went for me instead. Three weeks in hospital it cost me.’ He took another slurp of his tea, and then placed the mug back down on the armrest. ‘It still hurts sometimes, but rather me than an old granny, eh?’
Suddenly Sadie felt his hand on her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he just gripped harder. ‘You’re hurting me!’ she squealed, but that only made him squeeze tighter. He pulled her arm towards him and placed her clenched fist against the scar; then he moved it up and down, forcing her to caress it against her will. The scar tissue felt smooth compared to the rest of his downy skin, but the sensation made Sadie shudder with revulsion and she continued to struggle, despite the increasing fierceness of his grip. ‘Let me go,’ she said, feeling tears starting to stream down her cheek. ‘Please let me go.’
But he didn’t let her go. Instead, he was whispering in her ear, his lips brushing against her lobes. ‘You don’t want a scar like that on your pretty little body, do you, pet?’
‘No,’ she whimpered.
‘No,’ Allen confirmed. ‘So you’d better do as you’re told. Understand?’
Blinded now by her tears, Sadie nodded. Her wrist was burning, and if she had wanted to speak, she knew the words would choke in her throat.
As quickly as he had grabbed her, he let go. ‘Go on, then,’ he spat. ‘Fuck off back to your bedroom. Go and pretend to read your book.’
Sadie fled.
For the second time in as many days, she found herself trembling in her room, her ears straining to hear the sounds Allen was making downstairs. She deduced that he had turned the television off – or muted it, as he sometimes did, leaving the picture silently playing – because she could hear him walking around. His movements seemed more chaotic than usual, as though he was stomping around angrily. Sadie tiptoed to her door, opened it a little and put her ear to the gap: she jumped as she heard the smashing of a glass and then ran back to her bed, where she automatically grabbed her teddy bear and squeezed it with all her might.
Yesterday, she had been given some warning of Allen’s arrival in her room: his footsteps had stopped halfway up the stairs before he finally decided to intrude on her. Today there was no such hesitation. Out of the blue, Sadie heard a rush of clattering footsteps as Allen ran flat-footedly up the stairs and burst in. His shirt was back on now, but it was not his state of undress or otherwise that made Sadie freeze, statue still.
It was the look on his face.
There was a wildness in his eyes, an anger and a loathing that Sadie had never even dreamed of in her worst nightmares. One eye seemed to be open slightly wider than the other; his lips were fixed in a snarl that suggested the deepest contempt; and his whole head seemed to twitch intermittently. He took deep, shuddering breaths, as though he was trying to bring himself under control; but everything about his demeanour suggested that he was not being successful.
Sadie’s skin prickled with fear as he stood there and looked at her.
Finally he spoke. His voice was not loud, as the fury in his face would have predicted: he spoke in a forced whisper that was all the more sinister for its quietness. ‘You’re a fucking tease,’ he breathed.
Sadie shook her head, not trusting herself to reply, nor quite knowing how to.
‘Don’t look at me like that, you little bitch.’ His voice was dangerously soft now. ‘I’ve met your type before. You think you can do anything. You think you can prance around wearing next to fuck all. You think you can sit on the settee and touch me and then fuck off back to your bedroom.’ He took a step nearer. ‘You’re a worthless little slag.’ He licked his lips, almost nervously. ‘I suppose you’ve got a string of boyfriends at that school of yours.’
‘No,’ Sadie said in a small voice.
That seemed to mollify Allen a little, but he still spoke viciously quietly. ‘You should count your fucking blessings I don’t tell your mam what your game is and have you taken into care.’
Sadie allowed a sob to escape from her throat, and all of a sudden Allen smiled – a vicious, humourless smile that was even worse than the snarl.
‘Touched a nerve, have we?’ He walked right up to the bed and bent over so that his face was only inches from Sadie’s and his breath was hot on her skin. ‘It’ll happen, you know,’ he whispered. ‘Put one step wrong, and it’ll happen. You know I can make it happen, don’t you?’
Sadie nodded, her eyes brimming.
Allen smiled again. ‘Good,’ he said. His voice was calmer now, and as he stood up and stepped backwards towards the door, the beast in him seemed to have been tamed somewhat. When he spoke again, he had lost the whisper and managed to sound almost matter-of-fact. ‘I wouldn’t bother telling anyone about our little chat, Sadie. You’ll just show everyone what a lying little slag you are. And I’d hate to have to tell anyone all the things I know about you.’
He gave her an oily grin, and left.
Sadie sat perfectly still on her bed. She felt tears dribbling down her face, but could not summon the will to wipe them away; instead she simply stared into the middle distance. Allen’s words had cut through her like barbed wire in her veins, exposing her very worst fears. ‘I’ll have you taken into care.’ ‘I’ll tell all the things I know about you.’ She didn’t doubt that he would.
How long she sat there she couldn’t tell, but after a while a massive, body-shaking sob arose in her chest and she crumbled, prostrate on her bedclothes and weeping into her hands until they were quite as wet as they had been when she was caught in the rain yesterday. She felt as wretched as she had when her dad had died: Allen’s poisonous words made her miss him more than ever.
She didn’t risk going into the bathroom that night, and she certainly didn’t want to go down and make herself any dinner. Even before it was dark, she was underneath her duvet, sometimes crying, sometimes shivering, sometimes just lying there in shocked exhaustion, listening for footsteps up the stairs. But they did not come.
The evening passed with excruciating slowness. Sleep would be impossible until her mum got back, of that she was sure. When she finally heard the door opening it was with a surge of relief and yet she felt a slight lurch in her stomach when she realized in an instant that it didn’t really change things. All she wanted to do, though, was to see her mum, to have her put her arms around her and kiss her goodnight. A hug – it wasn’t much to ask. She slipped out of bed and, remembering Allen’s words about walking around in next to nothing, pulled on a jumper and her dressing gown before creeping downstairs.
It was not until she was in the kitchen that she was able to distinguish the murmur of the grown-ups’ voices from the babble of the television. She held her breath and stood with her back against the wall next to the door – unseen and unheard – so that she could determine if it was a good moment to walk in. Her mum was speaking, and Sadie immediately recognized a slur in her voice that told her she had been drinking. The little girl strained her ears to hear what she was saying.
Jackie was rambling. ‘It was only a couple of voddies. Ray from up the road – you know Ray, him with the white beard and the Rottie on a lead – was in, bought us a drink. They’re good like that down there, always someone to stand you a drink. I know most of them, course, from before.’ Jackie sounded carefree, as though she had been enjoying herself. ‘Don’t worry,’ – her voice was suddenly heavy with mock exaggeration – ‘they won’t dock my pay or nothing.’
‘I
