All That We've Got

by Jendella Benson

Genres: Coming of Age

Synopsis

'I loved this book so much' - Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie
'Few people can write the way Jendella does' - Kelechi Okafor, author of Edge of Here
'All That We've Got is simply brilliant' - Dorothy Koomson, author of Every Smile You Fake
'A heartwarming story about the strength of...Black women' - Taylor-Dior Rumble, author of The Situationship
'Simultaneously thought-provoking, heartrending and uplifting' - Onyi Nwabineli, author of Someday, Maybe
'An engrossing, empowering story' - Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, author of Yinka, Where is Your Huzband?

Over one relentlessly hot summer, two women's lives are about to collide in the most unexpected ways.
Mimi is a single mum in her twenties, looking to break free from her family's judgements and her church's oppressive, hypocritical gossip to establish who she is on her own. But a dangerous new romance could lead her into trouble...

Meanwhile, fifteen-year-old Abi dreams of emulating the life she sees through social media and helping her mother with the bills. When she's offered the chance to make money fast by helping a group of local boys, she and her friends jump at it. But soon they're crossing county lines, and Abi finds she's in over her head...

Could Mimi and Abi forge a bond that could free them both, at the heart of a community they've taken for granted?

A powerful commentary on the city we don't always see, this is the stunning new novel from Jendella Benson, the author of the acclaimed Hope & Glory.

Release date: July 4, 2024

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 432

Sample

One of Goodread’s ‘60 Highly Anticipated Debut Novels’

One of Goodread’s ‘81 New and Upcoming Books to Discover This Black History Month’

‘Jendella Benson has drawn such a compelling world that Hope & Glory, the book and the characters themselves, stayed with me long after I’d turned the final pages’

– Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie

‘Authentic and as heart-warming as it is heart-wrenching, Hope & Glory is a glorious ode to family life, love and loss. Jendella’s writing is effortless, the characters leap off of the page and my favourite thing amongst so many? It’s so deliciously South London’

– Yomi Adegoke, author of The List

‘A sweeping, rich tale that explores family, secrets, loss, love and redemption within the context of a tessellation of cultures – written with a beautiful texture, Benson pulls you in to a deftly woven story with tautly written sentences, and before you know it you find yourself in too deep to get out, too deep to want to get out, wanting to know more’

– Bolu Babalola, author of Honey & Spice

‘Jendella Benson has created a story that is intricate, beautiful and so very real. I held my breath, gasped out loud and devoured every gorgeous page. Just brilliant’

– Dorothy Koomson, author of The Ice Cream Girls

‘Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop! Jendella’s writing is spellbinding, so beautiful. I felt every emotion on the page’

– Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, author of Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?

‘Stirring, startling, life-affirming. A wonderful read’

– Musa Okwonga, author of One of Them

‘A dazzling debut. Jendella Benson is one to watch’

– Melissa Cummings-Quarry, Black Girls Book Club

‘An elegantly written, heart-warming story filled with hope. Each character, family secret, and vulnerability is treated with such grace and care due to Jendella’s fresh and tender writing. Can’t wait to read what she shares with the world next’

– Lola Ákínmádé Åkerström, author of In Every Mirror She’s Black

‘An assured debut about loss, grief and belonging’

– Sarra Manning, Red Magazine

‘Benson expertly portrays the anguish, friction, and love of a family under immense strain while providing insights on the difficulties faced by immigrants. The result is a sumptuous and satisfying meditation on family and the meaning of home’

– Publishers Weekly

‘Filled with unexpected, but earned, twists, Benson’s novel balances moments of rich humor and devastating profundity … deeply authentic. A meditation on the sacrifices we make for love’

– Kirkus Review

Wednesday, 5 July, 20:51

3 missed calls from Bísọ́lá Balógun

1 new voicemail

The girl looked like a painting. That’s what came to mind the first time Mimi saw Abi in the chicken shop. She searched for the name of one of the old dead white men she had studied in AS Fine Art, the one with the pale-skinned girl with the big eyes. She had the same look on her face that the girl in the chicken shop had. Vermeer maybe? John or Jonas?

Mimi hadn’t thought about painting, the way light fell against an object or the texture of oils against the canvas, in nearly three years. Not since she found out she was pregnant with Micah and had disappeared from her sixth-form college. But it was something about the warm nut-brown of the girl’s skin that Mimi could imagine mixing on a palette – starting with yellow ochre as a base. She could imagine painting the smudges of freckles across her nose and cheeks, her big brown eyes and the single corkscrew curl that fell over her ear from the puff on top of her head.

