‘Well now, I don’t know what’s going on with Mark. But I’m gonna tell you this, matey. If he comes back, he’s getting a punch in the nose from me for this little disappearing stunt. This ain’t no way to treat your missus, know what I’m saying? It’s gonna be hard to hear this, love, but I think for now you’ve got to be going about your life like he ain’t coming back. Even if he does. Right now, you need to look after yourself and your baby. An I’m gonna be right here, so if he comes back I’ll tell him where you are. Once I’ve bopped him one.’

Avril, to her credit and Sam’s everlasting surprise, had opened the door late in the night to a pregnant, crying, prodigal daughter, and asked no questions beyond the due date and the last time she had eaten. While Sammi wept and raged against the man who’d left her, Avril made food and stroked her hair. When Sammi screamed that she couldn’t do it, Avril held her wrists and told her to stop fooling, because she was going to do it and she wouldn’t be alone. Her mother had met her with so much fierce love and protection that she’d felt ashamed of the mean caricature she’d made of Avril in her head. And in time Deborah had pushed her way into the world, pissed-off and lanky, with aristocratically high cheekbones; just another baby with a missing father and a mother who didn’t want to talk about him.

Brixton, 2009

Was that Mark, in the picture Clio had sent? Sam only had one photo of him, and he was in the background, squinting. Like many of her acquaintances from that time, he was paranoid about cameras; she’d seen him go so far as to rip up a portrait shot Fran had taken unawares and developed in her makeshift darkroom in the other toilet. She’d tried to recreate him over the years, mainly from occasional fleeting expressions on Debbie’s face that had shocked her into momentary recognition. Then she’d tried to bury it down again.

‘Your daddy couldn’t be with us, baby. So that’s why I’ve got to love you extra hard for the both of us. You hear me?’

What would he look like aged fifty or so? Carrying extra weight under his chin, balding, wearing a suit rather than a ratty sweatshirt?

Hi Clio,

Good to hear from you! It’s been a long time. Hope everything’s well with you.

It’s certainly a shock to see this picture. It’s been years and I don’t have anything to really compare it to, but on balance, yes, I think that could be Mark. Or at least his long-lost twin brother.

What have you been doing with yourself, anyway?

Samantha