Girl A: My Story

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This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of the author. The names of people, places, dates, sequences or the details of events may have been changed to try to protect the privacy of others.

It was the image of the clock on the wall that I tried to hold on to that day and, after all this time, it’s a memory I still cling to.

It was a child’s clock, the sort that a thousand girls might find as they unwrap presents on their birthday or on Christmas Day. The face itself was pink, but it had white letters, and in the middle was an angel with beautiful, outstretched wings and a smile so radiant you could imagine it healing even the most broken of hearts. The second hand was white, too: I could hear every tick, every imagined heartbeat as it arced its way around the angel.

In this room, of all rooms, it seemed out of place. Set high on the wall, it looked down on a single mattress which that day, and probably for many days before, was covered with a grubby blue sheet. The mattress, edged with dust, rested on bare floorboards littered with bubble wrap and a scattering of empty, abandoned cardboard boxes.

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