He was sweating. He smelled of sweat.

The house was in a mess, a honeycomb of let-rooms with dirty curtains. The house on his left was the same, but on his right, someone had a garden. He went across and looked through the broken fence panels. Marigolds. A wooden archway with trellis and a rose climbing up it, peachy-coloured. The path was lined with tiles like hoops. There was a bed of vegetables—onion tops, potato tops, a cane bean-wigwam. A couple of nut holders swung from a laburnum tree. There was a tiny pond. At the far end, behind a privy, he could just see a birdcage set against the brick wall and a flash of canary yellow. He tried to push his way through the fencing but it would not give. He wanted to be in the garden, beside the tiny pond, near the birds, among the potato tops and marigolds.

Abruptly, Max began to weep, resting his head against the broken fence, and his weeping turned to a torrent of anger, making him shake the wood panels violently until someone shouted from a house. No one came. Just the shouting, then silence again.

His hand had blood on it from a piece of broken wood which had punctured the pad below his thumb.

And then he saw her. She was sitting with her back to him on a bench near the archway. Her hair was fairer, as if she had been in the sun for a long time. He pulled at the fencing slats and this time a half-rotten one snapped and when he kicked at the space it opened enough for him to crawl through. He stood still, amazed that he was inside the garden as close to Lizzie as breathing. She was there. She had not stirred or turned. She might be waiting, though he wondered why it should be here, where he had found her quite by chance.

He wiped the back of his wet hand across his face. The cut had stopped hurting but still bled. She would know what to do.

“Lizzie,” he said.

It was very quiet. He waited.

“Lizzie.” She did not move and so he went forward a step or two, reaching out his hand to her, to touch the slightly fairer hair.

“Lizzie.” He realised that he had been saying her name but silently, saying it in his heart and in his head but not out loud. Now he spoke it clearly into the still garden.

“Lizzie.”

She turned round then and screamed and the screams were like knives tumbling and falling through his brain and he lunged forward, desperate to reach her and stop her, to show her who he was and that she did not need to scream, but when he felt her body and looked into her face and the open, screaming mouth, Lizzie had gone. It was not Lizzie and his brain caught fire.

Forty-nine

The small hands were slightly damp. Like a clammy sort of sea anemone on her arm.

“Bloody hell, Kyra!”

Natalie woke up completely and leaned across Kyra to switch on the lamp.

“What you done?” She sounded weary. She was weary. This was the fourth night in two weeks. “You wet your bed again or what?”

The small hands were pulled away.

“You bloody have. Honest to God, Kyra, how old are you? Wetting the bed is what babies do, little kids, you’re six years old, nearly seven. OK, tomorrow morning, we go to the doctor, first off, and you don’t go to Barbara’s till you’re sorted.”

Kyra curled up on the farthest side of her mother’s bed. She didn’t mind about not going to Barbara’s. In the holidays she was there eight till six. She only minded about the doctor.

“Shut up, it’s me should be crying, you’re wet at both ends these days, you. Come on, get out of there, you want a clean nightie, I’m not having you make this bed wet and all. I’ll sort yours tomorrow. And if you stop in here you stop still, right?”

It only took five minutes but then of course she couldn’t get back to sleep. Kyra slept. In the morning, she’d barely remember any of it.

Natalie lay on her back, arms behind her head. She knew why she wasn’t sleeping and it wasn’t only that Kyra kept waking her, if not because she’d wet the bed then because of bad dreams. There was something wrong and Natalie knew it, only Kyra was like a bloody oyster, clammed up tight. She hadn’t said anything at school, she wouldn’t say anything to Barbara, and Natalie had given up. She’d tried talking, tried asking questions, tried pleading, screaming, shutting her in her room, giving her treats, confiscating her toys, forbidding television, taking her out, making her stay in. Nothing. All Kyra said was, “I want to see Ed,” and sometimes, “Where isEd?”

But she wouldn’t talk about Ed, except to say the old stuff. I like Ed. I like going to Ed’s house. We made buns. We made toffee. We read stories. We did the garden.

“Did Ed ever do anything to you?” Silence.

“Did Ed ever tell you about other children she knew?” Silence.

“Did Ed tell you where she worked? Did Ed ever ask you to go in her car? Did Ed ever tell you off?” Silence. Silence. Silence.

Natalie was more worried than she found it easy to admit even to herself. She wondered what she ought to do now, whether she ought to ask the doctor if Kyra needed to see someone else. Or maybe she ought to get her away, take a holiday, go to Butlins or Center Parcs or camping in France like Davina at work. Ha bloody ha. She hadn’t got camping money or Center Parcs money or even, probably, Butlins money. Everything went on the rent and keeping them going, even the bit of extra benefit she got. That and the bloody car wanted mending. And then there was the business she hoped to start. The one she had had planned in her head for as long as she could remember. Dream on, Natalie.

She wasn’t going to start weeping or whingeing to anyone, because she wasn’t the weeping or whingeing sort. She was tough. She was independent and she was bringing up Kyra to be the same. Only sometimes, like now for instance, in the middle of the night, the toughness got cracks in it.

Kyra mumbled and murmured like someone with a mouth full of pebbles. Natalie had strained to hear any words, anything that made sense, but there never was anything. Just pebble mumbling.

She turned on her side and tried to sleep but her brain was shot through with brilliant light and jazzy pictures and she didn’t finally drop off until after dawn. Kyra had not stirred from her place, rolled up on the very edge of the bed.

*

The surgery was overflowing and one of the doctors had been called out. Kyra sat on the bench swinging her legs. Every time she swung them back they banged against the wall and a woman opposite glared. If she hadn’t, Natalie would have told Kyra to stop swinging and banging, but because of the woman, she let her go on doing it. They were seen nearly an hour after their appointment time and were in the room for three minutes. He had looked at his computer all the time and not at either of them and asked how old Kyra was twice.

“OK,” Natalie had said, “so you think it’s just normal, then, her suddenly wetting the bed. Fair enough.” She couldn’t be bothered. He hadn’t even asked if Kyra had had any upsets, hadn’t seemed to know a lot about anything.

“Stop scraping your shoe like that, Kyra, I gotta get back to work.”

“Can I have an ice cream?”

“No, you bloody can’t.”

“Why not?”

“No money, no time and they rot your teeth.”

“Not just one?”

“Oh Gawd, all right. But only c” Natalie stopped. She took hold of Kyra’s hand tightly, “only if you tell me.”

Kyra stared at the pavement.

“Kyra?”

“What?”

“What happened with Ed?”

Silence.

“OK, that’s it then. No talk, no eat. Come on. And stop scraping your bloody shoe, will you?”

“When’s Ed coming back to her house?”

“Never,” Natalie said, feeling suddenly vicious.

She waited for Kyra to cry but there was no crying. Nothing. Just the silence.

She’d taken the morning off, so she might as well have it. Kyra went to Barbara’s. Natalie went to Top Shop and bought herself a pair of shorts. There was time for a wander about and a milk shake.