As Dolly saw it, there was nothing else she could do. Forget Her Royal Highness Annie Bailey coming in here queening it over all the mere mortals, that was nothing. It soured Dolly’s mood, but her mood was sour anyway, after what she’d been through and what she’d seen.
Dad and Sarah, walking down the street.
And – oh God – the expression on Sarah’s face. That haunted Dolly. Made her wake in the night, moaning in terror for her little sis. Sometimes, she succeeded in blanking it from her mind, but it always crept in, always came back and tormented her.
Supposing what happened to me happens to little Sar?
The baby came into her brain again, the dead baby with Dad’s face.
No. She couldn’t allow it. She couldn’t let Sarah go through the same horror. She wouldn’t.
So one morning when Celia was alone in the kitchen, having her ‘elevenses’, Dolly went in there, closed the door behind her and said to Celia: ‘I have to talk to you.’
Celia was making tea, squinting past the thin spiral of smoke coming up from her posh ciggie holder. ‘All right, Doll. You want a cuppa?’
Dolly shook her head and sat down at the table. She’d barely kept down her breakfast; she couldn’t face tea, not right now.
‘What’s up then?’ Celia asked with a brisk smile, coming to the table with her cup and saucer and sitting down.
Dolly took a breath. She didn’t know how to start.
Celia looked at Dolly’s face. ‘In your own time, lovey,’ she said more gently. ‘What is it then?’
Still, Dolly could barely form the words. She felt like they would choke her.
‘What is it, you want to come off the game?’ Celia sipped her tea. ‘That don’t matter, Doll. Don’t you fret. You can dust around, get the bloody Hoover out, it ain’t the end of the world. You’re one of the family now, we won’t turn you out.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Dolly, but she was touched.
‘Then what? Come on, I won’t bite.’
‘Celia . . . when we first met, when I was out on the streets . . .’
‘Yeah. Go on then.’
‘I was on the streets because I couldn’t stay at home any longer.’
‘Right.’
Dolly bit her lip, looked down at the table. She felt a hot wash of shame sweep over her; whenever she thought of being back there, she felt again the humiliation of it, the embarrassment, the awful guilt.
‘Take your time,’ said Celia, watching Dolly’s face with concern. ‘Whatever you got to say, you won’t shock me, Doll. And I won’t judge. You must know that by now.’
‘It started when I was nine, nearly ten,’ said Dolly, her mouth dry while she could feel sweat breaking out on her brow.
‘What did?’
Dolly took a big breath and began to speak. As she spoke, Celia’s forgotten fag burned down to nothing in its ivory holder, the ash dropping unheeded on to the table. Dolly spoke for almost a quarter of an hour, and when she was finished she looked like someone had whipped all the life out of her.
‘Holy Christ,’ said Celia when silence fell at last. ‘You poor little cow. I always wondered what had gone on with you, Doll, but I didn’t think of that. The rotten bastard.’
‘There’s worse,’ said Dolly.
‘What the fuck could be worse?’
‘He’s doing it to my little sis now. To Sarah.’
‘How do you know that, Doll? You been back there?’
‘I stood down the street . . .’ Dolly hesitated, searching for the right words. ‘I saw him, how he was with her. And I saw her face. I know it’s happening, Celia. And it’s got to stop.’
Celia noticed her fag had gone out. She scooped the ash up, put it in her Capstan ashtray, shook out another cigarette from the packet, stuck it in the ivory holder and lit it. ‘Fucking hell, Doll, what a shocker.’
‘Celia.’ Dolly’s chest was tight with tension; she felt she was going to be sick, having to tell all this; it was like living it all over again. ‘We got to get the Delaneys involved with this.’
‘Yeah.’ Celia nodded. ‘Sure we can do that. They can give the old cunt a shot across the bows, make sure it don’t happen any more.’
Dolly’s face was hard all of a sudden. ‘No. That’s not good enough. Not nearly good enough.’
‘Doll . . .’
‘He has to die,’ said Dolly.