CHAPTER 38
Paul’s confession was another little wedge knocked into the cracks in the armour I had erected around that filthy bastard Cooper, another little sign others could suffer as badly as I had. I had gained some understanding of that simple fact watching Gandalf after Sam’s murder, and as I dug out the story out around the two rapes, I found my perverse top-victim game crumbling.

Don and Charlie may have done all sorts of things to me, including giving me crabs, but they had never, ever pissed on me. That act, in itself, was objectively nothing compared to the damage Mam and Mr Simmonds had repaired, but the intent, the thing it revealed about the rapist’s utter contempt for his victims, that shook me.

And yes: I couldn’t see two different men having the same arrogantly simple calling card. It could only be one rapist. Enough, Debbie. Never meeting him, and if I ever did, I would be the one with the blade ready for his balls.

We drove back from Swansea with the two new girls in the cab, Maisie in one of the rear seats, nattering away through the open hatch.

“Yeah, I used to do Airfix models, me. That and Meccano. I can do the bunks. Just need someone to do the lifting stuff!”

I called back to her.

“Going to be Sparky, love! I owe him some work, don’t I? Want to tell Emma and Rachel about the others at home?”

“Er, yeah, OK. We’ve got me, yeah? And then there’s the two swots. That’s Cathy and Nell. They’re always noses in their books, want to go to Uni. Then there’s Kim, and she’s a laugh. She works at a café, does nice stuff, but she’s always got headphones on when she’s home. Got a policeman calls round as well, but he’s a lot older. No boys. Some scary people on motorbikes, friends of Debbie’s, and one of them, Kim’s got the hots for”

I filed that one away for a later chat with Kim, as well as a subtle hint to Maisie about keeping confidences, but her prattle seemed to be working. We were passing Bridgend when one of the two in the front, Emma, told me that she had a fiver on her, and asked if we could please stop so she could buy something to eat.

“Didn’t they feed you at the shelter?”

“Not that well. They’re… They are a church thing, and they didn’t like us. Just like school, but worse”

“Did you two know each other before, you know, setting out on your own?”

“Yes, Miss. We were in school together. My Dad said it was Rachel who turned me queer, and her Dad said it was me, and both of us got shit from them, so we thought we’d try and face it all together, but it just got worse, and we thought…”

Emma’s voice faltered, and the other girl, Rachel, took her hand.

“Miss Wells”

“Debbie. Everyone calls me Debbie, OK?”

“Debbie. Thank you. Emma and me, we found each other at school. Long story, but it was what made our Dads angry. They give you a name, and it’s a boy name, and then you find someone who understands, and you get careless. Emma’s Dad heard us in her room”

The first girl interrupted her sharply.

“Not like that! We’re not that way! And we never dressed up or nothing”

“Shush, Em. Let me tell it”

“Yeah. You do it better than me”

“Suppose so. Anyway, um, Debbie, that was it. Her Dad spoke to my Dad, and when she came over to mine one day, he was listening at my door that time. It was all going to…”

She stopped suddenly, with a little gasp that was clearly an attempt to fight back a sob.

“Can we stop for a bit of food, please?”

“I think we can, Rachel. There’s some services at Sarn. Bit shit, but there’s a retail park over the road. KFC, Macwotsit, a supermarket. And put your money away. Maisie?”

“Yeah?”

“Hungry?”

“Oh yes!”

“If we stop there, you know what the menus are for those two?”

“I know what I would like”

“Well, if I go and grab the food, you think you could make us each a cuppa?2

“Course”

I turned to the two girls next to me.

“You two know what you like from those places?”

They looked at each other before Rachel, who seemed to be the more resilient of the two, nodded to me.

“Yeah, Debbie. That would be nice, but we’ve only got that five pounds”

“My treat, or rather--- no. I’ll explain when I get back. You three wait here, Maisie can do us all a brew, and we’ll chat as we eat. That suit you?”

Two nods, and I was out of the van and heading for the supermarket with a list of orders tucked into my hip pocket. I hit the big shop first to grab some basics for tea that evening, as we had the two extra mouths, and I suspected that the fried chicken they had asked for wouldn’t even touch the sides as it went down.

There were no obvious bruises, and they weren’t flinching when I contradicted them, so things were looking easier for once. Food… beef mince, some large potatoes, tinned kidney beans, mushrooms, tinned pineapple, chopped toms. I ran a quick mental check of my food cupboards, and added a couple of tins of drinking chocolate, before doing the business at the KFC, which wasn’t somewhere I had ever used much. Fried chicken is fried chicken, after all, and skinny imitation chips are never anything better. Back to the van.

The two girls were sitting in the back with Maisie, hands wrapped round mugs of tea, as there was an edge to the wind. I set down the takeaway food and handed the newcomers the other purchase I had made, a couple of cheap fleece tops.

“These will take some of the chill off. Got my tea there, Maisie?”

She handed me a brimming mug, and I left them to get outside their meals before raising an eyebrow to Rachel.

“You were telling us what happened, love. What made you get out”

She did the usual staring-into-her-mug thing for a few seconds, then drew in a long breath.

“All we were doing was sharing our dreams, Debbie. Nothing weird, nothing to do with sex or anything like that. Just what it might be like if we went on to college, living away from home. Being ourselves. The other students would be more open-minded. We’d talk about who was in the news, people like us. It was all a game of ‘what if?’. Nothing more, but we didn’t know he was listening, until we got a few weeks into the new year at school, and we had an assembly, and our year head, he steps up and says ‘We have an announcement, boys and girls, so would Dean and Maxwell stand up?’, so we did, and he says ‘These two think they want to be girls, so I want you all to keep am eye on them and make sure they know where boys go and girls go’, and it all got nasty”

She sucked on a last chip, staring past me into the car park, and Emma spoke up, her voice trembling, unsteady.

