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Chapter One
I didn't know what he hit me with. Something hard, that's all, something hard against the back of my head and then lights out, I hit the floor. I felt myself hit the floor, felt the ridged cord carpet stinging my hands, and my cheekbone hitting the ridges, and the sharp rebound of my head. It was dark, as if I'd gone blind in that instant, but I knew he was still standing over me, I knew he was still hitting me, even though I couldn't feel it.
I opened my eyes. A thin, angular face leaning over me, young, Asian, wearing dark lipstick. He was gone - she leaned over me and I smelled her perfume, flowery, sweet. I realised that I was screaming; I tried to stop, tried to suck in breath, but the air caught in my throat and I couldn't get it into my lungs and it hurt from the effort and I had to be able to breathe, I needed air.
"It's okay," the woman said. "Shh, shh, it's okay."
She was holding a roll of kitchen towel against my head, and there was blood spattered on her lilac blouse. I was lying on the floor in her shop, in the narrow aisle between the shelves, and there was my blood on her blouse. I tried to stand, tried to apologise, but I couldn't get beyond sitting up, and she was holding me down, one hand anchoring my shoulder, repeating, "Shh, it's okay."
My skirt was rucked up over my knees. There was a big hole in my tights, and slight grazes on my knees, and one of my shoes was lying near the door, just out of my reach.
The woman bending over me said, "What happened?"
I tried to think back, but then I couldn't breathe, the air caught in my throat again, and I couldn't swallow it down. "He hit me," I managed to say, and then I was so surprised by my words that I didn't know what else to say.
There were other people in the shop. An older Asian man with a heavy moustache coming round from behind the counter, a young black woman in a yellow sweatshirt framed in the open doorway with the sunlight so bright behind her. The woman kneeling over me said, "We've called an ambulance."
"No, no," I said, and tried to stand up again, but I seemed to be attached magnetically to the floor. "I'll be fine. I've got to get back to work, they're expecting me back."
The black woman in the doorway brought me my shoe and said, "Where do you work?"
A dark hole in my mind where the automatic knowledge should have been. I panicked for a moment, then remembered. "Social Services. Round the corner."
She had knelt down to help me put the shoe back on. "I'll go and tell them. What's your name?"
"Jo," I said. "Joanne Elliott."
She left. I should have said thank you, but I didn't think of it in time. I should have told her to tell them not to worry, I'd be fine once I'd managed to stand up, once my head had stopped bleeding. But as soon as I thought that, I could feel the pounding in my head, pulsing deep inside, and I was thirsty, my mouth seemed to be swelling with dryness, and it was cold sitting there on the floor, so very cold. I closed my eyes.
Someone was speaking to me. For a moment I thought it was him, repeating the same words again, but I opened my eyes and there was Colin leaning over me, sweet Colin, such a nice guy, and he put his arm around me, and I understood that the ambulance was coming, I shouldn't worry, everything was going to be fine. And Colin had come out of the office without his jacket, and he must have been cold just in his shirtsleeves, and he was smiling at me then. I wondered whether maybe I'd asked aloud if he was cold, but I couldn't tell.
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