Sofka Zinovieff - Putney

‘I think, Margaret, that perhaps we should wend our way.’ Ed held out a tapering hand, speckled, but still graceful.

‘London is so exhausting,’ said Margaret to Daphne, precluding any misunderstanding about them rushing off. Ed looked grateful at his wife’s attempt to lubricate the situation.

‘We saw Ed’s agent for lunch and hoped to drop into the Royal Academy for an exhibition after that but, wherever you go, it seems to take an hour to get there. We gave up and went home. I’m afraid we’ve become timid country mice.’ She laughed apologetically, satisfied with the excuses.

After the grandparents left, Libby helped clear up while listening to music on headphones. Daphne was relieved not to talk and, after her daughter went to bed, she sat by the window looking out into the night, locating the dark shadow of her old house across the water and watching as the lights were switched off.

She waited until late morning to call Daphne, and managed to fit in a run and a few errands first. It was important to stay close, keep her on track, maintain the momentum of hunting the monster. She admitted that it had become an obsession. The previous evening was not the first time she had spent hours at her computer scrutinising sex-abuse cases. It brought on a satisfying pain, like picking at a scab that was not ready, the raw, pink wound visible below. It wasn’t just the historical cases, it was big business: children drugged and raped on camera then watched by thousands on the deep web; or silicone child sex dolls weighted to feel like real children when you carried them to bed.

‘Oh God, I think I’m hung-over,’ Daphne said. ‘And I’m just generally feeling crap, like I hate everyone.’ She sounded like a teenager, Jane thought; like Toby the morning after a party. Daphne added, ‘Not you,’ and made a poor attempt at a laugh.

‘Did something happen?’

‘Not really. Seeing Ed wasn’t the easiest thing. And it’s definitely unsettling knowing that Ralph was arrested and I’m the mysterious, unnamed thirteen-year-old in the media.’

‘Yes, I can imagine that’s strange.’

‘Oh, by the way, when I told Ed I’d become friends with you again, he said I should invite you to his party. His eightieth. On the 17th. I don’t know if you’re interested?’

‘Great. I’d love to. Thank you. Hey, do you feel like company? I could come over.’ Jane asked tentatively, unsure of her ground, wary of pressing too hard, but she was surprised by Daphne’s reaction.

‘Ah! That would be so nice. I don’t think there’s anyone else that I can talk to about this whole thing. It’s such a muddle. I still haven’t managed to tell Libby.’

They walked over the river and had lunch at the Star and Garter opposite Putney Pier. Extravagant quantities of artisan cheeses arrived on a large board from a special cheese room and Daphne chose a nice burgundy (‘my treat’) as though she knew something about wines. ‘Yes, at least my time with Constantine gave me a crash course in fine dining! Not much else, though. More of a car crash, otherwise.’ She smiled and scowled simultaneously.

Jane didn’t usually drink in the middle of the day, and the wine went to her head with a rush, summoning memories of when she and Daphne sneaked drinks from the Greenslays’ large supply – it was never missed.

Once, when they were thirteen, Daphne came over to Wimbledon with half a bottle of whisky and an already opened bottle of red wine.

‘Oh God,’ she puffed as if she’d been sprinting. ‘It was so funny. I sat next to this man on the bus. Said I was running away from home. And he believed me. Then I said I was adopted, that my evil parents practised black magic…’ She crowed with laughter and Jane presumed she’d already had a drink. ‘Hilarious. He was getting really worried and offered to help me. Then I got creeped out and went downstairs to escape.’

‘I wish I’d been there.’ They had sometimes played this game on trains, cobbling together alarming stories and trying them out on unsuspecting passengers, but Jane would never have done it alone.

‘Then he came down and wanted to talk some more, so I said, “Please leave me alone, sir!” very loudly.’ Daphne flopped over with laughter and gripped Jane’s arm. ‘The conductor asked him to go upstairs or get off the bus!’

They took alternate swigs from the bottle of wine until it was nearly finished. An unfamiliar heat spread across Jane’s middle and her head couldn’t keep up with her movements. Her mother had cooked shepherd’s pie and didn’t realise that both girls were tipsy. ‘Giddy goats!’ she commented, not unkindly, when they gave a raucous rendition of songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat , shrieking and almost falling off their chairs. They were rehearsing it at school and considered it stupid and babyish.

‘Spastics, more like,’ said David, who was no longer afraid to insult his sister. Her father hardly spoke at the meal, which was normal. He frequently returned home from the office in a state of numbed quiet, though his appearance was always buffed and shined, from his hair to his own father’s leather briefcase that he carried to and fro each day.

‘Only fruit salad for dessert,’ said her mother – tinned fruit with pieces of apple and banana added. Daphne left the cough-syrup-red cherries and then broke a plate while drying up. Afterwards, the girls went back to Jane’s room and got to work on the whisky. Jane disliked the earthy, dangerous hit of the Johnnie Walker that Daphne passed between the two of them, but she took a few sips, watching in admiration as her friend gulped it down, gasping and shuddering each time.

They played Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, over and over until they were word perfect. The lyrics sounded devastatingly sexy and wicked despite their obscurity. They didn’t understand much but intuited the decadent allure of Manhattan’s underbelly and the dark thrill of siren songs. From the chest of drawers, her old dolls sat staring at them below the posters of David Bowie in skintight trousers and zany make-up. On the other wall was a photograph of Donny Osmond, only kept there because Daphne had desecrated his puppyish face by adding warts, horns and vampire fangs, blood dripping down his wholesome chin.

Clumsily, Daphne flicked through a library book. It explained the biology of puberty – Jane was desperate for information that might explain more about this disconcerting and overwhelming phase, in which the ground was constantly shifting, along with one’s body. Daphne squawked at the sensible instructions on self-examination. Wash your hands and sit on the floor… Take a hand mirror… knees apart… inner fleshy lips… discharge … They both laughed until it hurt and there was no way of stopping. Jane later supposed their reaction was mostly due to being drunk, but it was also their awkwardness. Even in that age of supposed liberation and openness, neither of them had an easy word to describe their vulva, caught between the formality of ‘vagina’ and the rudeness of ‘cunt’. Linda, the most ‘experienced’ girl at school, mentioned ‘beef curtains’, and boys’ ‘pork swords’. Jane hated these ugly expressions, but almost worse was ‘front bottom’, as her mother called it. This mysterious ‘down there’ was a place without a name – too scary to be referred to, or denied an existence. Dark, desired, disgusting.

As the light faded, they headed outside. ‘Just going for a walk, Mum.’ Jane felt unsteady, and Daphne was stumbling and acting so abnormally it was getting worrying. They climbed through a hole in the fence of Cannizaro Park, propping each other up and attempting to stifle their high-pitched hilarity. The gardens were locked for the night, quiet and illicit, and filled with beds of tulips – an army of flowers, formal and proud, their brash colours becoming dimmed by the darkening sky.