Michelle and Lawrence! Lawrence and Michelle! The words were like knives that cut at her throat. They hadn’t known she was there. Watching from behind the bins, she had seen them locked together, holding each other tightly, oblivious, lost in the moment, and she knew only too well what that felt like. She knew what it was to stand so close to Lawrence and to feel the whole world reduced to the single point beneath his fingers where they touched her skin. And she knew that in those moments she would have followed him anywhere, this boy she hardly knew. This boy she had trusted with her body and her heart. The thought immediately led her back to Tony’s words: That alleyway is not that private, Bessie. People might have been watching. In fact, people were most definitely watching.

His nasty snipes were enough to summon a fresh batch of tears. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Everyone will know, and they’ll all think the same as Tony! I don’t want to go outside; I don’t want to go outside ever again! And what if it gets back to Mum and Dad – how could I ever look them in the eye? And Michelle – what will she think when she hears it from someone other than me, and how can we be friends after her and Lawrence . . . ? Bessie stopped to lean briefly against the wall of one of the Georgian houses opposite the petrol station at the bottom of Verulam Road. Fighting to catch her breath, she felt sick and the ground wobbled. Three boys in a gold Austin Montego crawled towards the pedestrian crossing alongside her.

‘Hey babe, need a lift?’ called one of them from the passenger seat, half hanging out of the window. There was raucous laughter from his two mates. Bessie looked away and let go of the wall. Keeping her gaze in the middle distance, she sped up, just wanting to get home. Did they think she was a slut? Easy? Could they tell by looking at her? Could everybody?

The car roared away towards Redbourn, and the moment her feet hit the Batchwood Estate she ran across the grass and along the pavement, feeling simultaneously relieved and anxious to be walking the path to her front door. With alcohol still sloshing in her veins, she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to explain her early return, her obvious distress or her desire to go straight to bed, early as it was, on her sixteenth birthday. She hoped her parents might be in the front room with the door closed so she could sneak in and shout her hellos before rushing up the stairs and into bed in one swift action.