New Reform: New Reform Quartet, #1

By Jim Lowe

Join Tatum on a journey through a far-reaching dystopian world in "The New Reform Quartet."

This thought-provoking and gripping series explores a wide range of social forces, from corrupt populism and social media influencers to hackers, gangs, old money, and faith. Get ready to be transported to a world where the lines between good and evil are blurred, and the future of humanity hangs in the balance. Follow Tatum as she sets out on a journey of revenge and self-discovery, navigating a complex web of political, social, and economic forces that are tearing the world apart. Whether you're a fan of dystopian or literary fiction, you won't be able to put this series down. Experience the New Reform world today! 

• Language: English
• Publisher: JRSL PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201659240

Jim Lowe

Jim Lowe was a bookseller for a UK retail chain for forty years but has now taken early retirement. He loves books and the creative arts. He is married to Cath and has two grown-up daughters, Beck and Katie. Jim is an active - some might say, an over-enthusiastic - member of his local community in the Worcester area and runs Facebook groups for musicians and writers of all backgrounds and levels of experience. He has also worked closely as a volunteer for BBC Introducing as a filmmaker, and his niche YouTube channel for local artists has had over 300,000 views. He has lived and worked in many locations in England including, Ashbourne, Braintree, Burton-Upon-Trent, Bury St Edmunds, Chelmsford, Derby - where he was born and remains a lifelong Rams fan - Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Tewkesbury and Worcester, where he has lived for more than twenty years.

Book preview

1: ORANGE LADY

Tatum strolled through the quiet streets of the Square Mile on a crisp, autumnal Saturday. Visibility won’t be an issue today, she thought.

In Arlington, she would have attracted attention dressed as she was. But here, in fashionable London, such eccentric orange clothing on a wiry, middle-aged lady would just be a new bourgeois style. The Shoreditch Look or Camden Kitsch. 

Not that Arlington – the hometown she didn’t overly care for - was without its wealthy districts. It was a financial hub for the North West, but it was besieged by run-down housing estates on all sides, with all the architectural missteps of Brutalist designs from the sixties to the nineties well represented. The fashionistas saved their conspicuous style for the capital, on the well-advised grounds of personal safety.

Arlington formed the political fault lines for the country’s extremists. Even those who lived there, who didn’t choose a side, were loud in their opinions. The Militant Middle, the national press called them.

She had stitched up the outfit herself, after rifling through materials on the local market stalls. It was a simple trouser suit, but she had given the trousers a flourish with some outsized flares. She had to give off an impression of eccentricity if she were to go about her business unhindered.

The colour choice was the clincher. It gave the impression to passers-by that she was likely to be a mad cat lady, or some other strange woman, best left to her own devices. She put an immense amount of care into the tints and tones of her textile creation.

She had her orange-tinted sunglasses - the one item that might feasibly be seen as cool – and she carried a large holdall, also home-made, and considerably stronger and more secure than it looked.

Two weeks earlier, she had been working as a cleaner at the unkempt and unloved office tower opposite the mAD Tower. Access would not be an issue. She’d often thought of her late Ma as she wandered around the low-rent offices, efficiently cleaning each one with its drab kaleidoscopic decor of orange and brown. Her family home, like everybody else’s, was decorated like this until the tsunami of black ash and chrome swept them into the history books. This tower never made the transition to the modern world, its designs reaching the mid-seventies before freezing in the headlights of the future.

She took the lift to the thirty-ninth floor. In the sparkling skyscraper opposite, Martin Whitehead’s office was on floor thirty-seven. But she’d done her homework. The older building had lower ceilings - every inch made a crucial difference.

Her earpiece buzzed with the sound of voices running checks on the various feeds. A live stream of the room itself lit up her phone. Since the disastrous Saudi mission, she’d developed a phobia of technology, but she needed a burner for today. She looked forward to disposing of it at the very first opportunity.

If Jack could extract a clear-cut confession, either from Whitehead or his right-hand man, Tony Spicer, she would have no need to intervene today.

She noted the arrival of the scheduled road works and a small group of Traffic Wardens and WPCs. A navy-blue van had appeared for them to shelter in when the time arrived. Jack had been insistent. He didn’t want to risk any innocent bystanders being hurt or killed. Not like last time.

She liked his plan, though it was a little bit ornate for her tastes. Still, she did everything in her power to indulge him. He was giving his life for this.

