SEVENTY-THREE

She’s not Poppy any more.

Poppy has never felt any of these things; the pain, the howling hunger, the strange and simple desire to be gone for ever. Never screamed until she thought her guts would burst or kicked out at things that were trying to feed on her. Poppy Johnston has never felt as if she were floating above her own body, never imagined damp to be silk or darkness to be sunshine, and never laughed because she believed she was going to die.

Now, she’s somebody else.

She’s not sure who or what she’s become, but then again she’s finding it hard enough to remember who the girl called Poppy was. The one they were presumably still looking for. That girl was like someone she’d seen in a film or read about. A friend of a friend.

Stupid name, anyway . . .

Her nan had never liked it, had always given her mum a hard time. It’s a flower, for God’s sake, her nan would say and whenever her mum pointed out that plenty of girl’s names were the same as flowers, I mean Rose and Daisy for a start, her nan would sit there huffing and puffing for a while, saying the name ‘Poppy’ over and over like she was sucking a lemon or something. Then she’d say, ‘It’s a bloody dog’s name.’

No, not a dog, she thinks now, because dogs are way smarter than she is, than she’d been.

Poppy. Poppy. POPPEE . . .

She says the name over and over again, like her nan had done, until it begins to sound every bit as stupid as her nan thought it was. Saying it and saying it to remind herself that this is who she used to be. Now, it’s just a name to be scratched on to a stone in the abbey or scribbled on a card, left with some flowers. The name of a girl who was probably dippy and forgot where she’d left things and lost expensive phones. Who thought life was pretty great and that bad things didn’t happen to people who didn’t deserve them.

That girl’s shadowy now, faded.

She shuffles through the water until she is pressed hard against the metal pipe, and lets her head fall back against the brick. It’s a dull thud that she can feel down through her shoulders and each day she has begun to do it harder and faster; daring herself, wondering how long it will be before she feels something crack.

She can’t really remember the girl she was and is only just beginning to understand the one that she’s become. She doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but she has come to realise that – were it ever to happen – her parents would not be getting back the same child they had lost.

She lets her head fall back again and again, enjoying it.

She doesn’t know who she is, or where she is, or how long she’s been there.

She knows only that, whatever is coming, she’s ready for the end.

She freezes when she hears something metal rattling above her, and, when the hatch opens, and torchlight dances across the water that’s running down the stone steps, Poppy doesn’t know whether she’s screaming in terror or relief.