several half-sisters, products of her father’s multiple liaisons, whom even Terri had never met; but Nana Cath tried to keep up with them all, doggedly maintaining contact with the large disconnected family her sons had produced. Occasionally, over the years, relatives Krystal did not recognize had turned up at Nana Cath’s while she was there. Krystal thought that they eyed her askance and said things about her under their voices to Nana Cath; she pretended not to notice and waited for them to leave, so that she could have Nana Cath to herself again. She especially disliked the idea that there were any other children in Nana Cath’s life.
(‘’Oo are they?’ Krystal had asked Nana Cath when she was nine, pointing jealously at a framed photograph of two boys in Paxton High uniforms on Nana Cath’s sideboard.
‘Them’s two o’ my great-grandsons,’ said Nana Cath. ‘Tha’s Dan and tha’s Ricky. They’re your cousins.’
Krystal did not want them as cousins, and she did not want them on Nana Cath’s sideboard.
‘An’ who’s tha’?’ she demanded, pointing at a little girl with curly golden hair.
‘Tha’s my Michael’s little girl, Rhiannon, when she were five. Beau’iful, weren’t she? Bu’ she wen’ an’ married some wog,’ said Nana Cath.
There had never been a photograph of Robbie on Nana Cath’s sideboard.
Yeh don’t even know who the father is, do yeh, yer whore? I’m washin’ my ’ands of yeh. I’ve ’ad enough, Terri, I’ve ’ad it: you can look after it yourself.)
The bus trundled on through town, past all the Sunday afternoon shoppers. When Krystal had been small, Terri had taken her into the centre of Yarvil nearly every weekend, forcing her into a pushchair long past the age when Krystal needed it, because it was so much easier to hide nicked stuff with a pushchair, push it down under the kid’s legs, hide it under the bags in the basket under the seat. Sometimes Terri would go on tandem shoplifting trips with the sister she spoke to, Cheryl, who was married to Shane Tully. Cheryl and Terri lived four streets away from each other in the Fields, and petrified the air with their language when they argued, which was frequently. Krystal never knew whether she and her Tully cousins were supposed to be on speaking terms or not, and no longer bothered keeping track, but she spoke to Dane whenever she ran across him. They had shagged, once, after splitting a bottle of cider out on the rec when they were fourteen. Neither of them had ever mentioned it afterwards. Krystal was hazy on whether or not it was legal, doing your cousin. Something Nikki had said had made her think that maybe it wasn’t.
The bus rolled up the road that led to the main entrance of South West General, and stopped twenty yards from an enormous long rectangular grey and glass building. There were patches of neat grass, a few small trees and a forest of signposts.
Krystal followed two old ladies out of the bus and stood with her hands in her tracksuit pockets, looking around. She had already forgotten what kind of ward Danielle had told her Nana Cath was on; she recalled only the number twelve. She approached the nearest signpost with a casual air, squinting at it almost incidentally: it bore line upon line of impenetrable print, with words as long as Krystal’s arm and arrows pointing left, right, diagonally. Krystal did not read well; being confronted with large quantities of words made her feel intimidated and aggressive. After several surreptitious glances at the arrows, she decided that there were no numbers there at all, so she followed the two old ladies towards the double glass doors at the front of the main building.
The foyer was crowded and more confusing than the signposts. There was a bustling shop, which was separated from the main hall by floor to ceiling windows; there were rows of plastic chairs, which seemed to be full of people eating sandwiches; there was a packed café in the corner; and a kind of hexagonal counter in the middle of the floor, where women were answering enquiries as they checked their computers. Krystal headed there, her hands still in her pockets.
‘Where’s ward twelve?’ Krystal asked one of the women in a surly voice.
‘Third floor,’ said the woman, matching her tone.
Krystal did not want to ask anything else out of pride, so she turned and walked away, until she spotted lifts at the far end of the foyer and entered one