Jessie wore a low-cut blue chiffon blouse with a sheepskin jacket draped glamorously over her shoulders. On closer observation, its furry collar could be seen to be suffering from alopecia. Hazel-coloured eyes were her most noticeable feature, kohl eyeliner smudged on with casual affectation. They were smoky, vaguely bemused, secretive, and they appeared to look in on themselves rather than pay attention to the world outside, although, as with Marlene Dietrich, the world outside was drawn to look in on them. If her eyes were not those of an innocent, her complexion was the unlined, hazelnut-brown of a woman half her age. Plumptious lips, remnants of maroon lipstick staining the corners, were petulant. Long plait extensions were tied up with a black velvet scrunchie on top of her head and spilled chaotically over Rubenesque shoulders.

While Jessie was fascinated with her own reflection, so too was Stanley, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He thought her extraordinarily dramatic-looking, sexily fleshy, giving as good as she got to the customers at Mingles, which he had found hilarious. She appeared to him now through the mirror as a gorgeous mirage.

His was an archetypal Caribbean face, which others found attractive but at which he could not look without being appalled at how dull it was. A face waiting for someone to move in and mess it up a bit, he thought, not realizing it was already loaded with the cargo of many seafarers. Bright slanting eyes, inherited from some hapless boy who had sailed from the island of Macao to decades of indentured labour on a sugar plantation in the faraway West Indies. A broad, shining forehead was the legacy of an ancestor who had lain in the hold of a galleon that sailed due west, cutting a swath between waves that rose like Turner’s white flames. And the thin mouth of an aristocratic Scottish planter, vulnerable top lip rising like the tip of a wave over his slipstreamed bottom lip, indicating just a hint of self-pity.

Conversation was easy.

‘How could I ever forget sixteen. School trip to Blackpool and that Curtis from the boys’ home. Had my Terry nine months later; he’s in Australia now. When he was younger, I used to slip out to do my turn in a cabaret or pub, sneak back in and there he was, good as gold, still sleeping. Couldn’t do that these days, could you? Get done by Welfare. Got a card from him – Christmas last.’

My darling boy,

you were smitten, once.

Lovely liquid eyes helpless

fixed on mine, until

you fell asleep, smiling,

tiny, podgy feet

wriggling warmly

in my hot palms.

Couldn’t live without me, once.

Penny-for-a-song funds

paying for your all-in-ones,

milk-laden jugs at your lips,

devoted heart ready

to kill anyone who’d harm yer.

Were lost to each other,

me and thee.

Were made for each other,

me and thee,

out of nothings

but an escaped seed

finding its way home.