I want to open the window and yell at her to leave me alone, but all I can do is stand and stare, transfixed by those terrible, hate-filled eyes. At last, she turns and walks away without a backward glance. I hear the clack clack clack of her high heels on the pavement, stand there listening to the sound get fainter and fainter. I won’t sleep again tonight.

8

NOW

I pick up the toy train and examine it, trying to ignore the sick little feeling in my stomach. It must once have been bright blue but is now patinated with scrapes that reveal the gray of the diecast metal. By the looks of it, more than one generation of children have rolled this little train along the ground and sent it careening into walls.

I place it back where it was and scan the street in both directions in the hope of seeing the child who might have dropped it. The sick feeling intensifies. What’s wrong with me lately? I pull my key out of my handbag and go inside, determined to tackle that box of memories Mum and Dad brought over. Maybe then I won’t see a kid’s toy train as some kind of ominous portent. Won’t have this vague sense of dread hovering over me all the time.

Five minutes later, I’m kneeling on the floor of the living room, drawing out a well-thumbed copy of A Little Princess. I flick through its brittle, yellowing pages, remembering how closely I identified with poor Sara Crewe, humiliated by the vile Miss Minchin, taunted by Lavinia and the other horrid girls. I knew exactly how that felt.

The Order of Service for Alice’s funeral is where I left it yesterday, wedged down the side. I prize it out and tear it up before I can change my mind. The black-and-white pieces of card flutter into the bin bag like charred confetti. Then I pile the books onto the floor and reach down to the layer of colored exercise books underneath. Don’t even think about opening them, says a voice inside my head.

I grab a handful, trying not to read my tiny, neat handwriting on the front of each one. Not that I need to. The topics come back to me easily. Yellow for history, orange for maths, red for English, and pink for German. Then there was gray for French and purple for geography. But the green ones—what were they? I rack my brain, but it’s no good. I lift a cover and peek inside.