32

From the minute we got off the train we knew we were in a different world.

We’d taken the Docklands Light Railway from the space-age silver city that was Canary Wharf, and got off at a stop called, unpromisingly, Mudchute. Mudchute was surprisingly green and open, but as we followed Google Maps to the Limehouse Estate, our expectations lowered all the time. Ty’s ‘manor’ was even more grim than we’d anticipated. There was an old sofa in the middle of the scruffy courtyard, like it was The Wire or something. Everywhere we looked there was graffiti – huge bubble letters saying SLUG. I don’t know who Slug was, or is, but he got through a lot of spray paint in his time. There was a helpful map, also graffitied, with a faded schematic of which block was which. We identified Topcliffe House and headed in what we hoped was the right direction. Even the snow, which had looked so beautiful in Regent’s Park, looked quite different here. It was slushy and brown, punctuated with broken scooters and old bike wheels, and personified by a threatening-looking snowman with a backwards baseball cap.

I have to admit, and I’m not proud of this, I felt really uneasy. It was way too quiet, with the snow muffling everything and the blank windows on four sides of the flats watching us like eyes. I was glad, then, that we’d dressed down. Only that morning we’d been in velvet jackets riding in Hyde Park. This afternoon, without even discussing it, we’d all put on the most casual clothes we had with us – Puffas, hoodies and jeans. Even then I felt like we stood out way too much as we made our way up a pee-smelling stairwell, where the ubiquitous Slug had also sprayed his tag.

Along a balcony littered with pushchairs and kids’ bikes, we found Number 2, Topcliffe House. We tried the doorbell, then knocked, but there was no answer. After a moment we peered through the window. There was a plastic windmill stuck in a plant pot on the windowsill, revolving sadly in the bitter wind. Beyond its sails and through the glass we could see a little black kid looking at us with round eyes. At the sight of us he turned and scrambled under a table as if he’d had the four-minute warning.

Somebody came up behind us, jingling housekeys belligerently. ‘Oi!’ said the somebody, and it seemed like such a London syllable. ‘What you lot want?’

I turned to see a girl no taller than me but with enough aggression to scare all of us. She had on a silver Puffa jacket, and her snaky dreadlocks were tied up in a red do-rag. I couldn’t blame her for looking annoyed. We were, at that moment, engaged in looking through the window at what was presumably her brother. This girl had such a resemblance to Ty that I realized she must be her sister. And she got right up in our faces.

‘Sorry,’ I said instinctively, backing away. She was so threatening, even though we outnumbered her, that we were very much on the back foot. ‘We’re friends of Ty Morgan’s – schoolfriends – and we just came to – we wanted to … say hi?’ I finished weakly.

At that the girl completely transformed. She smiled a welcoming smile and clasped my arm so tightly it almost hurt. ‘Come in, come in! Don’t just stand there. I’ll put the kettle on.’ She unlocked the door and we filed in after her. She threw the keys on a little side table with a clash. The front door opened right into the living room. In the corner there was a tiny Christmas tree standing sentinel over a bunch of wrapped presents, which were so large they seemed to take up most of the room. As we crammed into the tiny space she called, ‘DeAngelo! You can come out, baby. Mama’s home.’

Shafeen turned to her, wide-eyed. ‘Are you … Mrs Morgan?’

‘That’s me. But I don’t need no title. Missy’s my name, so you might as well use that.’ She laughed loudly. She was lovely: ballsy, warm and much, much younger than I’d expected.

The kid we’d seen came out from under the table. I’m crap at guessing little kids’ ages but he looked maybe six or seven. His expression explained her aggression. She was being a tiger mother. He half hid behind his mum and looked out at us with enormous eyes.

‘Where’s your book, DeAngelo? You do your reading while I talk to these nice people. I’ll be testing you later. These are Tyeesha’s friends, baby.’

She crossed over to the kitchen, which was just behind this kind of breakfast bar, so really also in the living room. She clicked the kettle on and got out a bunch of mugs with a clatter and started chucking tea bags into them. She did everything in a hurry, as if time was precious to her. She talked loudly over the rising kettle. ‘So who we got here? How d’you know my Ty?’

‘I’m Greer,’ I said. ‘I directed the play she was just in.’

‘And I’m Nel,’ said Nel. ‘I was in it too.’

‘Oh, I know all about you girls,’ she said, delighted. She pointed a long fingernail at me. Her nails were amazing – long acrylics, and the one she was pointing had a crystal set in it. ‘You were Poetaster, and you –’ she moved the fingernail to Nel – ‘was Canis. Right?’

She mashed the teabags vigorously and then lobbed them accurately, Kobe-style, at the bin. She jerked her head at Shafeen. ‘And who’s this one?’

‘I’m Shafeen. Let me help you.’ He sprang up to help distribute the teas. None of the cups matched. The mug he put in front of me was enormous and said SPORTS DIRECT on the side. The tea was nothing like the anaemic Earl Grey that we’d been offered at Cumberland Place in wafer-thin bone-china teacups, but it tasted about a million times better.

Missy watched Shafeen as he passed her a cup, looking him up and down in a comic way. ‘Charmed, I’m sure. Right young gent, ain’t he?’ She sat down at the table with the heaviness of the bone-tired. Now she pointed at Shafeen, eyes narrowed. ‘You wasn’t in the play though, hun, else I would’ve heard about it.’

