it’s adolescence,’ Carol Grey told him sadly, glancing at Jo with spurious kindness. ‘She’s such a great gangling thing, poor child, and with those shoulders. Like a wardrobe. I suppose a man can’t really understand that, Monsieur Sauveterre.’
Jacques blushed. In the face of this gentle female mockery he forgot all his campaigning zeal and nodded.
‘Oh,’ he said, avoiding Jo’s eyes. ‘Well, I’m sure you know best, Mrs Grey.’
And he fled. Leaving her to deal with the fallout on her own.
Carol’s mask dropped frighteningly the moment the door closed behind him. ‘So you thought you’d run away with the pretty little Frog Prince, did you?’ Carol said softly. ‘Think again. Who would want a giraffe like you?’
Jo put her head down and didn’t answer.
It maddened Carol. ‘If you’ve got time to do bloody Latin, you’ve got time to help me in the business. You can start filing tonight.’
So there was the end of ever doing homework again.
‘No point in getting ideas above your station,’ Carol said, again and again. ‘The next thing we’d know, you’d be wanting to go to college or something.’ And she laughed heartily. ‘Much better if you stay here and learn to do as you’re told. That’s all you’re good for. All you’ll ever be good for.’
Jacques Sauveterre did not talk to Jo after that. Never singled her out in class again. Never so much as smiled at her when she took Mark to the under-elevens football game that he coached. He was kind to Mark, though. Jo tried to be grateful for that.
And his example also inspired someone else. The car maintenance teacher was more streetwise than Jacques Sauveterre.
‘She just doesn’t fit in,’ he said to Carol. ‘The others are tough kids in combats. Jo isn’t. But she soon will be if you aren’t careful.’
That night, every garment disappeared from Jo’s wardrobe except two pairs of army surplus trousers and some khaki tee- shirts.
‘See if Monsieur le Frog looks at you now,’ said Carol, gleeful.
‘I’m sorry, Jo,’ said Mr Rawlings. ‘Hope I didn’t make things worse. Well, at least I can give you the history of the combustion engine.’
He started lending her books on classic cars. Jo read them at school in the breaks. She also became a first-class mechanic.
Carol never knew. She thought she was keeping Jo fully occupied, caring for Mark and working in her home sales business. It gave her a whipping boy and she enjoyed that. She even laughed when Brian Grey came home drunk and hit out at Jo.
‘Life isn’t all pretty Frenchmen, kid. Get over it.’
On her sixteenth birthday Jo ran away for the fourth and final time.
Oh, the Greys looked for her. They were being paid good money for her keep. Anyway, Carol didn’t like her victims to get away. It spoiled her fun for weeks.
But this time, Jo had planned well. She knew where her papers were because Carol had taken delight in showing her the betraying birth certificate.
‘There you are. “Father unknown”. You’re a little illegit. Nobody wanted you. They paid us to take you off their hands.’
Jo had looked at it stonily. The one thing she would not do, ever, was cry. It drove Carol wild with frustration.
So she’d just taken note of where Carol had put it away. And that night she took it, along with her passport and an oddly shaped envelope she had never seen before. But it was addressed to her, in unfamiliar handwriting.
Inside there was an old book—a hardback with cheap card covers. It had pen and ink drawings on the printed pages and smelled of old-fashioned nursery sweets—liquorice and barley sugar and mint humbugs. It was called The Furry Purry Tiger. It was a present for a child.
Maybe someone had wanted her after all, thought Jo. For a while, anyway.
She didn’t get too excited about it. She had enough to do just surviving in the next three years. And making sure that Mark did not have to pay for her defection.
She went on the road—moving from place to place, doing casual jobs, finding new places to stay every few weeks. One way or another, though, she always managed to call Mark once a week. They got adept at making contact without Carol finding out. They always ended by saying, ‘See you soon.’
When she ended a call Jo always thought: I’ll get Mark away. I will. And then we’ll go to France, which is earthly paradise, and be happy.
Another thing she’d managed to do was keep in touch with Monsieur Sauveterre. Whether he’d seen the marks Brian’s fists left or whether he was just kind-hearted, she never knew. Maybe it was because he coached Mark’s football club and it was nothing to do with Jo at all. But before he’d gone home, he’d pressed his address in France into her hand.
‘You and Mark. When you come to France, you must look me up. You will always be welcome. I promise you.’
For Jo, it was like insurance. Every so often, when she was settled somewhere for a few months, she sent him a postcard with her address. It was a way of saying, Remember your promise.
Jacques always replied. He’d even invited them to his wedding.
And then one day, when she spoke to Mark, she knew they could not put it off any longer. He was still only fifteen, but that couldn’t be helped. One Saturday morning, on a borrowed cell-phone, Mark’s voice sounded odd. More than odd. Old. Very, very tired. Or ill.
At once Jo knew what had happened. Drunken Brian Grey had beaten him. Badly this time. Just as he had once beaten Jo.
Only once. The second time he’d tried, the night before her birthday, Jo had got him in an arm lock, ground his telephone under her heel and locked him in the cupboard under the stairs. That had been the evening she’d taken her papers and the money she had saved, from the babysitting that Brian and Carol did not know about, and melted into the night.
Now, she knew, Mark would have to do the same.
‘Get out of there now,’ she said, ice cool now that the worst had happened. ‘Do you know where he keeps your birth certificate and your passport?’
‘Yes. I saw him put them in the old biscuit barrel the last time he changed the hiding place.’
It figured. As well as being violent, Brian Grey was sly and secretive. But nobody ever said he was bright. What an uncle I have, thought Jo.
Aloud, she said, ‘Get them, and meet me at the bus station as soon as you can.’
‘But—’ Mark sounded ashamed. ‘I’m not like you. I haven’t got any money, Jo.’
Her heart clenched with pain for him. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she said gently. ‘I have. I’ve been saving for this a long time.’
She waited at the bus station for hours. When Mark came he was limping, and one side of his face was so badly bruised that
