She stared at me. ‘I don’t care what anyone asks or expects. I want to be with Sam and I’m going to help him out of this. He’d do the same for me.’
‘No. He wouldn’t.’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m not just another one of those slappers! He told me about them. He’s changed since he went in that place. He’s not going to do that no more.’
‘Does it look like he’s changed?’ I waved my hand about at the mess.
‘He told me what happened. Why he’s like this.’
‘What?’ That stopped me dead. Sam had never, as far as I knew, told anyone about Kane.
‘I want to help him.’
I sighed, running my hands through my hair. ‘How are you going to do that?’
‘I’m making sure he eats and takes his meds. I don’t drink no more. I listen. I take his mind off it. I try to give him something to live for. You should be pleased you don’t have to do it all by yourself.’
I nodded. ‘But you understand Sam is extremely vulnerable? Taking care of him is really tough.’
‘I know that! I’m here doing it, aren’t I?’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘You’re sat watching television in a dressing gown in the middle of the afternoon. Look at this place. Did you live like this in your last house?’
She took a packet of cigarettes out of the dressing gown pocket and pulled one out, lighting it with shaking hands.
‘April?’
She ignored me, taking a long drag.
‘Where did you live before you met Sam? Do you have family round here?’
Her eyes flicked from one wall of the room to another. ‘My mum lives in Mansfield. We don’t get on. I’d been sharing a house with a couple of mates but that didn’t work out.’
‘So what will you do if this doesn’t work out?’
She took another long drag. ‘I don’t know. I’ll find something.’
‘Sam said you were at the job centre last week.’
She shrugged. ‘I lost my job when the café closed. Can’t find nothing round here since. I’m not proud, though! I’m looking.’
‘Don’t let Sam get in the way of that.’ I handed her an empty mug to catch the ash dropping off the end of her cigarette.
‘What, like you?’ She grimaced. I didn’t hate April. She was way sharper than she looked. I wondered if she might end up being good for Sam. But would she stick around long enough to find out? Not without help. And a truckload of personal power.
‘What are you doing next Wednesday afternoon?’
The following day was Friday, and at seven-twenty, I knocked on Marilyn’s door with more than a little Hester-induced trepidation.
‘It’s open!’
I stepped inside, to be engulfed in a haze of baking smells – vanilla, cinnamon and coffee. Marilyn appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking as though she’d fallen into the flour shaker.
‘Faith, thank goodness it’s you. I need a pricker.’
‘Excuse me?’
I followed her into the kitchen, where she shoved a fork into my hand and pointed me to a tray of raw shortbread.
