As I perched on the chair, thinking of nothing and nobody, thin-as-a-rake Rebecca came in from the corridor.

‘Mr Heston told me I was to come here,’ she said, and it was a moment before I realised she was talking to me.

I shrugged. I hadn’t summoned her; why was she telling me?

‘Rebecca?’

It was the nurse, the same one who had bandaged me up. She hurried over to Rebecca and crouched down next to her, putting her arms around the thin girl’s shoulders and pulling her close. From my corner, I watched in awe and envy.

‘We’re going to ask you some questions,’ she said, her voice muffled as she spoke into Rebecca’s hair. ‘They might be difficult for you, but it is very important you tell us the truth.’

They moved as one into the nurse’s room, and two official-looking suited women followed them in. Later, just as I was deemed fit to return to class, Rebecca came out with the two women. Her eyes were red, and both of them had their arms around her.

‘It’s okay, you won’t ever have to go back to your home again,’ murmured one. ‘You’ll be staying in a temporary home. The people are very kind, and they’re very much looking forward to having you stay.’

The news was all over the school. Rebecca was being assaulted at home by a man she called ‘uncle’. Many men came and went, apparently, and I couldn’t help but think of my own house.

I never saw any of my mother’s customers; they had no interest in me, or perhaps they didn’t even know I existed. I wondered what they would do if they saw me when they had finished with my mother. Might they take an interest in me, an unhealthy interest like the ‘uncle’ had had with Rebecca? Would I then be summoned to the office and treated with tenderness and kindness and put in a home where people were nice to me? It was a thought that would stick with me.

There were tears, crocodile ones mostly, from the girls who had shamed Rebecca for the way she looked and the way she smelled. But all I felt was envy. She had been rescued and was moving to a home where only love and kindness and care were waiting for her.

Chapter 10

Paula leaned her head back against the sink and sighed with pleasure. Across the salon she could hear Anna’s soft voice as she spoke to the stylist. She wondered what Anna was going to have done. Her hair was already short, shaved up the sides, longer on top. An out-there style that Paula would never have been able to carry off, but she had to admit that with Anna’s petite and boyish frame, it looked very high-end. The woman had no roots to speak of either.