‘Thank you.’ Molly gritted her teeth.
‘You’re an ungrateful little bitch, aren’t you? I didn’t bring you up to use people the way you do.’
Molly concentrated hard on filling the kettle. She had to bite her tongue when her mother went off on one of her tirades. They were always totally unfounded. Molly didn’t use people. Ever. It was one of her golden rules, having been mercilessly exploited throughout her childhood. She knew what it was like to be taken for granted.
T
hey’d started off life in her mother’s native Liverpool, she and her four brothers and sisters. Molly was the second oldest. She’d never been quite sure which of them had the same father, if any, for the men came and went in their mother’s life more frequently than she changed her sheets. It was no real secret what her mum did to supplement her income. Molly sometimes wondered if her own father had been a client or a lover, and clung to the hope it had been the latter, for her mother had been beautiful once. She’d seen the photos of the glamorous girl with the lustrous long black locks and flashing eyes: Catherine Zeta Jones, she’d reminded her of. There was no evidence of that now. Over the years the curves collapsed into mounds of sagging flesh, the cheekbones disappeared under jowls, and Teresa’s clientele changed from the discerning to the desperate, paying for Teresa’s willingness to be degraded rather than her looks.
Life for Molly and her siblings was tough. The only thing they were ever sure of was that there would be no tea, no clean clothes for the next day. It had been down to Molly to scrat around for something for them to eat, then strip off their shirts and blouses and put them in the kitchen sink with a squirt of washing-up liquid, then hang them in front of the gas fire to dry for the morning. She cut her brothers’ hair with the kitchen scissors and dragged the nit comb through all of their curls, including her own. No one was going to accuse the Mahoneys of not being clean while she was in charge.
When Molly was nine, there was a glimmer of hope. Her mother had a boyfriend, a proper boyfriend called Jeff who drove lorries, and although he took no notice of the children he seemed to like Teresa. Well enough for them both to decide to move to Devon, where he came from. Molly remembered the excitement as she and her older sister Siobhan climbed into the cab for the journey down and the rest of the kids scrambled into the back of Jeff’s lorry. As they trundled down the motorway, Molly allowed herself to daydream about what was waiting for them at the other end. Jeff had organized them somewhere to live, apparently. Molly imagined a pretty little house overlooking the shore, and a life filled with seashells and sandcastles and rock pools. It was all going to be so different. Nothing bad happened at the seaside, surely?
She couldn’t have been more wrong. The dreary, grey patch of water they could glimpse from the flat in Tawcombe was more depressing than anything Molly had ever seen. And two weeks later Jeff and Teresa had a terrible, terrible fight. Jeff left her mother with nothing to show for it but two black eyes. And now, instead of struggling in Liverpool, where they’d had a support network and understood the rules, they had to find their feet in a new town. Teresa wouldn’t go back, because she didn’t want to lose face. She’d boasted to everyone that she was going to have a better life, crowing that she was getting out of the slum and away from the scum. No one would show her an ounce of sympathy if she went crawling back with her tail between her legs. So they had to make a go of it.
It was a struggle. Sometimes her mum had money, though Molly never liked to think why. But at least then they could have a feast. They’d be down to the pub on the harbour front for Sunday lunch. But Molly couldn’t eat it. The greasy beef would stick in her throat, and she’d look around the men laughing at the bar, wondering which of them she had to thank for her meal. The others were happy enough to scoff it down, slurping their bottles of Coke through straws, begging for ice cream, and Molly made sure they had their fill, for it might be a week or two before any of them saw a vegetable again.
She was twelve before she discovered that the haven she’d dreamed of was only a bus ride away. There was a school trip to Mariscombe, and as the coach turned the corner and Molly saw the sparkling sea and golden beach, she recognized it as the place she’d dreamed of, the place she’d thought she was coming to when they’d left Liverpool. There and then she vowed she would escape here as soon as she could.