The girl was at the counter, speaking so quietly that ‘Bossman’ had to lean in, lifting his cap slightly.

‘Say that again?’

The girl repeated whatever she had just said, her eyes low and voice only slightly louder.

‘Nah. We don’t do food on credit.’

Bossman straightened up, reached a hairy arm over to tap a paper sign stuck to the wall with Sellotape: No cards. No credit. No exceptions.

The girl’s eyes shifted to the side, aware that she had an audience.

Mimi angled her body away, pretending that she had not heard. She moved a sleepy Micah from one hip to the other and waited on her twelve chicken wings, large portion of fries and two cans of KA grape soda – a mini feast to replenish her strength after a day spent braiding her hair into long purple twists.

Mimi ran her fingers through those twists now, pretending to examine her handiwork while keeping an ear cocked for what might happen next.

‘Lawd!’ a voice piped up from behind. ‘This is the ghetto for real! This one begging for food?!’

The girl’s head dropped, and Mimi turned to face the voice. She saw a bony woman old enough to be her mother, her face curling into a judgemental sneer.

‘And this one!’ the woman continued, fixing Mimi with a disgusted glare. ‘You’re out this late with a baby?! And he’s not even wearing shoes?!’ The woman tutted and Mimi felt something flare up inside her.

It wasn’t that late – barely 9 p.m. – and yes, Micah had no shoes on, but that’s why Mimi was balancing him on her hip and not making him walk. She wanted to cuss the woman out, but she wouldn’t swear in front of Micah, even if he was half asleep. Instead, she turned back to the counter and told the man serving to get the quiet girl with no money whatever she wanted and she’d pay for it.

The girl muttered her thanks, giving Mimi a furtive glance but not daring to meet her eye directly. She fussed with the sleeves of the oversized hoodie that swamped her, and her thin legs resembled a bird’s, dressed in dark leggings. She looked no older than twelve. Too young to be out here by herself.

When a fresh batch of fries had finished cooking and Bossman had boxed and bagged their food, small, delicate hands reached out quickly to grab one of the bags. The girl mumbled ‘thanks’ again to Mimi, but this time she looked up at her, and Mimi thought once again about how she might paint her, the way a fluorescent square of the shop’s light caught in her dark eyes.

She had gone to primary school with kids who were teased for being ‘tramps’, the kind to steal food out of people’s packed lunch boxes, but this girl didn’t look like one of them. The hoodie she wore was still Nike, and careful attention had been paid to the hairs gelled into small, perfectly formed waves around her hairline. As the girl waited for the empty burger sauce bottle to be replaced with a new one, she twisted a diamanté stud around and around in her earlobe.

Mimi paid for their food with a crisp note and waited for her change. She shifted Micah to her other hip, but before she could manoeuvre to take her own food, the girl had collected it for her.

As they walked towards the door, the thin, rude woman resumed her muttering, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to make out what was said.

This time, Mimi had to say something.

‘Sorry, can you repeat that?’ Mimi bolstered her resolve with the most insolent tone she could muster, stopping directly in front of the woman.

‘You don’t know how to address your elders?’ The woman kissed her teeth and turned away.

‘I don’t see any elder in front of me,’ Mimi shot back. ‘Just a grown woman acting childish!’

It felt like all the air was sucked from the shop and the girl looked at her, her eyes still big but now filled with a quiet awe.

The woman turned towards Mimi and looked her up and down. ‘Tek yuh pickney home!’ She kissed her teeth again, dismissing Mimi with a careless wave.

Mimi’s first thought was to spit at her. But she was aware of the girl to her right and of Micah on her hip with no shoes on, and, truth be told, she wasn’t prepared to physically fight this woman if it came to that.

‘We’re all in the same shop buying the same deep-fried pigeon, so if you think you’re better than me with your plastic wig and yellow teeth, you’re actually delusional! Àgbàyá!’

Mimi tossed her head, satisfied with the way the bum-length twists swished and snapped through the air. Then she marched from the shop, Micah stirring in her arms and the young girl trotting behind her.

Her new companion had to skip to keep pace. The girl sent a few meaningful glances Mimi’s way, but Mimi didn’t acknowledge them. They both crossed on the corner and began walking towards Cameron Road.

