I zipped up the case and glanced at my mother. She stood in the doorway to my bedroom, her thin frame supported by the wall she leaned against.

‘Mum, do you want to come to Edinburgh with me?’

I tried to swallow back the words even as they were coming out of my mouth. I wondered why I had asked her that.

The answer was clear to me suddenly. If she stayed here with Carl, she would die.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Carl likes it round here.’

I wasn’t asking him, I thought. And there was a sense of hurt that shimmered inside me. Which was ridiculous in itself; she’d ceased to be able to hurt me many, many years ago.

I imagined it for a moment, taking her on the long train journey up north. It was seven hours, and she couldn’t go half that time without taking a hit for her habit. And once we were there, what would happen then? Would she be out and about on the streets late at night, looking to score, seeking a replacement for Carl? I envisaged bumping into her late at night, leaving the bars and clubs that I would frequent in my new life as a normal eighteen-year-old. My friends would look on in horror, and I would be back at school all over again, shunned for being the person I really was.

No.

That wasn’t the person I was. It was where I came from, and there was a big difference. I was shedding my old self and everything associated with it. That included my mother.

Downstairs, the front door slammed. I pulled my case off my bed and slid it underneath. Carl had said nothing about my leaving, and I didn’t want to remind him that tonight would be my last night in this house. His heavy tread could be heard as he came up the stairs. I glanced at my mother, still leaning against the wall, swaying slightly, her eyes somewhere else entirely.

‘My girls,’ he said as he came into view.

With one hand he was unbuckling his belt, and now he tugged it free of the loops of his jeans. I sat with my hands primly in my lap, refusing to be intimidated by him, wondering what his actions were leading to.

He stopped in front of my mother, pulled a little foil package from his pocket.

Where she had been far away moments ago, she was suddenly eager, taking the belt from him and winding it around her scarred upper arm. He held the foil in his teeth as he plunged his hand into the front of her dressing gown. Roughly, he massaged her breasts and pushed himself against her. She paid no heed to his wandering hand, didn’t seem to notice the knee that jerked and thrust against her crotch.

Eyes gleaming, moving as though they were one person, they stumbled out of my room.