None of us slept right that night, not a real sleep. Listening to her crying and getting on. She climbed the steps a lock of times, tried to push the door open, shoving it and kicking it, and the Mummies telt her it would do her no good at all, but she wouldn’t listen to them. One time, Daddy Tam clattered the door from the other side, guldered at her to hould her whisht, everyone was trying to sleep.

The next morning, the Mummies had to go upstairs and get on with the housework, but Daddy Tam telt me to stay down there with Esther and look after her. She was laid on her bed, facing the wall, quivering and sniffling. Now and then she’d pick a splinter out of her hand, leaving wee spots of blood on her skin, or put her finger to the cut on her head, which wasn’t as bad as it looked the night before.

Even just looking at the back of her, I thought she was beautiful. That dress she had on her, the colour of it. I’d never seen a dress like that. Not like the auld drab things me and the Mummies wore. And her shoes. I’d only ever worn boots that never fit me proper, but she had on these shoes that were shiny and hardly even covered her toes. I wanted to touch them and feel them and I imagined what they’d be like agin my fingers and on my feet. I imagined wearing that dress.

I didn’t say anything for a long time, and neither did she, till she spake up.

Says she, What’s your name?

Mary, I telt her.

What age are you?

Ten, says I. I think so, anyway. Maybe eleven.

Says she, You think so? Do you not know for certain? Everyone knows how old they are.

She rolled over and looked at me, and I saw her face. It was dirty with tears and sweat, but still she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I mind her teeth, how clean they were, how white. And her skin, under the dirt. Like the china cups upstairs, the ones with the roses painted on them.

Says I, How old are you?

Sixteen, says she, nearly seventeen.

Then she started crying again. She cried terrible hard. I don’t know why, but I felt like I should get on the bed beside her and put my arms around her, the way Mummy Noreen did for Mummy Joy, and the way Mummy Joy did for me. She went awful stiff when I lay beside her, and then she went all soft, and I could feel the bones of her.