She had promised to ensure his family’s security and get them into a safe house, should the situation dictate that it was necessary. Tatum had given him her word. It was the least she could do.

He was a first timer - a one and only timer, she thought, darkly - on this mission - an enthusiastic amateur. She, on the other hand, was a professional - and professionals made contingency plans.

She waited for some cloud cover, and slowly pushed at the window that tilted outward. She was careful. A flash of reflective sunlight might draw an eye toward her, leaving her exposed.

She unpacked her high-velocity sniper rifle and slipped into her well-rehearsed routine. There would always be new causes and missions to fight for, but this, for her, could be the closing chapter.

She was ready.

Her burner vibrated. It, too, was an orange flip phone that felt like a sleek clamshell in her hand. She thought of all the secretions that would form an invisible slick across the surface, all the particles that would betray her. The phone touched her hands, fingers and ears, and her breath rested upon the screen and hid away in the microphone. She wondered if a high-intensity fire would eradicate every last trace of her from this traitorous technology. She looked forward to watching the burner burn.

There was only one person who had her number. ‘Hi, Kate.’

‘Is everything in place?’

‘Yes, the girls have sealed the road off. We’re just waiting for Jack to arrive. For the show to begin.’

‘The nearest Senior Officer on duty will take at least ten minutes to reach you. Other patrols could reach the scene sooner, but they would just secure the area.’

A few hundred yards away, she watched Jack’s car pull into an empty street. She watched him leave his old family saloon and smiled as she saw the car indicator lights flash twice. He’d locked the car behind him - as though it mattered if it was stolen.

‘He’s here,’ she said, softly.

‘Good. Remember to use the route I gave you. It has the least CCTV coverage.’ She paused. ‘Good luck.’

Tatum had tried to keep Kate out of this. But she should have known she would find out - and, she admitted to herself, it was helpful to have her expertise and support.

She put the phone away and fixed her gaze onto the room opposite. Her target, if events didn’t quite turn out to plan.

MARTIN WHITEHEAD PICKED up off his imposing desk the only old thing in his office. He traced his fingers over the vintage leather and played with the frayed stitching, then over the faded gold embossed letters: General E. Whitehead. He smiled as he undid the buckle, as he could never understand why it was designed with three slots when obviously only one was required. He opened the binocular case and looped the strap over his head. He put the inside of the case to his nose – he could still smell the pipe tobacco.

Martin paced across the room and looked out of his window. The day was bright, and all was right with his world. He swept the London skyline with his binoculars until he came to the run-down and deserted office block across the way. Today it only heightened his sense of achievement, as he compared it with satisfaction to his glittering palace. His pride and joy.

The old block was the interruption in its otherwise uninterrupted view of the City. It had the nickname of the Burnt Match among the financial folk. On the dark side of the building, invisible from mAD, the top third of the skyscraper had been derelict for years, thanks to a fire in the mid-seventies. Decades of legal wrangling had meant it was a mausoleum housing dead businesses.

Martin was drawn to that old block more than ever today. Maybe he was feeling more emotional than usual. Recognition at last, he thought. And not just for him. Tony, too, was being recognised – his lifelong friend. He loved him more than a brother.

He had never sought the limelight, though sometimes it found him. He had been a good employer: mAD was named Company of The Year time and again thanks to the flexible and innovative bonus and rewards systems for his team. He loved his Creatives, and they loved him.

Something caught his attention from the Burnt Match in his binoculars. He paused and looked a little more closely.

Tatum caught the unmistakeable flash of sunlight from a lens. She bowed her head slightly so that the top of her beret covered her face a little - but not enough that she couldn’t still see Martin Whitehead’s office. The lens reflected on and off for a few seconds, and then it stopped.

He smiled at his reflection, tapping thoughtfully on the bulletproof glass before pushing his fingers through his thick black hair as he wondered who he might dine with that evening - to celebrate.

Opposite, unseen, Tatum stood, still, in her calm, meditative state. She was invisible, dressed to blend into the backdrop of faded orange walls and soiled tan carpets.

2: 1978: THE PUNK AND THE DRESSMAKER

Mrs O’Neill was sitting , knitting and watching TV in her living room, while the usual Saturday afternoon pandemonium broke out in the kitchen/diner of her six-bedroomed home. The vista of the front drive was littered with car parts, and half fixed motorcycles. At the side of the large, Victorian end-terraced house, were two transit vans. The house backed onto the abandoned Arlington Auto Plant , a casualty of the early seventies decline.