When she was fifteen, she managed to get herself a summer job at the Mariscombe Holiday Park, a magnificent site perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. It was down to a crack team to clean out the static caravans, scrub the shower blocks and bring all the amenities up to scratch. For Molly it was paradise. Even if cleaning up after people who didn’t seem to care what state they left the place in was hard and unsavoury work, it was fantastic fun being on the site and being part of the team who kept it together. After the changeover was complete and the new incumbents were settled, the staff would all flock to the beach for the evening. Molly was afraid of the water itself – the waves were disconcertingly high – but she was happy to sit on the sand drinking beer. Sometimes there’d be a barbecue, or someone would go and buy a dozen wraps of chips, and they would party until the sun went down, the boys showing off their skills in the surf, the girls showing off their tans. Often she didn’t go home. There was always someone’s place to crash in, or occasionally if it was hot they would crash on the dunes. Molly was happy. She’d found somewhere she fitted in, where the balance between hard work and hard partying was just right. She longed for the day when she could leave school and come and get something more permanent, escaping her mother’s foul tongue and evil temper for ever. Her younger brothers and sisters would have to fend for themselves. She no longer had any control over them anyway – Kieran was a glue-sniffing little oik at eleven and Macy had been caught shoplifting twice already. They didn’t thank her for trying to impose routine and discipline, so Molly didn’t see why she should waste her life any longer.
The first time she came into contact with Joe Thorne she was carrying her mop and bucket and her box full of cleaning agents across the site, dressed in the ugly green uniform all the support staff wore. He was just coming out of the caravan she was heading for. He paused as he came down the steps. For a moment he seemed confused as he gazed at her, seemingly lost for words. He reached out a hand to touch her arm, as if to convince himself she was real. Molly looked at it, transfixed, then looked back at him, unable to think of a word to say. Then suddenly he recovered his composure and took his hand away, smiling.
‘Just doing a bit of maintenance.’
He winked, jumped off the last two steps and strolled off across the grass, whistling. Molly breathed in the scent of him and felt quite giddy. She was surprised. She was usually quite immune to the charms of the opposite sex. She could withstand any overture stony-faced. Her mother’s lifetime of degradation at the hands of men meant Molly was in no hurry to rush into anything. Usually if someone had touched her like that, uninvited, she would have shaken them off, given them a sharp word. But in that fleeting exchange Joe had made her feel quite woozy – his eyes had looked straight into hers for one moment, and she felt as if he’d looked right into the core of her. She wondered what it was he had thought, what he had registered, for something had definitely passed between them. Molly wasn’t fanciful, and she’d discovered a long time ago that daydreaming and romanticizing often led to disappointment, so she was surprised to find her heart thumping as she watched him disappear. Was this, she wondered, love at first sight?
Molly knew she was pretty. She was petite, with a perfect heart-shaped face and indigo-blue eyes, and dark hair that sprang in thick waves back from her forehead. But in her shapeless uniform, with her hair scraped back in a scrunchie, she doubted he’d seen any potential. Telling herself to get real, Molly climbed up the steps and into the caravan, bumping straight into a young girl who was hastily adjusting her clothing.
‘Shit. I’ve got to go. My mum and dad are leaving any minute.’
The girl pushed rudely past Molly, who stood aside in bemusement. The encounter told her to harden her heart. Joe probably pulled that trick on all the girls, to make them think they were in with a chance. Looked at them as if they’d stepped straight out of his dreams, then rushed off leaving them in confusion. No, Molly told herself sternly. She wasn’t going to be fooled.
As she started cleaning out the mess in the caravan, she reminded herself of everything she’d heard about him. Joe’s reputation as a wild boy went before him. His parents owned the site and he was supposed to help out with the running of it, but no one was quite sure what he did – as little as possible, it was generally agreed, but somehow he got away with it and didn’t create resentment. All the other girls who worked on the campsite sighed, but knew they weren’t in with a chance. Although he was a dreadful flirt and a tease, and had wandering hands, everyone knew there was no point wasting your time in losing your heart because, at the end of the day, Joe was spoken for.
