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She gave a small shudder of apprehension. They might be lovers, but would they love, and if they did would it be a love that would endure...would she want it to endure? Wouldn’t she be safer, wiser, keeping to the path she had already mapped out for herself, establishing herself securely in her career and then thinking cautiously and sensibly about marriage and a family... finding someone who shared her ideals and her beliefs... someone who would be her friend and partner first, someone who, like her, would put the needs of their children above those of his own senses, his own body?
Highly sensual, highly sexual men were notoriously weak when it came to ignoring temptation. Good for a fling, but not for anything else, as Leigh had once said bitterly of Paul.
She had no evidence to suggest that Marsh was promiscuous—rather the opposite—but he was certainly not the safe, tame, low-sexed partner she had envisaged for herself, and, if she allowed herself to get involved with him, ultimately he would hurt her, or rather she would hurt herself through her own inability to control the intensity he aroused in her.
She didn’t want that intensity. It was a part of herself she rejected.
She remembered as a child her mother sigh and say softly, ‘Poor Leigh. She suffers so much when she loves because she’s so intense.’
Leigh had gone through a series of intense and volatile emotional relationships during her teenage years, and Debra had watched and sworn that she would not suffer as Leigh had done.
She resented her responsiveness to Marsh, she admitted, and she was obsessed by it, at the same time unable to resist reliving over and over again how she had felt when he kissed her. Her very compulsiveness frightened her, and yet she knew that if she had not been seeing Karen tonight she would have gone out with him.
She was glad that she had the weekend ahead of her to give her time to put things into perspective, to help her to clear her mind and to concentrate on reality rather than fantasy.
‘Hello, Karen. How are you?’
Debra smiled warmly, pretending not to notice Karen’s averted face and tense body.
‘Can we go out?’
The curt question startled her, but Debra quickly covered her shock. Karen had never actually addressed any comment directly to her before, and she had certainly never asked her anything like this.
Cautiously warning herself not to read too much into this breakthrough, Debra nodded and said as casually as she could, ‘Yes, I should think so. Where did you have in mind?’
The thin shoulders shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter... anywhere. I just want to get out of here.’
Debra felt a small frisson of anxiety. Karen looked thinner than when she had last seen her. She had very pretty curly hair, which she normally kept scrupulously clean, but today it looked lank and dull.
Karen’s social worker had told Debra that Karen had once had very long hair but that she herself had cut it off.
‘She had literally hacked it off in chunks. That was what first alerted her form teacher to what might be going on. Victims of incest, particularly once they reach their teens and become more aware, often try to mutilate themselves in some way, partially out of self-punishment and partially to deter their abuser.’
‘How about McDonald’s?’ she suggested, thinking quickly. ‘I’ve got my car. We can drive into Chester.’
She held her breath, only releasing it when Karen nodded.
She had to obtain permission to take Karen out, of course, but it was readily given. Karen was not, as some of the children were, an absconder.
She sat silently in the car as Debra drove into the city and parked.
It was a pleasant evening, the sun still out, the city busy with locals and tourists alike.
Karen was wearing a pair of jeans that seemed too big for her and an oversized sweater, not an unusual outfit for a girl of her age, but Debra knew that Karen had a stronger motive than most for concealing, if not rejecting, her sexuality, and she saw the disparaging, bitter looks the girl gave a small group of her peers dressed in mini-skirts, standing chattering outside one of the shops.
‘Tarts,’ she muttered under her breath as they walked past them.
Debra knew better than to chastise her. It was no wonder that Karen felt resentful of them, resentful of their ability to enjoy their growing up, their womanliness... a right which had been ruthlessly taken from her.
McDonald’s wasn’t over-full. They had arrived during the lull between the early- and late-evening business. They collected their food, Debra trying not to wince at the sticky milkshake Karen ordered to go with her burger.
She would never understand the appeal of such food, but she could not deny that it did have an appeal. Her two nieces loved it, despite Leigh’s complaints that it was loaded with sugar.
Karen ate her food in silence. She was sitting facing the window. Suddenly she tensed, the blood leaving her face.
‘It’s him,’ she told Debra in panic. ‘He’s followed me. He’s coming in.’
Shocked, Debra turned her head, thinking that Karen must have seen her stepfather, but all she could see was a sullen-looking teenage boy.
