hurrying, trying to get home from
work before they got too wet. Jo didn’t change her pace; she was wet now anyway. As she walked, she watched the pattern the rain made in the puddles, circles that appeared and disappeared;
bubbles that bloomed then popped. She kept her head down; she didn’t want any of the neighbours seeing her and asking after her mum. Not that anyone was likely to want to hang around and chat
in this weather, and come to think of it, people tended not to ask these days, anyway. Her mum had borrowed money and failed to return it too many times. The rain hit the pavements so hard it
bounced off again and created a mist which gusted along the black tarmac. Wide, rippling streams of water ran noisily along the gutters. It felt right somehow. It felt like an ending.
For the last few years, they’d lived on one of the tattiest roads in Newquay, and today it looked even worse than usual. There was as much furniture outside on the street as in the houses,
by the look of it. She passed a double mattress propped up against the wall and a ripped armchair with an old reel-to-reel tape recorder on the seat, all getting sodden in the rain. Sometimes, she
struggled to remember what things had been like before, when they’d lived in a nice house in a nice road where people mowed their lawns on Saturdays and washed their cars on Sundays. She
couldn’t even picture her bedroom in that house now.
When she let herself back in, it felt like she’d been away for ten years rather than ten hours. Time was all wrong in hospitals. The flat felt cold and damp, more so than usual. She
stooped to pick up the post, walked through to the kitchen and switched on the light, waiting while the fluorescent tubes flickered into life, then she turned on the radio – a reflex action
– just in time to hear Abba joyfully singing the chorus of ‘Mamma Mia’. She turned the radio off, threw the post onto the table and went over to the sink where the pan from last
night’s spaghetti Bolognese was soaking in the bowl, a greasy orange scum floating on top of the cold washing-up water. Apart from the tea and biscuits they’d given her at the hospital
this morning, she hadn’t eaten a thing since last night, so still in her coat, she opened the fridge, ate some corned beef with her fingers, then poured a glass of milk and drank it straight
down. She felt in her pocket for the tiny lump of hash Rob Trelawney had given her yesterday, then took her coat off and sat at the table to roll a spliff. She wasn’t very good at it, not
like Rob, but then he smoked all the time. To Rob, spliffs were like cigarettes. She lit the thin, inexpertly rolled joint and took a deep drag, letting the calm wash over her. It definitely numbed
things a bit. That’s what her mum used to say about drinking. ‘It’s only a drop of sherry, Jo-Jo, just to take the edge off .’
Some of the post was for her, some for her mum. There was a reminder to take her books back to the library, and a pink envelope in Sheena Smith’s handwriting. Sheena was one of the few
girls she’d kept in touch with from school. She opened the envelope; Thank You card for the tights and bath salts Jo had given her for her birthday. There was a gas bill and a letter from the
hospital, both addressed to her mother. The gas bill was a red reminder; Jo slid it between the salt and pepper pots to remind herself to phone them tomorrow. And she should phone Mr Rundle, the
landlord, too, and the Social Security; and there would be loads of others. She’d better make a list. The hospital letter sounded like a telling-off because her mum had ‘failed to
attend’ for her fortnightly blood test. Another appointment had been made and would she please notify them if she was unable to keep it. The letter went on about wasting time and using up an
appointment that another patient might be able to take blah blah blah. Jo snatched up a green felt tip pen that was lying in the