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that,’ she muttered sullenly as she went in search of Sienna.
     
    She found her room-mate behind the pavilion. The boys had cornered a mole, one of many that ruined their soccer field, and they were trying to pulverise it with cricket balls. Sienna had other ideas and stood guard over it, screaming defiance as her legs took the hits.
    ‘Stop it!’ Chris yelled. ‘Look what you’ve done. She’s badly bruised. The Head’s on his way. You guys better piss off.’ The mole took the opportunity to escape under the pavilion and the boys moved off in a fury.
    ‘Thank you,’ Sienna said, without turning away.
    ‘Listen, Sienna. I’m taking extra gym lessons. Would you like to come along? We could go to dinner afterwards. Evidently we’re going to share a dorm’ so we might as well get to know each other.’
    Sienna looked doubtful, but she came along…just to watch.
    She was fourteen years old and she’d never been to school. Instead she’d had tutors. Consequently she’d never played any ball games, never been on long hikes, never swum, rowed, sailed, skated, skied, played truant, got up to mischief, kissed a boy or danced. It was like freeing a captive birdlong confined. Sienna had to be coaxed out, little by little, but for all she could teach her, Sienna taught Chris much more. But finally she failed to rescue her friend, and the hurt caused by that failure is ongoing. Each time
    Chris falls asleep, the scene is replayed in her dreams: Sienna fighting madly, as she’d taught her, kicking out at the thugs, yelling for help, but help comes too late. So where have they taken her? Will she be found? Chris can’t bear to think of how her friend must be suffering. Are they treating her well, or is she buried alive in a hole in the ground, terrified and waiting to die?

CHAPTER FOUR
    After a week spent moping in hospital and worrying about Sienna, Chris is delighted to be discharged. There’s a great world out there waiting to be lived, she tells herself, but she soon finds that nothing has changed. On her very first evening, Chris sprawls on the rug in the living-room trying to read while Mum watches her favourite soap opera without asking Chris if she’d like to watch another channel. Chris swallows her irritation. Once she adored her mother and the intensity of her feelings dominated her young life. Later came the painful realisation that Mum isn’t perfect, not by any means, so her feelings are a mixture of love and irritation. She admires Mum’s stoic attitude to every setback and her careless acceptance of life’s gifts which she squanders without regret, not the least their limited cash. Mother lives life with a light touch. She often says: ‘Why should I worry? I’m always lucky. Something will turn up.’
    And something always does because Chris is out there in the marketplace fighting to win: for Mum, for her clients, their daily bread, the interest on half a dozen credit cards and her mortgage payments.
    Two years ago, compassion was added to her mixed feelings for her mother when she came home late and found her in tears. She quickly calculated. Mum would be fifty-eight in a week’s time.
    ‘Why Mum! Whatever is it?’
    ‘It’s nothing…loneliness perhaps.’ Hugging her secret sadness, Mum gathered her book and fled to her bedroom.
    Nowadays Chris returns home early, work permitting, with her briefcase full of discs…home being her modest, semi-detached house in Finchley. This is exactly why her clients’ compulsory social events are becoming the highlights of her days.
    Twenty-nine is a trying age for a girl. Thirty lurks in the wings like an aging prompter whispering phrases that no one wants to hear, like: ‘It’s long past midnight, Cinderella. Perhaps you missed your cue. ’
    ‘Shut up! I have a great career, that’s enough.’
    Chris cuts short her allowed recovery time and goes back to work.
     
    Every measuring instrument screams danger: ozone, pollen, moisture levels, and just