The boys were letting off a little steam before they headed into Arlington for some drinking and partying. Since the football season had finished, they’d been restless, bored at the absence of any excitement in their lives.

‘It sounds like it might be getting a little rowdy in there,’ she shouted, trying to attract the attention of her husband, Donald, who was in his study going over his ledgers. He had been oblivious to the commotion.

Tatum, aged fourteen, was arguing with her younger brother Gabriel, who was twelve but already bigger than her – and she was tall – while two of her older brothers Patrick and David, continued to goad Gabriel on.

Gabriel and Tatum were grappling; Tatum pushed him back, made a little room and tried to knee Gabriel in the stomach. David, like a boxing coach at the side of the ring, shouted, ‘Come on Gabriel, you can’t let a girl win,’ just as he landed a sharp punch to her rib cage, and the thin, sandy-haired girl went down.

‘That’s more like it,’ Patrick yelled. ‘Now finish her – go on, never let them get back up.’

Gabriel hesitated for a second and Tatum launched herself at him with a roar, the two of them crashing into the standing Patrick and David, leaving the four of them in a writhing heap on the floor.

David laughed. ‘I told you, didn’t I? See what happens when you don’t do as your brothers tell you.’

The door opened with a crack. In their Da’s icy, imposing presence, the laughter stopped immediately. The boys got up quickly, Tatum more slowly and with a sullen look toward her Da.

Donald The Don O’Neill was a businessman – at least as far as his wife was concerned. She knew that’s what she should tell the authorities, should it ever become necessary to do so. In fact, he was an arms dealer, though a fair proportion of his profits were made from money lending to the poor and desperate in and around Arlington. His sons provided expert help in extracting money from, or dispatching non-payers. Rival organisations knew he had links with the Ulster Freedom Fighters in Belfast – a fact which made him a big shark in a small pool.

‘What’s going on?’

His friends knew Patrick as Killer, even at the tender age of eighteen, but that moniker was not mentioned in the family home out of respect for his Ma. He was a shaven-headed, muscle-bound young man, but even he was afraid of his Da. He nodded toward Gabriel to answer.

Gabriel stood to attention. ‘Tatum wouldn’t make the tea.’

‘Make the tea,’ Donald said, without looking at the girl, who stormed off to the kitchen.

Donald said, ‘Where’s Andrew?’

‘Cleaning his motorbike – he’s legal now.’

Donald looked Gabriel in the eyes until he flinched and turned away.

Tatum looked back through the kitchen, into the large but sparsely furnished dining area. Patrick was briefing Gabriel on tactics to defeat her next time. The more she strained to hear his instructions, the louder the kettle rumbled and whooshed. She noted his movements, which she interpreted as a feint to her right, followed by moves to attack her on the left.

He thinks I’m weaker on that side, she thought. She resolved to practice for as long as it took until she could punch and kick as well with her left as she could with her right.

As the kettle piped down, she heard Patrick say, ‘Of course, in a real-life situation, you would put them down, any means necessary, to make sure they couldn’t get back up. If that means you break a fucking arm or leg, then so be it.’

Tatum was aware that her Da was still coldly assessing her and she felt the need to make haste in finishing the tea. She poured the kettle into a huge teapot that acted as a physical workout for her right arm as she lifted it and poured enough tea for seven.

LATER, SHE AND HER Ma sat talking, making clothes. It had become something of a Saturday night tradition. She was already in her pyjamas, deathly pale, with the family’s trademark sandy hair and sharp features. ‘I don’t know how you put up with them, Ma,’ she said, softly.

‘Now, now, they are good providers. I’m proud of my boys and your Da. It’s not easy providing for a family of seven, I can tell you.’

‘Well, I’m not going to live like this.’

‘No dear, I don’t suppose you will.’ She sat quietly for a moment, before changing the subject. ‘What are you making?’

‘I’m doing some punk outfits for my mates and me. I’m getting paid for it.’

‘Is that the loud music you play in your room? One of these days I swear you’ll come crashing through the ceiling, jumping around to that silly Car Crash song.’

‘Ma! It’s not Car Crash, it’s Carcass.’

‘Well, it sounds like a car crash. Do you have to play it so loud?’

