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Prologue
Thursday 9 June 1994
It’s almost time.
Jennie Whitmore pulls her rucksack towards her across the faded pink duvet on her single bed. This is her last chance to spot anything important she might have missed. She counts the basics: underwear, T-shirts, leggings. Then goes through her absolute essentials: Nirvana sweatshirt, acid-wash jeans, velvet blazer dress, red Converse, make-up, skin care. There’s only one more item to add.
She takes her most prized possession from the bedside cabinet. The second-hand Nikon SLR camera might be a few years old, and a little battered around the casing, but it’s the last birthday gift her dad gave her before he died, and she can’t leave it behind. Carefully, Jennie places the camera into its padded travel case, and packs it into the top of her rucksack. It’s a tight squeeze, but she manages to make it work and pulls the drawstring cord tight before buckling down the rucksack’s top flap.
Jennie checks her watch; it’s almost ten o’clock and she needs to get going. She hurries to the bookcase and takes a dog-eared hardback of War and Peace from the bottom shelf. She pauses before opening it, looking at the five brightly coloured 18th birthday cards that line the top shelf. There’s one from each of her friends but nothing from Mum. Jennie’s birthday was almost two weeks ago now, but her own mother still hasn’t remembered.
Opening War and Peace reveals a hole cut out from the pages; it’s the only hiding space that’s ever managed to thwart Mum when she’s on the rampage searching for more booze money. The roll of notes totals nearly three hundred pounds; the wages she’s saved from her after-school job washing up at the Cross Keys. Saved for this moment. Jennie removes her money from its hiding place and tucks it into her purse.
Heart in her mouth, Jennie laces up her Doc Martens, pulls on her denim jacket, and swings her rucksack over one shoulder. She moves towards the door, pausing as she reaches it to take a final look around her bedroom. Kurt Cobain, Madonna, and Soundgarden look down from the posters Blu-Tacked to the wall behind her bed. Their cool clothes and enigmatic stares seem to challenge her to be brave. To finally get out of this hellhole. This place has always seemed like a stopgap, never a real home.
I’m ready now.
It’s time.
Jennie creeps down the stairs, careful not to make any noise. Maureen Whitmore is sprawled on the sagging brown sofa, snoring loudly. One arm is draped across her stomach, clutching a nearly finished bottle of cheap gin. The other has flopped off the sofa, her fingers almost touching the two three-litre bottles of White Lightning lying empty on the floor.
Jennie tries not to feel angry that her mum has become like this, that the happy, laughter-filled family she used to be part of is now a distant memory. The news reports had called Frank Whitmore a heroic photojournalist, the man who captured many iconic and harrowing pictures of human conflict. But to her, he was simply Dad: the dad who wore a clown costume and juggled at her seventh birthday party; the dad who made chocolate pancakes with extra sprinkles for breakfast on Sundays; and the dad who taught her how to load a camera and frame a shot. She knows her experience isn’t unique. There have been many casualties on all sides of the Bosnian war and her dad was just one of them. But when the IED detonated beneath the jeep he and his colleague were travelling in, it had torn Jennie’s life apart too.
The cuckoo clock in the kitchen chimes ten times. She needs to go. Pushing away sad thoughts of the past, Jennie moves quickly across the lounge to the front door. She won’t miss this drab house with its ever-present smell of damp and the hideous Seventies décor. She won’t miss the anxiety she’s felt every day on the way home from school, dreading what state she’ll find Mum in. Jennie won’t miss feeling like she’s the parent rather than the child.
Because her life is about to change. After all their planning and saving, she’s running away to London with her best friend, her heart sister – Hannah. Two girls taking on the big city. They’re taking charge of their lives and making their dreams into a reality. The rest of her life starts right now.
Jennie’s heart is racing as adrenaline buzzes through her. She can’t believe she’s actually doing this. It’s really happening.
She takes a deep breath, and whispers, ‘Bye, Mum.’
Then she slips through the front door, closing it softly behind her.
Head down against the rain, Jennie hurries along the lane to the main road. It’s dark and the streetlights are spaced far apart, making it hard to spot the puddles. She squints through the downpour, doing her best to keep away from the kerb and the spray from the cars that whoosh past. The dampness seeps through her jacket and water drips off her hair but she doesn’t care. Any amount of discomfort will be worth it when they get to London.
She checks her watch again; it’s five past ten. The walk would usually take just over half an hour but she needs to do it in twenty. The night bus leaves at twenty to eleven but she promised to get there early.
Picking up her pace, Jennie follows the main road into town. The rain is getting worse and thunder rumbles overhead. She flinches as lightning flashes above the hillside beyond the town, briefly illuminating the ancient 85-foot-high chalk cross carved into it, the white cross that gave the town its name.
Refusing to be deterred, Jennie hurries on. As she passes the Cross Keys pub, laughter from inside leaches out through the open windows. Jennie knows from working in the kitchen that the main bar has sport on the telly every evening – football, boxing, whatever is going on that day. A loud cheer goes up and there’s the sound of pints being clinked together.
Moments later there’s a loud wolf whistle behind her and she hears a bloke shout out the pub window, ‘Hey, wait up, sweetheart, what’s the big hurry?’
Ignoring him, Jennie presses on to the bus stop. Stepping inside the wooden shelter, she shakes the worst of the rain from her jacket and pushes her rain-sodden fringe out of her eyes as she searches for Hannah.
The time they’d arranged to meet comes and goes. Jennie checks her watch but isn’t super worried; Hannah generally has a relaxed approach to timekeeping, so a couple of minutes late is nothing unusual. But as more minutes pass, anxiety starts fluttering in her chest.
She is coming, isn’t she?
The rain becomes torrential. Jennie checks her watch for the second time in less than a minute. She moves from one foot to the other, feeling increasingly agitated.
Where is Hannah? She said she’d be here. She promised me.
Five minutes pass. Then another five.
A roar goes up from inside the pub. Another goal scored, no doubt.
Jennie sees the lights of the night bus approaching. She glances down the street, looking for Hannah, but the pavements are empty.
