Free Courting Trouble by Kathy Lette Page A

then drew herself in against Roxy like a small animal in need of a place to hide, her hands clutching at my mother’s sleeve. She started weeping. I looked down at her face pityingly. The nurse came back to administer a sedative.
    ‘Don’t fret, pet,’ my mother said soothingly, stroking the girl’s lank hair. ‘I’m going to get the mongrels who did this.’
    ‘Is . . . is Gran . . . in . . . trouble?’ Chantelle whimpered.
    ‘Not if we can help it, possum,’ Roxy said. ‘Isn’t that right, Tilly?’
    ‘Chantelle,’ I probed gently, ‘are you sure your grandma attacked the right men?’
    The young woman nodded. As she turned her head towards me, I saw the necklace of bruises, dark as an aubergine, ringing her throat.
    ‘Are you one hundred per cent sure the photos she took were of the perpetrators?’
    ‘I know ’em. From round the estate. They load the girls up with alcohol and drugs an’ that. They make all the girls do stuff they don’t wanna do. I told my friends not to get treated like pieces of meat. They attacked me ’cause I didn’t want nuffink to do with ’em. They trapped me. They threatened to burn my gran alive if I refused to give ’em a shiner. That scared me. I thought to meself “Don’t be a baby. Just get on and do it, to save Gran.” But I couldn’t. I screamed and fought and then they ripped my top off and shoved my skirt up . . .’
    A sorrow as black as night invaded me. I felt my throat clamping. The stairwell where she was attacked must have echoed like a cave. But nobody came.
    Her eyes began to glaze over with the dull impassivity of medication. Soon the only hint that Chantelle was breathing at all was the relentless trembling of her legs beneath the sheet.
    ‘If there’s anything you need, you call me, all right?’ My mother tore a piece of paper from her diary, scribbled down her number and left it on the nightstand. ‘I’ll be back tonight to check up on you.’
    We closed the door softly and stood for a moment bathed in the harsh fluorescent light, staring at each other.
    ‘That poor girl needs counselling. Can we get her some kind of help?’
    Roxy trudged down the hospital corridor towards the lift. ‘If a trial’s coming up, then the police discourage counselling. If Chantelle says anything different to the counsellor than what she says to the police, the defence could use it against her.’
    ‘But a trial may be six or nine months away. Besides, do you think she’ll be strong enough to give evidence?’
    My mother shrugged, stabbing the lift button. ‘Right now she’s in startled-deer mode. But if she’s anything like her gran . . .’
    The lift doors suddenly suctioned open and we were staring right into the face of one of Chantelle’s attackers. It was the wiry, thin one we’d seen in Phyllis’s photos. He had a diamond earring in his right lobe and prison-issue clothing – a navy sweatshirt, matching jogging bottoms and black plimsolls, and was handcuffed to an officer my mother knew.
    ‘Jeez, Ray. Don’t
you
get all the cushy jobs. Have you charged the bastard yet?’
    ‘He’ll be formally charged down at the station. They want forensics first.’ He held up the accused’s clothes, which had been bagged to prevent hair and fibres from falling off.
    ‘Where’s the other scuzzy dirtbag?’ Roxy said, as we stepped into the lift.
    ‘Surgery. Shot his ball right off.’ The policeman winced. ‘Nearly hit the femoral artery.’
    ‘And this drongo?’
    ‘Leg wound and slight graze on one nut. He’ll live.’
    ‘Unfortunately.’ My mother glowered at the man in cuffs.
    ‘Oy!’ The rapist who went by the name of Bash thrust his head forward like a raptor. ‘I neva done nuffink,’ he said in a Norf London accent. ‘Weez innocent, yeah.’ Even at long range, his breath hit you like a solid block. It then melted and just slithered down your face, leaving a trail of nacho cheese and onion relish. ‘Some mad hag comes and blasts us