and enormous blue eyes. With her clear porcelain skin and enviable poise that naturally lent itself to elegance, Alyson was on the verge of blossoming into a true beauty. But all she saw when she looked in the mirror were startled eyes and a skinny body that never filled out, no matter how much she ate. With her lean, gangly frame she felt clumsy and masculine, gauche and out of proportion compared to the other girls in her class. The boys teased her about her flat chest and towering height, the daily taunts ringing in her ears so that it was impossible for her to be anything other than self-conscious about the way she looked.
‘You workin’ tonight, Alyson?’ asked Kayleigh, a small, freckled girl with a shock of red hair and a prominent overbite.
Alyson nodded as she hurried to catch up with her friends. They were known as ‘The Misfits’, a group of five girls each as physically awkward and insecure as Alyson herself. Staying together meant safety in numbers.
‘Yeah, it’s going to be another late – ouch!’
She broke off as she was shoved in the shoulder by the group of boys walking towards her. Instinctively, Alyson spun round and saw Callum Bateman grinning at her. Dark-haired and good-looking, he was also cocky and arrogant, and did his best to humiliate Alyson whenever he saw her.
‘Fancy a fuck?’ he yelled. ‘I could do you up the arse, you’d love it.’
The ever-present group of admirers hanging off his every word burst out laughing as Alyson flushed bright red, her whole face lighting up like a beacon that was probably visible from the other side of the Pennines. But she kept her mouth shut and didn’t reply. She wasn’t about to get into a war of words with Callum Bateman. There would only be one winner, and it wouldn’t be Alyson.
Instead, her friend Leanne took up the challenge. Short and round, almost as wide as she was high, with a perma-orange fake tan and a face obscured by a mass of jet-black hair extensions, she relished a good argument.
‘Shut your face, you bell-end,’ she screeched, her voice carrying halfway across the car park.
‘Piss off, Leanne,’ sneered Callum. ‘I’d rather chop my dick off than put it in your rancid midget fanny.’
‘Go fuck yourself, gaylord,’ Leanne shot back venomously.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Alyson said under her breath, as she saw her bus pull up to the stop. Already the other kids were piling on, and she couldn’t afford to miss it. If she did, she’d be late for work. ‘I’ll see you guys tomorrow.’ She sprinted off, her long legs quickly covering the ground, leaping onto the bus as the doors closed behind her.
There were no seats left and she stood awkwardly at the front, speaking to no one. Instead, she kept her head down, pulling her tatty old duffel coat tightly around her like a security blanket and glancing out of the filthy windows from time to time as the bus made the short journey from Oldham to Manchester.
Three nights a week she travelled into the city centre to waitress at Il Mulino, an upmarket restaurant catering to the city’s most affluent residents. Her shift finished around midnight, when it would be a dash to make the last bus home and grab a few hours’ sleep before college in the morning.
It was a punishing lifestyle, but Alyson knew she was lucky to have been taken on by such a reputable restaurant as Il Mulino. It paid minimum wage but the tips were excellent, the clientele being predominantly the flashy, new-money set: media workers, property developers, footballers with their wives or girlfriends or mistresses. The footballers were the worst, their eyes roaming over her as she walked back and forth to their table. Men often looked at her like that, with a predatory, covetous gaze, and Alyson found it unsettling. She didn’t realize it was because she was beautiful – stunningly so, ethereal almost – and ripe for the picking.
The bus pulled into Piccadilly and Alyson jumped off, walking briskly towards Exchange Square. The pavements were already glowing with a thin sheen of frost, the bus covering her with slush as it drove away. But Alyson simply sunk her chin deeper into her knitted scarf and moved on.
She reached the restaurant in a few minutes, hurrying into the back and quickly saying hi to the other girls who were crowded round the tiny mirror applying mascara and lip gloss, spraying their slicked-back hair firmly in place. Alyson didn’t even glance at herself as she slipped out of her school uniform and into her well-worn white shirt and black skirt, pulling on thick black opaques and her smartest shoes. Stashing her bag in her locker, she dashed back through the double doors into the mania of the kitchen and grabbed the dishes that were waiting on the hot plate.
‘Table twenty-four,’ yelled the sous-chef, and Alyson was on her way.
It was an exhausting, spirit-crushing way to live, but it had become so routine that Alyson rarely stopped to think how tired she was. It was a necessity, a way of life, and it had been like this ever since her father walked out on them.
Alyson slammed down a plate with more severity than she had meant to, apologizing profusely to the indignant-looking woman at the table. The woman arched an over-plucked eyebrow, then smiled graciously – well, as far as she could manage with a face full of Botox. Alyson smiled politely, hoping she hadn’t just blown her chances of a good tip, and scurried away.
Even after all this time, memories of her father were still painful. Alyson had been just nine years old when Terry Wakefield had walked out on them, taking her younger brother, Scott, who was only six at the time. She remembered all too clearly the feeling of abandonment, the painful realization that her father had opted to leave her behind, that she somehow wasn’t good enough for him.
The reasons behind his departure were complex. For as long as Alyson could remember, her mother, Lynn, had had issues. Her erratic behaviour had characterized Alyson’s childhood – there were periods when she wouldn’t leave the house for weeks, convinced that the neighbours were plotting against her, or that Mrs Davidson next door was trying to communicate evil thoughts through the wall. Alyson wasn’t frightened, simply confused.
From time to time, her mother found work – low-skilled, low-paid appointments, like factory work or cleaning – but she struggled to keep a position as she swiftly gave her employers reason to get rid of her. Sometimes she stayed in bed for days on end, simply not turning up for work, until her employers got sick of trying to contact her and her P45 arrived in the post. Other times they would be disturbed by the bizarre things Lynn did – refusing to drink the mugs of tea she was offered for fear they were ‘contaminated’, or completely forgetting how to do a task she’d been shown a few hours earlier. It was only when she went to clean for an affluent and compassionate doctor that someone finally recognized what was wrong. When Alyson Wakefield was eight years old, her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
For a while, life got better. With an accurate diagnosis, Lynn’s condition could be treated, but the run of good behaviour didn’t last long. Some of the side effects were unpleasant and she became increasingly reluctant to take the medication prescribed, treating her pills like headache tablets – taking one if she felt unwell, not bothering if she was having a good day. And as someone who enjoyed a drink, she didn’t see why being on heavy medication should stop her.
For Terry Wakefield, the final straw came one night when he awoke to find his wife standing in the freezing cold kitchen, wearing only her underwear and holding a heavy metal pan high above her head. She claimed Mrs Davidson was trying to tunnel through from the house next door, and she wanted to be prepared for when she surfaced through the dirty lino floor.
The following day, Alyson came home from school to find the house unusually quiet. Her mother was slumped in an armchair, her eyes staring