Joe’s girlfriend was Tamara Taylor, a honeyed, athletic goddess with golden hair tumbling over her shoulders, a girl who would never have to clean out a toilet in her life. Her father was loaded. He owned a frozen-food factory on the outskirts of Tawcombe, which supplied nearly every pub, hotel and restaurant in North Devon with chips, peas and chicken nuggets. It was rumoured that Cliff Taylor loathed Joe with a vengeance, and considered him a good-for-nothing, free-loading, time-wasting little shit. But as every father knows, to disapprove of a daughter’s boyfriend is to render him even more attractive, so Cliff was biding his time, confident that Joe would show his true colours eventually and Tamara would come to her senses, seeing him for the bit of rough he was. And in the meantime Joe played fast and loose whenever he pleased, returning to Tamara as if butter wouldn’t melt. Molly decided that she had just been a pawn in one of his games. She was not going to be one of his victims, she decided as she squirted thick bleach all over the kitchen worktops. No way.
Two days later, Molly was standing at the bus stop when a car pulled up. She could hear Eminem pounding through the speakers. The passenger window wound down and she peered in. It was Joe.
‘Get in, then.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Do you care?’
She tipped her head to one side and smiled at him.
‘I’m on my way home.’
‘I know. Seventeen Uffculme Row, Tawcombe.’ Molly felt a delicious shiver trickle its way down her spine as he surveyed her seriously. ‘I looked up your details in the office.’
Instinctively, she stepped back from the car, reminding herself that she wasn’t going to be toyed with. Nevertheless, she felt disconcerted that she had made an impression on him. Even if he was playing with her for his own amusement, he’d been in her thoughts. She felt a tingling excitement pool in the pit of her stomach. Desperately she looked down the road, praying that the bus was coming. She couldn’t cope with this, not for a moment longer . . .
‘For heaven’s sake, get in. It’s going to piss with rain any minute and the bus is always late. You’ll be soaked.’
As if on cue, fat raindrops began to fall. Molly hesitated. Joe tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
‘I’m not going till you get in.’
Even though every grain of sense in her screamed not to, she got in. As she shut the door, the smell of him hit her nostrils and her pulse seemed to treble. The scent was magical, intoxicating, and her head swam.
‘I’m off to Tawcombe to see a man about a dog,’ Joe explained as he accelerated up the hill, casting a glance at his watch. ‘Not till six, though. Do you fancy a drink?’
‘I’ve got to get home,’ said Molly, knowing she sounded prim.
‘What for?
Home and Away
?’
‘I’ve got to cook my brothers’ and sisters’ tea.’ This was an outright lie. Molly hadn’t cooked for them for weeks. None of them were ever home; they roamed the streets like waifs and strays. She’d given up on the lot of them.
Joe pulled up outside the Lamb. He switched off the engine and turned to look at her, gazing at her solemnly. Molly thought she was going to pass out under his scrutiny. She scrabbled for the door handle, but he put out a hand to stop her.
‘Come and have a drink. Just a quick one. Surely you can take half an hour off?’ He reached up and ran a finger lightly under one of her eyes. ‘You look tired. You could do with a break.’
Later, Molly looked back and knew that had been the split second that was to change her life for ever. If she’d just said no, things would have been so different. For all of them . . .
Molly had felt awkward going into the Lamb with him. It was one of the worst dives in town, one she wouldn’t dream of going into usually, and there could only be one reason for Joe wanting to go in there. But after ten minutes she was completely unaware of her surroundings. The two of them totally clicked. Joe fired questions at her and she answered. Some of them were logical and some crazy. And after two Smirnoff Ices she had the nerve to fire his questions back at him, and found he was disarmingly honest.
At eight o’clock, she reluctantly got to her feet.
‘I’d better go.’
He stood up and walked her to the door. She lifted her hand in a gesture of farewell. He responded by crooking an arm round her neck and pulling her to him in a rough gesture of fondness.
‘Come here, you.’
She looked up at him, laughing. Then he pulled her in a little tighter and rocked her. She put a hand on his waist to steady herself and, suddenly, she was in his arms. They stood very still together for a moment, their foreheads touching. She breathed very deeply to calm herself as he ran his fingers through her hair, either side of her face, cradling her head gently.
‘Molly . . .’ he whispered her name.
Terrified and confused, she pulled away from him. No one had ever made her feel like that, not even in her dreams, and she was petrified. Because she couldn’t control her feelings. And because she’d heard all the stories, time and time again. She wasn’t going to be another scalp on his belt. She wasn’t . . .