“I had some Christmas money, so we bunked off school at dinnertime, and I… I borrowed some clothes from my big sister, and we got the train, and that was all the money just about gone, and I’d heard things about that charity, that they had beds for people on the streets, but I didn’t realise how much they hate queers. I think they rang the police on the second night”

Thank god whoever responded to the call had been switched on, was my first thought. The second, close behind it, was that it explained the urgency in Nita’s tone when she had asked me to do the pick-up.

“Girls?”

“Yes?”

“Either of your Dads like to get physical? Either of them the sort to go looking for you?”

Rachel looked at her friend, then back at me.

“They might”

“Then Maisie can explain the security arrangements at the House while I get us on the road again. You don’t mind riding in the back for the next, last bit?”

I swallowed the last of my own chips, dumping the debris in a skip before using some wet wipes to clean my hands and chin. Out of the car park and back onto the M4, as Maisie prattled away about security and the quality of the doors. Down the motorway to Morganstown, and the turn off for the last few miles to Adamsdown and home. I took the Transit round to the back, and made sure I got the doors open before the gurls left the back of the van, carrying the bags of food along with some of the bunkbed parts. Nobody else was in, just for once, so I left the mattresses in the van for later slave availability, and once more got the kettle going.

“Maisie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do me a favour and show them where everything is. They’ve got nothing to put away, so it shouldn’t take long. I am doing some hot choc if anyone wants some”

I got three confirmed requests for that offer, so I set the mugs onto the coffee table in the living room while I selected some music to relax to. As Indianola Mississippi Seeds moved onto its second track, thankfully, the girls returned. Sighs of contentment were the only competition for the music as the chocolate steadily disappeared, and then there was a bang at the back door, which set both of the newcomers jerking upright. The first head to appear around the inner door was Cathy’s.

“You having choccie without us? Not fair!”

I laughed, showing her how my mug was part-full.

“Kettle’s still warm, and there’s fresh tins in the cupboard if you want to make your own. Come in and take a seat when you’re done, please, and I’ll do the introductions. Oh, and you can give me a hand later. Nell with you?”

“Yeah. She’s making our drinks. What do you need?”

“Got a few bits of bed to bring in, including a couple of mattresses and some single fitted sheets and duvets, that’s all. Not heavy, just awkward to handle up the stairs. OK with that?”

“Not a problem. Hiya, you two. I’m Cathy, and Nell is making our drinks, so we’ll be in with you in a few. What’s for tea tonight, Debbie?”

“Ah, yeah. I am planning some jacket potatoes with chilli on them. Could one of you give Kim a ring and let her know? She might be bringing something else home, and I don’t like to waste stuff”

“Will do”

Ten minutes later, we were all warmed up and settled into the softer chairs, Mr King turned down a little, and all girls chatting away about their backgrounds, although the newer pair were still a little reticent. Rachel asked the obvious question.

“It’s all girls here? Like us, that is?”

Nell nodded.

“Took me a while to get it, but yes. All people like us. Those the only clothes you have?”

Emma pointed to the two small rucksacks by the hall door.

“Our school uniforms in those, that’s all”

Cathy sighed, raising the back of her hand to her forehead.

“Oh dear, dear me. We shall have to take those things to a charity shop, and then go shopping for new clothes. Oh, the humanity! How shall we ever cope?”

As Emma and Rachel broke into laughter that moved from nervous to a far more relaxed sound, and Nell and Maisie tried not to snort out their chocolate, I took another look at Cathy, my worries about her easing. Perhaps it was a reflex in her, one that matched my own, as well as that of Kim and Pat, so many others. Give her someone else that needed help, and her own problems faded into the background. Whatever the reason, it pleased as well as relieved me.

In the end, we decided to wait for Sparky’s next visit before erecting the bunks, and Emma and Rachel agreed to sleep on the mattresses side by side on the floor, after we had done a team job in the kitchen to prepare my version of chilli (with pineapple chunks, sweetcorn and mushrooms: my food, my house, my cooking), served on slightly blackened jacket potatoes primed with melted cheese. Kim brought home a tray of apple crumble for afters, Nell popping out to the corner shop for some tinned custard, and all in all it was a wonderfully relaxed evening, up to the point I collared Kim when she was putting some dishes away, and we had a little privacy.

“Kim?2

“Yeah?”

“A little bird tells me you have an interest in one of my friends”

“She blushed fiercely red.

“Was it Maisie? I only told her cause she’s, cause I thought it might calm her down, stop her being so scared”

“She didn’t tell me who, love”

Her head slumped.

“Not something could ever happen, is it? He’s got a missus, an old lady they call her. He’s just so gorgeous, and he’s a nice guy as well”

The truth hit me with a bang.

“You fancy Oily, then?”

“Well, who wouldn’t? I’m just… I’m just the same as any other girl, aren’t I? And he’s always so nice, so gentle, and… Look, there’s a couple of lads come into the café, and try and chat me up, yeah? One of them’s a tosser, but the other one’s not bad, and… I get dreams, Debbie, and they’re simple ones, not shagging ones, not like that. It’s just someone’s arms around me, someone’s chest to rest my head against. Just being held, kept safe”

Naturally, I stepped forward to hug her, and she settled back against me.

“Yeah, and when you hold me, it’s nice, and it’s what saved my life, and I will always be grateful, Deb. Always. Just, sometimes, I see couples, and I wonder, and it hurts, and I say to myself, will that ever be for me?”

She turned round in my arms, her head tilting a little to one side as her eyes sought mine.

“Debbie, I don’t want to be rude, but I really think you know exactly what I mean”