Shafeen smiled shyly and shook his head. ‘No. I saw it though. Ty was tremendous as the queen.’

Missy put those amazing fingertips up to her mouth, then moved them to her heart, her breath a catch of regret.

‘I so wanted to go to that play. Isle of Dogs, hey? Like it was meant. And my girl getting the main part in her first term! But I had two shifts, and DeAngelo’s Nativity play. Playing the star, weren’t you, D? Cos you are a star, right?’

DeAngelo had nothing to say to this.

‘Then I had Dwight’s football trials. And Rose had her dance exam the next day.’

It took me a while to realise that she was making excuses. She was actually apologetic that she hadn’t made it to Ty’s play, this multitasking machine with three other kids. It seemed so unfair that this … this superwoman should feel anything approaching guilt. Suddenly she seemed much older. The lines around her eyes, and from nose to mouth, were more pronounced. She did look, at that moment, as if she could have a seventeen-year-old daughter.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said soothingly. ‘None of ours made it either.’

She looked like she’d been given a present. ‘Really?’

‘Yup. My dad was working too.’

Then she looked sadder again. ‘There’s Ty’s dad,’ she said, motioning to a framed picture on the wall. It was a lovely picture – Ty looking about thirteen, with train-track braces, smiling an enormous tin grin with her dad’s hands on her shoulders.

‘Where does he live?’ asked Nel gently.

Missy smiled at Nel sadly. ‘You think he left. Bad Babyfather, that’s it, isn’t it? Probably got another family.’

‘I never –’

‘It’s all right, girl. That’s what white folks think. But that ain’t it. He was the best man, my Desmond, but he died. A man can’t help that. Can he?’

‘No,’ said Shafeen soberly. ‘A man can’t.’

‘So now there’s just me.’ I wanted to say that was more than enough but couldn’t think of a way to say it that wouldn’t sound incredibly patronising.

But she changed the subject. ‘Where you guys staying?’ she asked brightly.

‘Regent’s Park,’ Nel replied.

‘Ah. I bet that’s nice,’ she said. ‘I never been, ’cept to the zoo once.’

‘It’s a bit fancy,’ I said, trying to downplay just how palatial it was.

She wagged her finger in my face. ‘Never mind that, girl. It’s safe. That’s what you want. That’s the real treasure.’

She pulled DeAngelo to her and kissed the top of his head. ‘Safety. That’s what you want for your family. It ain’t about just money, or nice clothes or food. You want safe. I want DeAngelo and Dwight to be able to walk the streets without being shanked by some little toerag.’ DeAngelo squirmed away and his mother took a gulp of tea. ‘I’ve told him how to get off the Isle of Dogs. I told all of ’em. Book learning.’ She nodded her head decidedly. ‘Book learning did it for his sister. My girl Ty studied up and look where it got her. Scholarship girl.’

I thought of Ben Jonson, literally saved by the book.

‘Books are a fire exit,’ she said. ‘They’re a door to somewhere else.’

‘Like Narnia!’ I said. Then I explained, ‘It’s a magical land that you reach through a wardrobe door.’

She put her head on one side. ‘Girl,’ she said, ‘I know about Narnia. Who you think book-learned all these kids?’

I could feel myself going red and shut my stupid mouth. Who was I to school this woman?

In the awkward silence that followed, Shafeen and Nel stared into the depths of their tea. Registering the sudden quiet, DeAngelo peeped over his book with his enormous eyes. That kid was as cute as a button. I made a funny face at him, and the eyes disappeared behind the book again. We all laughed and it broke the tension.

‘Have you heard from Ty?’ asked Shafeen as casually as he could.

‘Bless you, darlin’, not a word since she went up to that big house. She text me to say she got there OK, then nada.’ Missy smiled wistfully. ‘But I don’t expect it. If she’s livin’ her best life, that’s enough for me.’

I looked at the presents, wrapped with such love, and Mrs Morgan followed my gaze.

‘We miss her. Of course we miss her. But she did so good, that girl. Look where she is! Great school, fancy house, nice young feller! Of course I’d love her here for Christmas Day. But that’s being a mother, ain’t it? You gotta let them go. You can’t stand in your kids’ way.’

I compared her love and dedication to my own mother’s. The hours Missy had worked, the sacrifices she’d made. My mum had pretty much given birth to me and then pissed off.

We didn’t have to worry about outstaying our welcome. Missy, in the nicest possible way, threw us out, as she had to get to her second job. But she piled us up with a box of Quality Street from under the tiny tree and all good wishes for Christmas. Her generosity nearly made me blub. She gave DeAngelo firm instructions about not answering the door, telling him that his sister Rose had keys and would give him his tea when she came home from her dance club.

As I got up from the table and headed for the door, I spotted something. DeAngelo had his book upside down. His mum had gone ahead to see us out so I discreetly turned it the right way up for him. As I did so, I realised he had his phone hidden behind the pages.

He looked at me with his huge eyes.

Busted.

I’m pretty sure he thought he was in trouble. But I was just thinking what a perfect Medieval/Savage thing it was to do. As he stared at me, I closed one of my own eyes in a conspiratorial wink.

And, for the first time, he smiled.