I don’t know what my mother was like before prison – I was only eight when she went in – but since she’d come out, she seemed very resistant to any kind of coercion. I suppose it was all those years of being told when to get up, when to turn your lights out, when to eat, what to wear, but now it was like dealing with an impossible teenager. Part of me indulged it – thought it funny, even – but now, standing in the cold, I knew I would never tolerate again her just not answering the door when the bell was rung. It was just so impossible – she was just so impossible.

How could she leave me out here, frightened, when I needed her?

I pressed the intercom button again: hard. It started to ring again in my mother’s flat, the noise expanding in the silence, into . . . where was she?

Anger was subsiding back again, beaten away by something more powerful. It was folding in like a sandcastle against the tide; overwhelmed by waves of panic. I wanted to fling myself against the glass and bang the door. Let us in! I wanted to shout. Mum!

How I have yelled and cried for her across the years. And she never answered, she never could. But I couldn’t yell for her now – I had to think of little Jack.

Instead I breathed out really slowly, concentrating on my breathing the way the counsellor showed me a zillion years ago. Centre yourself, Lisa, I remember her saying.

Breathe.

I dropped a smile to Jack standing patiently at my side. His other hand was clasped round Bunny.

‘Is N-N-Nana not in?’ he asked in a smaller-than-normal voice.

I noticed on his cheek a new shadow. Perhaps it was nothing; perhaps it was a bruise that I’d somehow missed. My smile became so wide I felt that it would shatter into a million little pieces. ‘You know what she’s like!’ I said, hating my diamond voice.

The buzzer had stopped ringing, and without hesitation I pressed it again and again.

The fear was rising and gathering in strength and I was starting to reach and grasp for other ideas – any ideas that would lift me from this nightmare. I could go, get back in the car. I could leave and go . . . where? I was thinking through my options when I saw my mother’s door open. Relief suddenly soared high, then instantly dipped low when I realised it was April Dale. She stepped into the hallway, still dressed in her dressing gown.

I hammered on the glass. ‘Mrs Dale!’

She didn’t notice me. She was looking down the hall as if looking for something. Her back was still turned to me and I realised that she could turn and go back into her flat and never see me.

I hammered again. ‘April!’