Cher’s face looks like a muddy football, half-deflated. Her bruises are turning black, and the left side of her face has swollen so badly it’s hard to imagine that it can ever go back to anything resembling its original shape. Her right eye is squeezed shut, just the tips of eyelashes full of gunk poking out from the slit. Her mouth, lopsided, hangs open, a great chasm down the centre of her lower lip.
‘What time is it?’
‘Going on four.’
‘Have I been asleep?’
‘Yes,’ says Vesta. ‘You dropped off a couple of hours ago.’
She takes the water glass from the bedside table and holds it to the girl’s mouth, waits patiently as she sips. ‘How are you feeling?’
Cher drains the glass and collapses back against her pillow. A single pillow in a sickbed – I must bring some up, later. So she can sit up, at least. Poor little kid, I’ll bring her some more pillows and cushions when I come back up. Pity she hasn’t got a telly. She’ll be bored to tears in a bit.
Cher feels around the inside of her mouth with her tongue, exploring. ‘I think I cracked a tooth.’
‘I’m not surprised. How’s the pain?’
Cher pulls a face, and a single tear forces itself out from her closed eye.
‘Your tummy?’
‘No, I think that’s just a bruise. My ribs hurt really bad. He got me there more than in the soft bits.’
‘You can have another pill, if you like.’
‘Yeah,’ says Cher, and her voice goes small. ‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
Vesta fetches the tramadol and the penicillin, refills the glass. ‘At least you didn’t turn out to be allergic to that. You’d’ve had to go to the hospital, if that had happened.’
‘Who says I never get a break?’ says Cher, and coughs. Vesta puts a hand behind her head, supports it as the girl drinks once again to wash down the pills. Under her hand, Vesta feels a lump the size of an egg. Oh, God, what if it’s fractured? What if her brain’s leaking out and I’ve no idea? We should have taken her to A&E. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens.
‘There,’ she says, trying to sound more confident than she feels, ‘there. You’ll soon be feeling better, I promise.’
Cher allows a small sob to escape. She’s been so tough, but she must be worn out. Vesta hurriedly puts the glass down, and takes her hand in both of her own. Strokes the back of it, feels the rough scabs on the grazed knuckles. ‘Oh, love,’ she says. ‘Oh, lovey. You’ll be all right. Just you see.’
The sides of the girl’s mouth turn down and a whimper breaks from her lips. ‘I don’t know what to do, Vesta! I don’t know what to do!’
‘Shhh,’ she soothes. ‘Shhh. You just concentrate on getting better.’
Cher’s face is wet. The salt must sting her grazes. Vesta pulls a hankie from the box and dabs, gently, around the cuts and the bruises, tries to get it all up.
‘He’ll kick me out,’ says Cher. ‘I know he will.’
‘What? Kick you out for being ill? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘But I won’t make the rent. I don’t know how I’m going to…’
‘Well, he can bloody well wait.’
That bastard, she thinks. Socking the rent up like that, just because he knows he can get away with it. I’d like to show him what he’s done, driving her out to take risks like that. I’d like to rub his bloody nose in it. I’ve got a good mind to go over there and give him a piece of my mind. Lecherous old stinky creep, picking on young girls and probably getting off on it as well.
‘You’ve not to worry about that.’ She is surprised by how calm her voice sounds when it comes out, given the spitting rage inside. ‘We’ll sort it out. I’ll sort it out. He doesn’t want to mess with me.’
Cher moans and closes her other eye, shifts on to her side, trying to find a comfortable position. There are cuts all over her buttocks – Vesta and Collette had to pick bits of glass out last night, while she was still warm and sedated from the bath. There’s barely a position she can lie in and be comfortable.
Vesta’s heart wrenches in her chest. She wants to cry. She may be old, but she remembers how it was to be young, in the sixties, when everything was fresh, when life promised exploration and adventure and nothing could go wrong. It’s all spoiled now, she thinks, right from the start, for Cher. She never stood a chance. No one’s looked after her, all her life. For girls like Cher, things like this are just part of the general beastliness.
She reaches out and smooths the girl’s hair away from her face. It’s crunchy under her fingers, the texture of rough wool. I don’t even know which of your parents gave you that hair, she thinks. Which one was black and which one was white. Could have been neither of them, for all I know. I know your nanna was white, because I’ve seen the photo, but I’ve no idea whose mum she was. Oh, it shouldn’t be like this. Not for you, not for anybody. It’s just not fair.