Chapter 1: The Refuge

The Bradford rain had a particular way of making everything look worse than it really was. The terraced houses glistened with damp, the pavements shone beneath a permanent film of grime, and the wind swept through the streets with the enthusiasm of a man who had just discovered that everybody else was an idiot.

At the edge of the city, in a building that had once been a respectable boarding house, stood the Bradford homeless refuge. Its brickwork was tired, its windows were perpetually steamed, and its communal kitchen smelled of instant coffee, industrial disinfectant, and somebody's unfortunate attempt at cooking cabbage.

The refuge was home to an assortment of souls who had fallen upon difficult times. Some were quietly rebuilding their lives. Others were fighting old demons. A few simply wanted a warm bed, a hot meal, and the chance to get through another day without somebody asking them to attend a meeting.

And then there was Rachel.

Rachel was a woman of such astonishing intellectual limitations that even the simplest everyday task seemed to arrive accompanied by a set of instructions written in a foreign language. She was not wicked, nor particularly unpleasant. She was, in her own peculiar way, quite sweet. She smiled readily, agreed enthusiastically, and possessed an almost limitless capacity for admiring anybody who spoke to her with sufficient confidence.

Unfortunately, she had the practical competence of a broken umbrella.

If asked to make a cup of tea, she might forget the water. If asked to put the washing on, she would stare at the machine as though it had personally insulted her. If given a form to complete, she would write her name in the wrong box, then ask whether the other boxes needed names as well.

The refuge staff had tried everything. They had explained things slowly, written instructions on paper, demonstrated tasks in person, and even attached labels to various cupboards. Rachel thanked them profusely every time, only to forget the entire lesson by the following morning.

Her most remarkable quality, however, was her inability to form an independent opinion.

Rachel did not so much think as wait for somebody else to think first.

If one resident declared that the weather was dreadful, Rachel agreed. If another insisted that the weather was lovely, she agreed with equal enthusiasm. She could listen to two people arguing opposite sides of the same question and emerge convinced that both were absolutely right.

Her identity was not a fixed thing. It was a garment she borrowed from whichever person happened to be standing nearest.

Naturally, Rachel was desperate to be loved.

She had been married three times, or so she explained to anyone willing to listen. The details changed depending on who was asking. Sometimes she said she had been unlucky in love. On other occasions, she claimed that the men in her life had simply been misunderstood. Once, when a member of staff asked whether she had ever considered living independently, Rachel looked genuinely alarmed.

"Independently?" she repeated. "But who would tell me what to do?"

It was difficult to know whether she was joking.

She wasn't.

The refuge residents soon became accustomed to Rachel's peculiarities. She was the woman who could lose a cup while holding it, forget why she had entered a room, and confidently explain a conversation she had not understood. She was also the woman who would offer you half her sandwich, tell you that you were wonderful, and remember that you had looked sad three weeks earlier.

They called her the darling.

Sometimes they meant it affectionately.

Sometimes they meant it in the same way one might affectionately describe a particularly useless household appliance.

Rachel, for her part, was delighted with the nickname. She assumed it meant that everybody thought she was exceptionally clever.

She had no reason to suspect otherwise.

It was in this unlikely setting, amid the dripping coats, chipped mugs, communal television, and perpetual smell of damp carpets, that Rachel's three great romances would unfold.

First came Jeromy, a man with enormous ambitions and very little understanding of the world.

Then came Keir, whose troubles would lead him towards a terrible end beside the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

Finally came Andy, a man so hopelessly enamoured of himself that he would eventually abandon Rachel for a new life in Manchester.

Rachel would survive all three relationships.

Whether she would learn anything from them was another matter entirely.