‘I’ve seen you before,’ the girl finally said. ‘You live across the road. You moved in a few months back, innit?’

Mimi slowed down. The combination of Micah’s weight and her pace was making her legs ache. She looked over at the girl.

‘You live with that blonde woman at number 42?’

‘Yeah, that’s my mum.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Abi.’

‘I’m Mimi.’

Abi nodded.

‘How old are you, Abi?’ Mimi asked. Curiosity softened her voice, but Abi looked up with a scowl.

‘Almost sixteen!’

Mimi’s face must have betrayed her scepticism.

‘How old are you?’ Abi asked pointedly.

‘Twenty,’ Mimi said, and she watched as Abi looked from her face to Micah’s and began to do the maths.

‘How old were you when you had him?’

Mimi was used to people fishing for this type of information, but never asking so brazenly.

‘I got pregnant when I was seventeen and I had him when I was eighteen,’ she said, keeping her voice steady.

‘You don’t look twenty.’ Any of the shyness from the chicken shop had gone.

‘And you don’t look almost sixteen. Is this you?’ Mimi stopped in front of 42 Cameron Road and held her hand out for her food. Number 42 was a grey two-storey house sandwiched in the middle of a terrace. The dark green paint on the gate and the front door was peeling and the windows were dark, curtains tightly drawn.

Abi nodded, but didn’t walk up the concrete path that ran down the side of a paved front garden.

‘OK, well, I’m going to go to my house now,’ Mimi said, angling her head towards her door across the road, number 43.

‘I like your hair by the way!’ Abi said quickly.

‘Thanks,’ Mimi said.

‘Who did it?’

‘I did.’

Abi nodded again and Mimi turned away.

‘I’ll pay you back for the food!’ Abi called after her.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Mimi said over her shoulder, looking both ways before crossing.

At her front door, she pushed open the porch with her foot and juggled through the keys on her keyring until she found the one for the inner door. Her downstairs neighbour, Patsy, was cooking and the smell was making her own choice of food less appealing. Mimi carried Micah up the stairs to the first landing and used another key to open the door to her studio flat.

Micah stirred as she laid him down on the double bed they shared. It took up most of the room.

‘Are you hungry, bubba?’ she cooed gently, running a finger over his soft cheek. His long lashes fluttered open briefly, but once his eyes focused and he confirmed the presence of his mother, he closed them again, rolling onto his side and curling up. She left him to sleep.

Despite the late hour, the evening was still warm and slightly humid. So far, July had been over-generous with the sun and her south-facing window meant she got the most of it. Mimi reached over and pushed open the window that was directly above the bed. A slight breeze lifted her handmade voile curtains. Even though she had hated textiles in secondary school, sewing these curtains herself on the machine she had ‘borrowed’ from her mother when she moved out had been her first act of making this place a home. Every time she opened or closed them, she felt pride pulse through her fingertips. Alongside the curtains, she had painted a purple accent wall that faced the bed, and put mood lighting behind the TV.

These were her attempts at turning this tiny, council-assigned glorified bedsit into a place she could make peace with; she hadn’t been able to do anything with the dingy hostel she had to live in before this. But this place was hers until she could afford a proper flat with two bedrooms and a bathroom that wasn’t a converted cupboard that collected black mould like a second skin. It would be down to her, because if she left it to the council, they would have her and Micah sharing a bed until he was a teenager. Or at least until she had another kid, and she had decided that would never happen.

Mimi switched on the TV that sat opposite her bed on top of a chest of drawers. Now that Micah was asleep, she could watch her own shows, but she skipped through her options listlessly as she ate, unable to settle on any one thing. Her thoughts kept returning to the girl from the chicken shop.

Mimi packed away the remaining food into the fridge and dusted crumbs from the bedspread. She pushed Micah’s toy box to the base of her wardrobe and carefully climbed on top, praying it would hold her weight while she felt around for her long-forgotten sketchbook and pencil case.

She found them, and wiped the dust off as she took a seat back on the bed. She selected a 2B pencil and began to draw, starting with a lock of hair that curled back over a disembodied ear. As out of practice as she felt, Mimi continued, only stopping when she realised that her eyes were getting heavier and the graphite lines less sure. She flipped the sketchbook shut and set it down in front of the TV.