Tatum didn’t answer, concentrating on a few critical stitches. ‘Ma? Why did I have to be called Tatum?’

‘Tatum is a film star name, and you were my little star.’

‘But it’s so American. I hear the other kids at school – taking the piss when they think I’m not around – Tay-term, makes you squirm. It doesn’t fit who I am.’

‘That’s just kids being silly – you shouldn’t let words hurt you.’

Tatum chose to ignore this piece of advice.

Her Ma tried to catch Tatum’s eyes, but Tatum was determined not to show any weakness, so she kept her gaze fixed on her garment until the subject moved on.

Her Ma surrendered, ‘What would you have chosen if you could, when you were my babe in arms?’

‘Something anarchic - like Siouxie - then I could have been a Red Indian Punk.’

‘I never question your Da, but I had to fight my corner to name you Tatum. He went into a right grump about it, but as you were just a girl, he let me. Eventually.’

‘What did Da want to call me?’

‘Gracie.’

‘But that’s your name!’

‘I think he thought it showed his love and respect for me. Not that he’d ever admit that.’

‘So, would I have been called Junior or something?’

‘Don’t be silly dear! I’d still be Ma, and you would have been my Grace.’

Tatum was struggling a little with the sewing. The trouble with Punk outfits, she had discovered, was all the slippery fabrics.

‘It might be an idea to baste it, before cutting,’ her Ma said, softly. ‘Then use some French seams for the sewing. You won’t get those nasty fraying edges, and it’s a beautiful stitch.’

She leant over to examine Tatum’s work, ‘Do you need any help?’

Tatum started to giggle.

‘What is it, child?’ Mrs O’Neill broke out into a warm smile.

‘My Ma wants to help me make clothes for punks. You are so sweet.’

‘I’ll tell you something sweetheart: I’d make anything with you; I look forward to our quiet Saturday evenings together more than anything else.’

3: BULLET POINTS

At her run-down comprehensive school, in the undeveloped area of Arlington, Tatum struggled with her schoolwork. The other kids bore the brunt of her frustration.

However, her home-schooling gave her skills that even the toughest boys hadn’t learned yet, as she pummelled and wrestled all-comers. She didn’t have a weight or much of a height advantage over the kids that she had perceived had slighted her, but she was wiry to the point of being made out of industrial cable. Even when a blow was landed on her, she would laugh and offer her congratulations, before landing sharp blows and wrapping her arms and legs around her opponent, slowly suffocating them until they submitted, defeated and exhausted.

She once broke the arm of a much-feared bully. Her parents were summoned to the school, as she faced expulsion, but on seeing Donald O’Neill and his four boys, the Headmaster relented and let her off with a final warning. The Headmaster discreetly put Tatum into the C Stream, which didn’t officially exist, with the other kids who were just about given up on.

Tatum, though, learned another valuable lesson: she could win as many fights as she wanted, just as long as she didn’t inflict any visible and lasting harm. Her Da had made it clear: he had far more important business to conduct than going to school to bail her out.

In the C Stream, Tatum grew like a vibrant weed in waste ground. There was one teacher assigned to get them through most lessons (or just about). Mr Hood was motivated by a salary and a quiet life and was more than happy to let the class run riot while he read his collection of thrillers. The only time he stepped in to intervene was when one of the pupils threatened to walk out. It was his one rule, and the rest of the class could get away with almost anything, as long as they didn’t cross that red line.

Mr Hood was still only in his late twenties but had long since given up on a career in teaching. He had a thick moustache, and his eyes peered out from his long, lank black greasy hair, like a light from a cinema screen before the drab velvet curtains had been fully withdrawn.

Mr Hood justified his role: he always made an effort to begin every lesson in the traditional method. He introduced every subject, trying to make it as interesting as possible, and occasionally he made it as far as fifteen minutes into the lesson before the disruption would begin. He would offer a half-hearted appeal for quiet, before returning to his books.

Tatum, for her part, felt a burning sense of injustice with the education system she had been exposed to, and ridiculed by. She absolutely knew that she had intelligence - this was obvious because most of her so-called peers were so stupid.

Ok - they could do all sorts of tricks with reading and writing that she couldn’t do. They could look at pages without using their fingers, and she was sure they were cheating when they turned the pages quickly.

