‘Hello, Penny, nice to see you, too.’ Ruth walked into the house. ‘We need to talk.’ She continued through into the kitchen and put the kettle on, then sat down at the kitchen table. Penny followed along in her wake and hovered by the kitchen door. ‘I had your daughter on the phone to me in floods of tears last night,’ Ruth told her. ‘She should have been jubilant after the result of her appeal. You certainly do pick your times to kick that kid in the teeth.’
‘Look, I’m sorry she’s upset, and yes, I admit the timing could have been better, but I’m not going to get the chance to see her again before the wedding. I had to tell her last night.’
‘You’ve pulled her support system out from under her. She’s a very vulnerable young woman.’
‘She’s an adult.’
‘Barely. She’s just turned nineteen.’
‘She’s an adult in the eyes of the law.’
‘For God’s sake, woman, this is your daughter we’re talking about.’
The kettle boiled and Penny busied herself making coffee. It wasn’t that she wanted Ruth to stay, she just wanted time to gather her thoughts.
‘Look, Ruth,’ she said when they were seated at the table, a steaming mug of coffee in front of each of them. ‘I’m not getting any younger and I’m sick of being on my own.’
‘Oh, Penny, I can understand that. I don’t begrudge you your happiness. But does it have to be at the expense of your daughter?’
‘I don’t see any other way. You see,’ Penny said, spreading her hands out on the table and examining her nail polish, ‘this means a fresh new start for me. No one knows who I am in Liverpool. Sammy and Ed moved into their house about a year ago, they weren’t there when the search for Annie was in full swing, so the neighbours don’t know about it.’
‘No one connected the name?’
‘Well, their name is Robson, and Snowdon is common enough. So no one has made the connection, no.’
‘They will, though, you can be sure someone will twig at some point. Then what will you tell your husband? James, isn’t it?’ Penny nodded. ‘Surely it would be better to just be honest with him from the start?’
Penny shrugged. ‘I want a new start.’
‘What happens when Tina’s released? How will you explain her to James then?’
Penny sipped her coffee. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll say she’s a friend, or the daughter of a friend. I’ll think of something.’
‘She’s your daughter. For God’s sake, woman, this is inhuman. The kid’s in bits.’
‘Well, I can’t help that.’
‘Yes, you can. You caused it and you can cure it. You just need to care about her as much as you care about yourself.’ Ruth put her mug down more vigorously than she had intended and coffee splashed over the rim. Penny jumped when the mug banged on the table, then stood up and got a cloth to wipe up the spill. ‘My God,’ Ruth exclaimed, ‘you care more about your table top than you do about your own child.’
‘It’s time for me to move on. I deserve to be happy,’ Penny insisted, stubbornly, rinsing the cloth under the tap.
‘I wouldn’t dispute that,’ said Ruth. ‘But I don’t see why you can’t include Tina in your happiness. She deserves a break.’
‘Oh, Ruth.’ Penny put the wrung-out cloth down and turned to face Ruth. ‘Look at her life. It’s been a disaster from start to finish. I haven’t exactly been good for her, now have I?’
‘You just don’t get it, do you? It doesn’t matter that you’ve been a hopeless mother.’ Ruth didn’t doubt the accuracy of her choice of word, but she regretted it as soon as she saw the effect it had on Penny. She carried on regardless. ‘All that matters is that you are her mother. She loves you, Penny. You mean the world to her. She won’t even have a home to come back to when she gets out. She’ll have nothing.’ Ruth pushed the mug of coffee away from her. ‘Do you know how many kids who get out with no home to go to end up back inside again? Most of them. Is that what you want for Tina? Yo-yoing in and out of prison all her adult life?’
‘Well, then, you give her a damn home if you’re so concerned about her. You listen to her whinge and whine about feeling guilty, you put up with her moods and her stupid ideas about having her own hairdressing salon, you look at the wrong fucking girl watching the television with you night after night after night.’ Penny gave a huge sob, her shoulders heaved, then she turned her back on Ruth and put her head down while she choked back the tears.