As she knelt on the bed and reached up to close the window, Mimi looked down into the street – and jumped at the sight of Abi. She was sitting on the low wall in front of her house. The empty chicken shop box was next to her and her head was down, her face glowing in the light of her smartphone screen.

Mimi checked the time on her own phone. It was 22:37. The Nigerian in her made her want to call out and tell this small girl to get back inside her house, but something made her think twice. Mimi closed the window but stayed kneeling on the bed, watching Abi from behind the sheer curtain. After a few moments, as if sensing she was being watched, Abi looked up and around, before hopping down from the wall and finally entering her house.

Thursday, 6 July, 07:12

@AH☆FEE☆FEE sent a snap

@Dee-Dolla$$$ posted to their story

The nights her mum was at work, Abi slept on the sofa, keeping vigil until her mum’s shift at the care home, or the office she cleaned, or the other job that Abi forgot the details of, were over. Even though she tried to diligently keep track of Marie’s rota, she still opened her eyes some mornings hoping to smell bacon frying – a sign that her mum had cut her shift short to be home for her only child.

This morning, Abi was surprised, but not by breakfast. When she opened her eyes, her mum was curled up in a chair across from her, her arms wrapped around herself in a tight hug, her expression looking younger and more carefree than it ever did when she was awake. Her blonde, almost silver hair was pulled back from her face.

Abi tried to take a picture to capture the moment on her phone, but it came out wrong. The shadows were all muddy and made her mum’s face look grey, like a corpse. So she tried to think of something else, something happier.

When she was younger and life was perfect, her dad would have carried her sleeping mum up to their bedroom, cradled against his chest. He would have done the same for Abi. He would never have let his girls sleep on the sofa. He would tuck them both into bed and make sure there was breakfast cooking and ready for them when they woke up. But never bacon, more like plantain and eggs, with onions, tomatoes and chunks of salty corned beef fried into the omelette.

He had always been the first person to wake up, like he was also the last one to sleep. He watched over them like a guardian angel. But, then again, he had been gone for so long now that Abi wondered if she was even remembering him right, or whether these scenes were just pulled from her imagination.

Her mum shifted in her sleep, a frown breaking across the calm lake of her face as her eyes opened slowly and saw Abi watching her.

‘Morning, love,’ she croaked.

‘Morning, Mum.’

‘You all right?’ Marie sighed and sat up stiffly.

Abi nodded.

‘I forgot to leave the fiver on the side, Abs. I’m so sorry. What have you been eating? There’s no food in the house.’

‘I had chicken and chips last night.’

‘Where did you get the money for that?’

‘Found some coins down the sofa.’

Her mum looked at her for a long time before reaching into the bag that was on the floor by her feet. She pulled out her purse and took out a ten-pound note.

‘It’s fine, Mum. I don’t need it.’

‘Take it,’ Marie insisted. ‘That’s the reason I go to work, isn’t it?’

Abi reached out and took the note. She folded it in half, then in half again, closing her palm tightly around it.

‘You look nice,’ her mum said, watching her carefully.

‘Not as nice as you,’ Abi returned with a small smile, as was their custom.

Her mother scoffed. ‘I look like death and I probably smell like it too.’ She sniffed her own shoulder. ‘If it’s not death, it’s bleach.’

Abi smiled weakly and let the silence carry between them.

‘It’s still early, Abs,’ her mum finally said. ‘I’m going to go and sleep for a bit longer, then I’ll get up and do a food shop, top up the meters, run a hoover around here …’

‘I’ve been tidying!’ Abi protested.

‘But you never hoover, Abs,’ her mum said with a tired smile. ‘You do everything but hoover.’

She was right, Abi never vacuumed when she was home alone. The TV was always on because she didn’t like the quiet, but the vacuum cleaner was too loud. Someone could sneak up behind her while it was running, they could strangle her with the extension cord or just grab her from behind and break her neck or something. And this wasn’t just stuff she saw on the true-crime documentaries that her mum would be horrified that Abi watched while she was at work. Abi knew first-hand, you had to stay vigilant, because they always came when you least expected it.

‘I don’t like the noise, Mum. Maybe we can get one of those Dyson ones? They don’t make any noise, do they?’

‘A Dyson?’ Her mum threw her head backed and laughed – a real laugh, filled with life and sunshine, that showed all the gold fillings in her mouth. ‘Do you know how many days’ work a Dyson is? Maybe when you’re rich and famous you can buy me one, eh, love?’