Tatum fought the words on the page like she fought the children in the school, and it was just as exhausting, if not so exhilarating. Her white-knuckled fingers pressed down on every word on the page as if it were an insect that would fly away if she didn’t pin it down by its wings.

She believed that the system was designed for speed and nothing to do with education, as she could understand the writing if only, they gave her the time.

Mr Hood was not particularly thrilled to have been given his first permanent teaching assignment in a class that contained the infamous Tatum O’Neill, the most disruptive and violent pupil in the school. The first few weeks were a time of establishing a new leader for the class, and it soon became clear that it wouldn’t be him.

Once the battles were fought, with frightening ferocity on Tatum’s part, she soon became the Head Girl of the Damned and the Doomed.

Mr Hood began his lessons, in the vain hope of reaching the class, as usual. On one occasion he was introducing Physics when he heard a loud, ‘Sssh!’

Tatum blazed over a look to her bedraggled classmates as a final warning, and although the kids were tough, they still didn’t invite beatings willingly. Tatum said, ‘I will hear this, even if I have to come back to it after I’ve given someone a good kicking. Now shut the fuck up.’

Mr Hood knew he should challenge Tatum’s swearing at least, but he sensed a rare opportunity to teach, so he continued to try and explain velocity and gravity.

Tatum didn’t need to raise a hand to ask, ‘And how does that affect a bullet?’

Mr Hood wiped the blackboard clean, the first time since the beginning of the school year many months before, and he drew a large circle, representing the Earth. He put a white chalk dot at the centre, with arrows pointing inward at the dot, like spokes in a bicycle wheel and he explained how the centre was pulling everything back into it.

Tatum was paying close attention to Mr Hood, but also to the slightest of transgressions from her fellow students.

He continued to draw a matchstick figure of a man, on the surface of his chalked Earth and gave the man a gun that fired dotted lines that curved around, until the bullet lines came to rest on the Earth’s surface, represented by the edge of the chalk circle.

He wanted to continue, but Tatum halted him. He watched, as she copied into her notebook, slowly but carefully the drawing he had made.

Mr Hood mulled over what had happened and began to work guns and bullets into as many lessons as possible. The required reading for English became his favourite thriller novels, especially those containing snipers and spies. Mathematics provided the geometry of the marksman, Religious Education included the quiet mind of the skilled assassin, and even Geography touched on terrain, and how the weather conditions could impact on the trajectory of a bullet.

4: JIGSAW PIECES

The last thing she expected from school was an education.

Mr Hood gave her time to make her notes, and she became fascinated by time and how she could slow it down to suit her, if only she were left the fuck alone.

Tatum embraced her perceived slowness as her own personal super-power. In her room, she practised moving as slowly as she could, and then trying to remain as still as possible.

Being the only girl in this dystopian band of brothers she found it none too difficult to fade away from the family view, but soon she perfected the art of disappearing completely.

She held a motionless position in a room for long enough that the awareness of her presence dwindled to next-to-nothing. Then she would watch. Patterns formed; her Ma when not doing her chores would be the constant in the room, knitting, fixing the men’s clothes, and watching soaps, while her Da and her sons, came and went.

Sometimes she would believe that her stillness endowed her with a cloak of invisibility, especially when conversations took place that didn’t take her proximity into account.

She became engrossed in the operational prowess of her cold-hearted Da, as he ordered his sons to check the condition of hundreds of weapons.

He was thorough, and he trained the boys accordingly. He carried out monthly inventories against his handwritten ledger, seemingly concerned with preventing his boys making a little extra money on the side. Every box of bullets, every scope, bag or attachment had to be located and inspected, before being stored, meticulously in the basement.

Tatum won the trust of her Da when she broke her silent vigil once, to beg him to let her help with the weaponry. She soon became adept at dismantling and reassembling them, and her thoroughness and enthusiasm for maintaining them was the closest the Da and daughter ever came to bond.

Tatum had always been trained to say - if ever anyone should ask - that the family were in the double-glazing business. They even had a van in the driveway with a large red logo on a white background, which read: O’Neill’s Premium Glazing Company.

Not that Tatum could remember any of the family ever discussing double-glazing and that particular van seemed to be used as a run-around. There was a larger, blue transit van, fitted out with wooden benches as if it were a band’s touring bus, which was used for the real business.