‘That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You haven’t forgiven her for surviving instead of Annie.’
Penny was mopping at her eyes with a series of tissues. ‘Annie was a beautiful child,’ she said. ‘Blonde hair, big blue eyes, stunning smile, just the loveliest, cleverest, funniest little girl you could ever wish to meet. It was like I had to have Tina first, sort of a practise run, if you like, to get a daughter as perfect as Annie.’ She blew her nose. ‘Tina was her daddy’s girl, Annie was mine.’
‘You selfish, heartless cow. That kid has lived her whole life knowing she was second best. How could you?’ Ruth was on her feet. ‘And now you’re just going to abandon her? Jesus Christ, woman.’
‘What else can I do? James won’t want a … a criminal for a stepdaughter. In fact, he doesn’t want a stepdaughter at all.’
‘Then he’s not much of a man, is he? You should be perfectly matched.’ Ruth snatched up her bag and walked out, leaving Penny gawping after her, clutching a tissue.
***
‘Tina tried to take her own life,’ said Mary McCluskey. ‘She’s in the hospital and she could certainly do with a friendly face right now.’
‘Damn!’ said Ruth, switching the phone to her other ear. ‘What did she do?’
‘Swallowed pills and booze, then sawed at her arm with a pair of scissors.’
‘Scissors! How did she …?’
‘They were hairdressing scissors.’ Ruth sensed Mary tense up. ‘She must have somehow had a pair brought in. If she’d taken them from the salon, they’d have been missed. Then we’d have been on lockdown and the whole lot would have been found before she got the chance to do anything.’
‘And the drugs?’
‘She took something of a cocktail,’ Mary told her. ‘She was on anti-depressants, she was prescribed them after her mother’s last visit, and she seems to have managed to steal some at some point. You know we dole them out just one dose at a time.’
‘Yes,’ said Ruth. ‘What else?’
‘Some sort of pills, uppers, that she must have got from one of the other girls, and a packet of aspirin.’
‘That’s quite the combination.’
‘She washed it down with half a bottle of vodka. That was also contraband. We clearly have some work to do cutting off the supply route here at the centre.’
‘I think you’ll find your supply route moves to the adult wing in a few weeks.’
‘I suspect you’re right. Do you know, and I rarely say this about the young people who pass through here, so many of them have had a bad break or a poor start in life you can hardly blame them for the choices they’ve made, but that girl … I really do not like that girl.’
‘She’s a little viper. Which hospital is Tina in?’
‘The General.’
‘Okay, I’ll go and see her just as soon as I can.’
‘Thanks, Ruth. I could cry for that poor wee mite, I really could.’
‘Her mother’s getting remarried today, you know.’
‘I know. I tried to ring her to tell her what had happened, but she wouldn’t speak to me, she cut the call off.’
‘I could slap her stupid face. Her and Leanne Davidson. Between them they’ve got Tina so that she doesn’t know which way is up.’
***
‘Hey, Tina.’ Karen Fitzgerald was first through the door into the private room Tina occupied at the General. ‘How are you feeling?’
Ruth followed her in, and Tina smiled to see them, then burst into tears. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said as Ruth and Karen hugged her in turn. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘We didn’t come empty-handed,’ said Ruth, as she and Karen produced magazines and chocolates from their bags. ‘We thought you’d prefer this to grapes and flowers.’
‘Definitely.’ She wiped her eyes with her hands, then reached for a tissue. ‘You’re too kind.’
‘So, what made you … you know?’ asked Karen, getting straight to the point as usual.
Tina took a couple of deep breaths. ‘Things just built up,’ she said. ‘I had a row with one of the girls. She said I was … she said … oh, never mind what she said. It was nasty and spiteful. Then I had a fight with Leanne and of course, there’s what Mum’s doing today. It all just got on top of me.’
‘You didn’t mean it, did you?’
Tina touched the bandage that ran from wrist to elbow on her left arm. ‘No. I’m glad I was found in time. Things might seem bad, but they’ve seemed bad before. I know if I can get through this that things will get better. That’s how it works, you just have to hang on in there until enough time passes to take the worst of the pain away.’
