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makeup.
    ‘You look well, Marie. How’s things?’
    It was lame, they both knew it was lame, and it made Marie smile. That changed her face and she saw him relax.
    ‘How do you think I am, Pat? I’m confused, scared, but most importantly, keen to know about me kids.’
    Pat stared at her. She knew his mind was crunching like a 1950s gearbox.
    ‘Have you seen them at all? Have you kept in contact with our son? That’s all I want to know. Pat.’
    He was biting his top lip, a nervous action she remembered from years gone by. Then his mobile rang. It was a loud tune, Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’. It seemed appropriate to them both
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    and he stared at it, then at Marie, who grinned.
    ‘Clever. Never seen one close up before. One of the women on my wing had one, a PO smuggled it in for her, but I never actually saw it meself. They turned her cell over and that was that. Four days on the block for wanting to phone her daughter. But then, unlike me, she had a number for her, an address. She actually saw her child.’
    Pat wiped one large hand across his face.
    ‘What you want, Marie?’
    ‘Don’t try your Jamaican accent on me! You never left London all your life. I heard through the grapevine you was finding your roots - well, save it for the silly little birds who are interested in it. Where’s me kids?’
    ‘How the fucking hell would I know that?’
    She looked into his piercing blue eyes and sighed.
    ‘You never bothered with your own son, is that what you’re telling me?’
    He couldn’t look her in the eye but stared at his hands instead. He was ashamed and they both knew it. Annoyed, Pat tried to justify himself.
    ‘I didn’t need this shit, Marie. I was having enough trouble keeping meself…’
    She sat quietly staring at him as he attempted to dismiss twelve years of neglect. With that accusing stare levelled on him he tried, unsuccessfully, to excuse what he had done.
    ‘What good would I have been to him, eh? Think about it. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of him, would I? I mean, think about it, what would I do with a kid?’
    She was shaking her head in despair.
    ‘So he didn’t have either of us then. What about Tiffany, have you seen her?’ •
    Patrick was quiet for a moment.
    ‘No. Why would I? She wasn’t mine, was she?’ he said at length.
    It was what she’d expected.
    He opened the desk drawer and took out a bundle of money, twenties and tens, all rolled up with an elastic band around them.
    ‘Here you are, girl. I was gonna give you something anyway, get you on your feet, like.’
    Wednesday came in with the tray of coffee. Marie brushed past her and walked from the room. Pat’s mobile rang again and the tune brought back more painful memories. It made her think of
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    blues in Brixton, walking along the Railton Road looking for a dealer. Standing around half-naked in the freezing cold, staring into car windows and smiling at strange men. Brought back the salty smell of sex and the uncomfortable feeling of being fucked unceremoniously in the back seat of cars. New cars, old cars. Cars that had kids’ toys in the back, or a briefcase. Cars that said so much about their owners’ lives, if they only knew it.
    It made her aware once more of the wasted years she had spent in prison until in a strange way they brought her salvation.
    She still wanted to cry for her little boy, left without a father and a mother. Unlike her daughter Jason had known who his father was, had had a sort of relationship with him. He must have been terrified going into care, being alone with no one to look out for him. And you read such stories in the papers … kids being abused, left unloved, starved, beaten.
    ‘Are you all right, love?’
    Marie looked into the old lady’s face and nodded.
    She realised she was standing in the middle of the street oblivious to passers-by and traffic. The pain in her heart was tangible. It felt like a hand was gripping it tightly. She thought she