Her Da regularly pulled out a second ledger for frequent discussions with Killer, in particular. They didn’t seem to care, or notice, when Tatum was there - they thought she was insignificant and not too bright, anyway – and they discussed business in a heavily coded way, especially when talking about their lucrative side-line of money lending.

She eventually learnt the codes they were using. At first, when they were talking, she wondered if she were being checked for her reaction, or discretion, when they spoke of taking their caps off, adjusting the throttle, pressure testing them, taking the heads off or getting the family round the table.

With the repetition of these phrases, she concluded that these were levels of torture, death and even punishment of the household, after the fact. Some people were denoted with a derogatory characterisation - Jew Boy, Arse Wipe, The Brickie, The Brief, and many more - suggested that this was a thriving enterprise, with many clients on the books.

Apparently, many people paid back the money on time, as Killer would proudly produce a large block of cash, and his Da would check it off, carefully transcribing each transaction in his ledger. He made extensive notes on the quality of the business with each client, in case they should want to become repeat customers.

Killer relished these meetings with his Da, and Tatum would sometimes find him remembering her presence as he leered at her while confirming to his Da, ‘So, once I head off the Brief, then I will get the family more involved in the business shortfall.’

Tatum’s home was brown. Every room was brown. The posters of Siouxie and the Banshees, and a collage of gun photos, stolen from the magazines that were scattered on tables, big and small, in the living room, only relieved Tatum’s room, from the relentless browns.

In her room, she had the time, and lack of interruptions, to laboriously pin down and read every word about the guns. She revelled in the specifications, the mechanisms of the guns she had seen at home, and the high-end rifles that she might never see. These, she chose for her wall, so she could dream of the day when she could own one of them.

Tatum began to consider many of the things that she found confusing.

At school, everybody called her Irish, because of her name and her accent, but she felt more British than any of them.

On rare occasions, a school friend would invite her over to her place, but there was never a flag to be seen, neither English nor British.

With the family business, Tatum couldn’t ask anyone round. If she could have, though, she might have given them a lesson in patriotism, for her parents and her brothers showed off their national pride with enthusiasm. In every room against the brown backdrop, there would be St George Crosses and Union Jacks. Even the crockery would be adorned with symbols of this so-called great land.

Killer’s room was a little different. His walls were filled with Nazi flags and collectables. Ma had, naturally, expressed some concern but was swiftly overruled by Da. ‘It’s what his new associates are into, and we have a lot of business coming in from them. That’s why I allow them to see him here; it builds trust.’

Tatum knew they had been talking about things other than rifles recently. Now it was C4, Semtex and detonators to help in the troubles.

Tatum absorbed information in her home education. First, it was the magazines, and then she moved onto the technical manuals. By osmosis, she began to understand the world around her through TV, dominated by football, the news and history documentaries. The football brought her a passing interest in Arlington FC, England and Northern Ireland. The news, with its political segments, however, brought her confusion and a growing identity crisis.

Not only was there her Irish or English conundrum but also the English, Nazi and German problem. Wasn’t there the war thing where Germany was the evil enemy? Aren’t the English and Irish in perpetual conflict across the sea?

She played with this problem, over and over, in her mind, until she had a political epiphany. Like restless hands fidgeting with the Rubik’s Cube she accidentally lined up the colours of all the faces, and she realised her conflict wasn’t with the races: it was with the genders.

She looked at the puzzle from all sides; Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister was a clue but not the obvious answer. She didn’t like Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, but her Da and Killer did. ‘She would strike fear into their enemies across the water,’ they said, as if they knew something that maybe others didn’t about this middle-class grocer’s daughter.

At first, she was struck by the thought that a woman could strike fear into their enemies.

Her mind reeled at night with Carcass, her earworm providing her sleepless soundtrack. She imagined war across the Irish Sea between fighting men – and then- she imagined fighting women. They never mentioned women in historical battles at school – or maybe she wasn’t listening if they did. Then she dreamed of fighting for something – anything - and then she thought about her future if she didn’t fight but just accepted this path selected for her by her Da.

Her revelations made her feel such a blind fool, as she recalled, but never investigated, all the little bumps her Ma had suffered.

She also made the connection between the comments she used about her own bruises. Her default remark, aside from, ‘It’s none of your fucking business,’ was that she was just, ‘playing with her big brothers,’ but now she began to see that differently. For the first time, she looked into her future and couldn’t see anything different appearing for her, other than simply getting older.

In her room, she examined