘Sounds good to me,’ she heard herself saying, as she snipped a neat line against Molly’s pale neck. ‘I’ll give that a try.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘Knock, knock, you’ve got visitors,’ Paula said, pulling back the floor-length curtain and slipping through to Bunny’s bedside. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘We’ve brought you some magazines and chocolate,’ Robyn added, following her in and setting the carrier bag down carefully at the end of the bed. She was trying not to wince at the sight of her sister-in-law’s bashed-up face, but it was not a pretty sight.