Margaret woke with a start and pushed herself quickly up on one elbow. There was a fine dust suspended in stripes of pale yellow light lying brokenly across the room. Li stood by the window, squinting through the gaps between the boards nailed across it. The blue smoke of his cigarette drifted lazily upwards, turning pale grey in the sunlight that fell through the slats. She felt strangely rested. Bizarrely, it was the best sleep she had had since her arrival in China.

He turned on hearing her stir. She had no idea, he knew, that he had spent the night, or what was left of it, curled around her. He thought how beautiful she looked, sleepy and blurred, not fully awake. She was all he had left now. He must not fail her as he had failed his uncle. He must keep her safe at all costs.

“What is it?” she asked, concerned by the look on his face.

“Yongli and Lotus are here,” he said, and he picked his way through the outer room at the sound of a soft knocking and opened the door to let them in.

Margaret sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes as Lotus came through from the other room. She was hefting a large suitcase which she dropped flat on the floor, raising a cloud of dust. “I bring you clothes, and things for you to wash,” she said. She flipped open the lid and brought out a deep metal bowl and a plastic five-litre container. She laid them on the bed beside Margaret and filled the bowl with water from the container, then handed her a plastic toilet bag with soap and a face-cloth, a half-empty tube of toothpaste and a brush. “You clean up. Then you dress.” She pulled out a pale blue cotton dress with lapels at a V-neck and a belt at the waist, like Margaret had seen many Chinese girls wearing in the street. “I think this fit. Is too big for me.”

Margaret smiled. It was just as well. Lotus was diminutive. She made Margaret feel like a giant beside her.

Lotus waved a pair of panties at her and grinned. “These, too. They clean.” She crossed the room and drew the ragged remains of a curtain across the door. “Men stay outside. I give you help.”

Margaret stripped off her bloodstained clothes. It took several bowlfuls of water to clean the dried, sticky, rust-coloured blood from her hands and arms and neck. Then she sluiced her face with clean water and dried herself off with a small, rough towel. Lotus watched her with admiration. “You have ver’ lovely breast,” she said. “I have no breast,” she added sadly, cupping what she had and trying to lift them. “Need wear Wonderbra for cleavage.”

Margaret smiled. “You are very beautiful just as you are, Lotus,” she told her.

Lotus lowered her eyes self-consciously and blushed with pleasure. “Xie Xie,” she said.

“Bukeqi,” Margaret responded.