***
‘She’s quite the philosopher for such a youngster, isn’t she?’ Karen remarked on the way back to Sunderland in the car. She watched kids climbing over the huge metal feet of the Angel of the North as they sped past on the A1.
‘She’s an incredible kid. She’s had to cope with so much. Her whole life has been defined by one stupid thing she did when she was twelve … it beggars belief. That bloody Penny has a lot to answer for. She’s put the kid through hell, one way or another.’
‘Aye, she seems pretty selfish. Must have been hard losing the little one, though.’
‘Annie was her favourite and she made sure Tina knew it. She even blames her for Derek’s death. She told Tina he died from a broken heart, because of what happened to Annie.’
‘So she basically told the kid she killed her dad?’
Ruth nodded. ‘And her sister. Tina has guilt like nobody’s business. No wonder she’s easy prey for the likes of Leanne Davidson.’
‘I wonder what the other girl Tina fell out with said to her?’
‘Nothing nice, that’s for sure.’ Ruth indicated and turned off the A1. ‘Do you fancy leaving the cars at the station and going for a pizza?’
‘And wine?’ Karen grinned.
‘Lots of wine, I thought,’ said Ruth. ‘It is Friday, after all.’
***
Back at the hospital, Tina pushed the magazines to one side and lay back against the pillows. Everything had gone wrong. Ever since Annie had put the idea in her head that they could go to see MC Boyz no matter what Mum and Dad said about it, the world had turned upside down.
Her mother hated her. Penny had made a whole new life for herself and there was no room in it for Tina. She thought of the wedding she had missed, wondered what her mum had been wearing, who else had been there, what James was like and if he really would hate her if he got the chance to meet her, and tears rolled down her face. She would have loved to have been there, to have worn a fancy dress and been her mum’s bridesmaid, to have had her first taste of champagne to toast the happy couple.
It wasn’t fair that Dad had died, but she understood that some people did die young. Gran had explained to her about her dad’s heart being weak. Grandad had died at about the same age, from the same problem. Mum was kind of right when she said he’d died from a broken heart, because his heart had been faulty and it broke. Tina had been grateful to Gran for explaining it all. She wished she could make her mum understand, though.
She knew she’d be taken back to Weardale YOI the next day. She usually liked the weekends there, the girls had more free time and she enjoyed the banter. But after the row with Danielle, she didn’t know what to expect. Leanne would be leaving soon, in a matter of weeks, and she didn’t know if that would make things better or worse.
The row had happened the day before. It had come out of nowhere and, in truth, it was all about nothing. Someone had taken a bar of chocolate from Danielle’s room and someone else had seen Leanne eating a bar of the same type of chocolate. Leanne was always the first suspect when anything went missing, just because of why she was in there, and Tina had sprung to her defence.
‘Leanne wouldn’t take your stupid chocolate,’ she had exclaimed, hotly.
‘Why do you say that?’ Danielle had asked. ‘Did you steal it for her?’
‘I’m not a thief.’
‘You’ll do anything she tells you to.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Yes it is. You’re Leanne’s pet minge-muncher.’ Danielle lay back on the couch she was sitting on and spread her legs. ‘Come on, do me and I’ll let her off. I won’t tell Irish Mary about it.’
Tina had flushed scarlet. She didn’t think anyone knew about her and Leanne, what they did in private, but Danielle’s friends were laughing like it was no secret.
‘You bitch,’ she shouted, jumping to her feet and clenching her fists.
‘You’re the fucking bitch.’ Danielle put her hand on her crotch. ‘Come on, bitch, eat me like you eat that thieving fucking slag. If you do a good job, you can be my bitch when she leaves.’
Adele had joined in, plonking down next to Danielle and adopting the same pose. ‘You can do me after her, Tina.’ She’d elbowed Danielle in the ribs. ‘I taste better than those dirty cows, an’ all.’
‘Give us a Kit-Kat, bitch,’ shouted Erica. ‘All four fingers.’