and for whom barely a day passed without tears and fights and traumas. Even Miss Venables had to admit that standing too close to him was a bit of challenge, so the moment he had arrived at school she had known what a rough ride he was likely to get from the kids. And she knew that even if she stopped this little fracas, another one wouldn’t be far behind. That didn’t mean she shouldn’t try, though.
Suddenly she stopped.
She narrowed her eyes as she saw Sadie step confidently into the ring.
Ordinarily she would never have stood back to let other kids enter a brawl, but something encouraged her to keep her own counsel for a few moments.
Sadie was older than the boy who was being bullied, but the kids who had formed the ring were her own age and outnumbered her three to one. With casual confidence, she stood beside Jamie Brown.
The bullies sneered. ‘What are you then? His girlfriend?’
Sadie’s face didn’t flicker. ‘What do you know about girlfriends?’ she asked quietly.
A blush came to the bully’s cheek. His eyes moved from left to right as he looked to see what reaction Sadie’s comment was getting from his companions; then he made forward as if to attack Jamie Brown. Miss Venables saw the little boy flinch and, in her most authoritarian voice, started to call out the bully’s name. But as she did so, she saw the bully’s friends grab him by the arms and pull him away. They started scuffling among themselves for a moment, but then they caught sight of Miss Venables bearing down on them. Each of them threw her a scornful look, and then turned and hurried away. A final insult – ‘At least I don’t piss my pants!’ – reached her ears, but she let it pass, choosing instead to hurry up to Jamie and Sadie.
‘Are you all right, Jamie, love?’ she asked, kneeling down so that she could be more at the little boy’s level. But Jamie simply looked angry and confused; he turned and ran to the other end of the playground, where he sat with his back to the wall, alone and avoided, as he always was.
Miss Venables turned to Sadie. ‘You should leave that sort of thing to the teachers, Sadie,’ she chided.
Sadie looked calmly at her. ‘Sorry, miss,’ she said, but there was no apology in her voice. She looked over at Jamie. ‘But I don’t see why they have to be so horrible.’
‘I know, Sadie,’ Miss Venables agreed. ‘But sometimes it’s the easy targets that attract the weakest people. Jamie will be all right. I’ll keep an eye on him. Now run along.’
She watched as Sadie made her way back to Carly and Anna, who were laughing good-naturedly. They didn’t seem to have noticed what had just happened, and Sadie rejoined them quietly, only occasionally glancing across the playground to where Jamie Brown was still sitting by himself.
The afternoon passed slowly. Sadie sat at the back of the class with Carly and Anna, her chin resting in the palm of her hand; she stared into space as the teacher at the front droned on and on, his monotonous lesson frequently punctuated by barks of reprimand and tellings-off. It was a typical Friday afternoon.
Carly slipped a note under the table. Her childish handwriting asked Sadie in misspelled English if she still wanted to come round to her house after school. Sadie thought about writing a reply, but instead she just whispered back.
‘Can’t,’ she told her friend. ‘Mum says I’ve got to go back home.’
Carly shot her a surprised look, and Sadie understood why. Her mum never told her when she should be back.
Even when Sadie was younger, she had been allowed to wander round the estate by herself. People came to expect it of her. She was forever knocking on doors, fixing her neighbours with her most appealing smile and flogging whatever goods or goodies her dad had a run on that particular week. She understood how difficult grown-ups found it to refuse such a chirpy young girl and she’d got a taste for it. She would always come home, of course, but she never had to be told.
After the funeral, though, things started to become a bit different. Mum would still never tell her when to be home, and at first that was just because it was the way things had always been. But the loss of her man hit Jackie Burrows hard. Sadie would never forget the first time she got back after school to find her drunk. The bottle of cheap vodka on the smoked-glass coffee table wasn’t quite empty, but it wasn’t far off. An ashtray was full of stubs, and the television was on. Sadie’s mum was comatose on the sofa and, try though she might, the little girl couldn’t rouse her. She shook her, tears streaming down her face and crying at her to wake up; but when she did open her eyes, they just rolled unconsciously to the top of her head before closing again. Sadie had been on the point of calling an ambulance when her mother rolled off the sofa and started vomiting on the carpet.
It had taken her two days to get back on her feet again. Sadie stayed away from school to nurse her, bringing her glasses of water and painkillers. Jackie had begged her daughter not to be angry with her, but Sadie was not angry. In her childlike way she understood. At times mother and daughter held each other and cried and cried, but they never spoke of their sadness. How would they have known what to say?
Since then Jackie had never been that bad. But for several months not a day went by when Sadie didn’t come home to find the ever-open bottle of vodka depleted and the ashtray brimming over. And more than once, when the booze had run out and Jackie was in no state to leave the house, she handed Sadie one of the precious ten-pound notes that arrived in her purse courtesy of the benefits office, and begged, ‘Get us a bottle of voddy, love.’
The first time it happened, Sadie was reluctant. ‘I can’t, Mum. I’m not old enough.’
But Mum looked imploringly at her, a horrible, pitiful desperation in her eyes, and Sadie agreed because she didn’t know what else to do. She took the money down to the off-licence with the grey metal grilles on the front where on a number of occasions she had gone with her dad to sell cheap cases of spirits. The first time she tried to buy vodka the owner had been nervous; but she told him it was for her mum, and she soon ceased to have any problem.
Jackie’s habit grew from bad to worse, and soon she was able to drink the same quantities she had that first time without the devastating effect.
And then, a few months ago, it simply stopped. Sadie returned home one day to discover that for the first time in ages her mum had dealt with the washing – a job Sadie had taken over in some unspoken agreement, knowing that if she didn’t she’d just have to wear dirty clothes. Jackie had folded the clothes and placed them on the kitchen table, and as Sadie walked in, her satchel slung over her shoulder, Mum was standing proudly by her handiwork, dressed and sober. She almost managed to look proud of what she had achieved. No matter that the dirty dishes were piled in the sink; no matter that the house stank of cigarettes. Sadie could tell it was a turning point.
That night Jackie even went out. Sadie lay alone in the darkness of her bedroom, wondering where she was and waiting for her to come back, but towards midnight sleep overtook her; she awoke the next morning to find her mum still asleep. She left for school quietly, without waking her up.
At first Jackie’s evening outings were few and far between. But as the weeks passed, Sadie found herself alone in the house of an evening increasingly frequently. Now and then she would ask her mum where she had been, but Jackie would reply evasively. She was lonely in the house by herself at night, and the creaks and cracks that always sounded ten times louder when the lights were off were frightening. But she never said anything to Mum: she was just glad she had stopped drinking. And when they did spend time together, there would be kisses and cuddles and affection; sometimes they even managed to talk about Dad without crying.
Life was getting better. They were going to be OK. Just the two of them.
The bell rang for the end of school, and there was a sudden cacophony of chair-scraping. Sadie closed the book that she had not glanced at since the start of