‘Maybe,’ Abi dropped her head and mumbled into the neck of her hoodie.

‘You look shattered. Come upstairs, let’s get a bit more sleep. You can come in my bed if you want.’

In her mum’s bed, Abi waited until Marie’s breaths got deeper and longer, before taking out her phone from beneath the pillow and opening up Snapchat.

She muted the volume and skipped through stories of people from her school, celebrities and random accounts she’d started following after coming across them in other people’s snaps.

When she reached her friend Deanna’s story, she watched it through twice before sending her a message: ‘Where u been? When u get them trainers?’

Deanna messaged back almost immediately: ‘Present from my older.’

The message ended with a winking emoji with its tongue sticking out.

‘Kl,’ Abi typed back.

Then three dots appeared on her screen as Deanna began typing something else, but instead she sent a selfie, her face obscured by a thick fan of ten- and twenty-pound notes.

‘How u get all tht?’

‘Got a job. U wnt in?’

‘Wht job?’

‘What u doin 2day? Meet me in twn.’

‘Kl.’

Abi slid out of her mum’s bed and headed for the shower.

Thursday, 6 July, 12:28

1 new voicemail

‘You did these yourself?’ Talitha asked, reaching out for one of the gold clasps that Mimi had fixed to her twists. ‘The triangle parts too?’

Mimi stopped pushing Micah’s buggy and bowed her head, allowing her friend to examine the neat partings that zigzagged across her scalp. She could hear catcalling voices trying to draw their attention, but she ignored them, lifted her head and flashed Talitha a grin.

‘I’m telling you,’ Talitha continued. ‘You need to join my cousin’s shop. She really needs someone to do braids and you’d make so much money! Cash in hand! You can still go college in September or whatever, but get that shmoney now!’

Mimi paused before answering, imagining a summer on her feet braiding hair all day while hairdryers whirred around her, spewing hot air into a confined shopfront.

‘I’m all right,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t like braiding hair anyway. It’s only bearable because I just watch Housewives all day and can take a break whenever I need to.’

Mimi also wanted one more summer of relative freedom before she lost the next few years of her life to coursework and a part-time job.

She had done the maths, and even with a bursary and the subsidised childcare a college might offer to her as a single parent, she would still need the extra that Universal Credit provided, but she would only get that if she agreed to look for part-time work.

If she was honest, the thought of studying, working and looking after Micah by herself made Mimi feel physically sick. But it had cost her a lot emotionally to move out of her parents’ house, endure her time in squalid temporary accommodation and move into her little bedsit. She had only been living on Cameron Road for eight months. Returning home with her toddler on her hip and her tail between her legs was not an option. She had to make this work.

‘I don’t know why you’re in a rush to go college anyway, Mimi,’ Talitha continued, stopping to fan herself. ‘Childcare is effin’ expensive. You should wait a couple more years until Micah is in school. Then you just need to pay for after-school club or a childminder or whatever.’

Mimi already knew this. She had run those sums as well.

‘But everyone I was in school with graduates from uni next year,’ Mimi said, trying to keep her voice even as they hashed out this topic again. ‘And what have I done? Just pushed pram and braided my hair.’

Talitha sighed and kissed her teeth. ‘You have a child! It’s not like you’re jobless.’

Mimi picked up her pace, pushing ahead towards the entrance of the soft-play area in the middle of the shopping centre.

The commercial complex was fairly new and boasted everything a growing town like theirs would need – a cinema, a food court and a soft-play centre for all the fresh young families the area’s regeneration was sure to draw. Gone was the dying high street with battered shutters guarding businesses on their last breath, and instead was this palace of steel, bricks and glass. In the shopping centre, a network of white beams held up the top of a glass pyramid that seemed only to work as a greenhouse in the current heatwave and kept the cleaners and custodians busy watering the plants arranged into displays at various intervals around the shops. Seven years after its construction and things still looked impressive, and in the absence of youth clubs providing opportunity for more wholesome pursuits, it at least gave the young people of surrounding areas somewhere to be.

As Mimi and Talitha approached, they saw that the café adjoined to the soft play was deserted, and there was a sign on the front desk: ‘Closed for deep cleaning.’

‘Shi— sugar!’ Talitha said, quickly correcting herself. ‘Someone must’ve been sick in the ballpit again.’ She stifled a yawn.

