She switches on her phone to check the time, and is surprised to find that it’s gone four o’clock. Her sleep didn’t feel like it lasted more than a few minutes. She finds a sachet of wet wipes and passes one over her face, is astonished by the amount of black dirt and rusty blood that comes away. Checks herself in the hand mirror and barely recognises herself. Her right eye is almost completely closed and her mouth is lopsided, her lower lip barely able to obey the request she sends it to close. A trail of dried blood leaks from her right nostril. Gingerly, she dabs at it until it’s gone. Her nose itself looks okay; but it aches inside, as though something’s bust. Christ, she thinks, I won’t get past this in a while. I’ll stand out like a sore thumb for weeks.
She pulls on her street gear, feels better for being covered. Picks the last of the hairgrips from her hair and lets it loose. Inches her hurty foot into an Ugg, sucking air sharply between her teeth as she does so, but it feels better once it’s there, the ankle supported, at least, and the cut cushioned.
At least he didn’t get my bag, she thinks, thankful for small mercies. I’ve still got my Oyster card.
Cher rolls on to her knees and gets to her feet from a downward-facing dog.
The night bus is full of drunks. Drunks and exhausted night workers slumbering in their hi-viz uniforms. Everyone is sunk into their own exhaustion, staring numbly at spots a few inches from their faces, and she’s glad of that. She takes a seat at the back, facing away from the driver, and huddles against the window. The day is already warming up, fingers of pink streaking the sky over the river. London, she thinks. You were going to be the saving of me. Do you remember? I wasn’t going to be like the other girls, in and out of foster care and slipping, with each return, further down the road to street corners and late-night beatings and a place on a methadone programme. Oh, God, this hurts. I think I’ve got some tramadol I found in a bag a few months ago. It’s probably still good. At least I’ll get some sleep. When I get back.
As they trundle along the Wandsworth Road, up Lavender Hill, she realises that she is beginning to drift off to sleep again. Maybe I’ve got a concussion, she thinks. I banged my head enough. You’re not meant to sleep if you’ve got a concussion. I must stay awake. I must make myself stay awake till I get home. Vesta will know what to do, when I get home…
She dreams about the attic again. The secret attic under the stairs. This time, it’s full of dressmakers’ mannequins and brass bedsteads, the mattresses heaped with dustsheets. Something moves, away in the far corner, beneath the eaves, out of her eyeshot. Something big and dark and old. Cher wants to run, but when she turns to get away, she finds that the stairs she came in by have disappeared…
She jumps awake. The bus is empty and the engine is off, and the driver, still locked in his cab, is flicking the lights on and off to attract her attention. Cher sits up gingerly from the bundle she’s made of herself in the corner and peers through the window. Her eye has almost closed as she slept and it takes her a moment to recognise the bus stand at the top of Garrett Lane. She’s missed her stop and ended up in Tooting. It’s an hour’s walk to Northbourne, and that’s on two good legs. ‘Thanks,’ she mumbles, though her mouth is so dry the word comes out as a croak, and stumbles off.
The newsagent is opening up at Tooting Bec, the lights coming on as she arrives at the door. She buys a pack of Nurofen and a can of Fanta, the guy behind the counter studiously avoiding her eyes, takes four pills and drains the can to wash them down. She can barely get her mouth to fit round the opening; a dribble of sugary liquid runs down her chin and on to her collar. But she doesn’t care any more. Everything hurts: her head, her neck, her stomach, her back – everything. Maybe it would have been better if he’d killed me after all, she thinks. I wouldn’t have to live through this, then. It would all be peace and quiet.
She hoists her bag on to her shoulder and sets off for Northbourne. She’s shaking and her legs are wobbly. She wonders if she should stop and get something to eat, a Mars Bar or a Snickers or something full of sugar to get her the last mile home, but she doubts she’d be able to chew it – and even if she did she doubts it would stay down.
She sits for a bit at a bus stop halfway to Northbourne, pulls the hood of her jacket over her head and greys out again. Comes to and finds herself inside a small gaggle of people in work clothes, all keeping a polite and frosty distance from the bench. I’m just another Homeless, she thinks, so much nicer when you’re talking about me on Facebook than I am in real life. One woman has perched at the far end of the bench, and keeps a tight grip on her briefcase. Cher looks at her phone. Quarter to eight. She’s lost another hour. No one meets her eye. Oh, Londoners. You’d step over a corpse in the street rather than cause a scene.