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 don’t give a fuck about the money,’ Allen replied quietly. ‘I told you I didn’t want you drinking any more. You stink of it.’
‘Oh, c’mon, it was only a couple of voddies,’ Jackie repeated. There was the rustle of movement on the sofa. ‘I’m sorry about last night, love. I didn’t mean to make you so cross. Why don’t you let us make it up to you?’ Her voice had suddenly turned almost kittenish, wheedling, as if she was trying to talk him into something. Sadie was not so naïve that she didn’t understand what was going on, and the sound of her mum making advances of that type to Allen made her feel nauseous. She didn’t want to hear any more, yet somehow she couldn’t drag herself away.
‘Your breath stinks of tabs,’ was the only reply Allen gave her.
‘Never mind that, eh?’ her mum breathed. ‘You ain’t hardly touched me since you moved in. You don’t have to be shy, you know. I won’t bite.’ Her voice was husky now, but there was something about the way her words drunkenly ran into each other that made her sound faintly pitiful.
‘Get away from me,’ Allen snapped. ‘I’m not fucking interested. Can’t you get that into your thick, ugly head?’
Before Jackie could cajole him any further, Sadie heard the unmistakable sound of someone getting up from the sofa and approaching the door. She panicked, spinning around to look towards the stairs and work out if she could get there before she was caught eavesdropping, but it was too late. Before she could move, Allen was there, standing above her.
‘You little…’ he whispered as his eyes narrowed. Then he smiled unpleasantly and raised his voice. ‘Hey, Jackie, look at this.’ Her mum appeared at the door. ‘Not quite the fucking angel you think she is, eh? Listening in on us – listening in on you making a fucking fool of yourself.’ He shot Sadie a warning glance, as if to say ‘I told you so’, and then disappeared upstairs.
Sadie didn’t watch him go. She turned to her mum with outstretched arms and teary eyes, hoping to receive the hug that she had been aching for all night. But before she knew it, her mum was bending down, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her like a rag doll. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Sadie?’ she shrieked, all restraint dissolved by the alcohol in her system. ‘Why the hell are you listening in on us?’
Sadie tried to speak, but all that came out was a breathless whimper.
‘You’re just a kid, Sadie.’ Her mum was raving mad now. ‘You shouldn’t be listening in to grown-ups’ stuff that you don’t understand.’
Jackie had stopped shaking her daughter now, but she was still bending down. Sadie looked directly into her mum’s face. Jackie was embarrassed; of that her daughter