‘Why are you always so tired?’ Mimi asked, her earlier irritation replaced with amusement before suddenly sobering up. ‘You aren’t pregnant again, are you?!’

‘Hello? I’m pushing two over here!’ Talitha said, gesturing at her children. Kyrie was sleeping in his seat, and Nimah bounced up and down on the BuggyBoard clipped behind. ‘Is Micah still asleep?’

Mimi walked around to the front of her own pushchair, pulling up the sunshade. The seat was still laid flat, but Micah was awake, content in his dark cocoon.

‘Nope.’ Mimi adjusted the seat so Micah was back upright.

‘And he didn’t make a sound? He’s so good! You know Kyrie is gonna let the whole of the town centre know when nap time is done!’

‘Where we going to take them now though?’ Mimi asked, looking around the deserted play area.

‘We could go Happy Harry’s? It’d mean getting back on the bus though.’

‘Happy Harry’s is like a tenner per kid, and then the food is even more on top. We should have done them a packed lunch or something.’

Talitha agreed, running through her mental list of affordable child-friendly activities.

‘Let’s just go to the green bit in front of the town hall,’ she said eventually. ‘They can run around in that little garden.’

Mimi nodded and waited for Talitha to catch her breath.

‘Let’s swap, I’ll push Nimah and Kyrie instead.’

Talitha gratefully exchanged pushchairs and Mimi tested her new vehicle with a few strides.

‘This isn’t that bad.’

‘Try pushing it for longer than two minutes, yeah?’ Talitha snorted. ‘Anyway! You’ve got nice powerful thighs! I’m only a likkle bit.’ Talitha stopped and wrapped her fingers around her slim leg.

‘Please!’ Mimi kept facing forward.

‘You know you’ve got body! Pretending like you can’t hear all the men trying to move to you in that maxi dress.’

Mimi kept walking.

‘Your backside is a weapon of mass distraction, Mimi! Share some of it with me, please! Or at least tell me what you do? Is it squats? Yam? What?’

Mimi kissed her teeth and tried to keep a straight face.

‘Ay, my size!’ Talitha said, deepening her voice and rushing to keep up with an exaggerated lean in her gait. ‘Can I chat to you for a minute?’

‘Talitha! Stop it!’ Mimi allowed herself to laugh. ‘You know why they’re hollering anyway. They think us “babymums” are easy and desperate—’

‘And have our own yards and fridges full of Capri-Sun!’

‘Ding! Ding! Ding!’ Mimi rang an imaginary bell above her head.

‘Anyway,’ Talitha said with another sigh. ‘If they knew how effin’ fertile I was, they’d run a mile! What do they call two babies in two years again? Irish twins? I should have listened to my effin’ health visitor when she told me to get on the pill or something. Who the eff gets pregnant when their first baby is four effin’ months old?’

‘All right, but keep saying effin’ this, effin’ that and it kinda defeats the purpose of censoring yourself.’

‘Have you gone to the clinic yet? You need to be serious about contraception, or you’re gonna end up like me. After Kyrie, I would have doubled up if they’d let me. If I wasn’t sure about having more kids one day, I’d tell Nate to get the snip and all!’

‘You think he’d do it?!’ Mimi laughed.

‘To be honest, it’s the least he could do. That man is a one-hit wonder, I tell ya now.’

‘Stop!’ Mimi spluttered. ‘I really don’t need the details, and remember, I’m never having sex ever again. I’m done with children, but more importantly, I’m done with men.’

‘So what, girls then?’

‘If you’re offering.’ Mimi shot Talitha a flirtatious grin and Talitha tipped her head back to let a loud laugh rip out of her slim frame.

‘Well, at least you won’t get me preggers!’

They were back where they had started their journey, outside the main entrance of the shopping centre. The same group of young guys were waiting outside, limbs looped around the railing that edged the pavement, music playing from speakers hidden somewhere, as if they were secretly shooting a music video. Mimi carefully avoided looking in their direction, but still she felt their eyes raking over the two of them.

‘I can’t be bothered to walk up to the town hall, actually,’ Talitha said with a little whine, wiping a hand across her forehead and using her fingers to press down the edges of her pixie cut. ‘I’m sweating out my press! Let’s get them some overpriced balloons and something to eat.’

Talitha pointed over at a woman selling helium balloons, ribbons wound around and around her arm, turning the flesh a deep pink. Above her head, bloated metallic versions of cartoon characters bobbed in the breezeless sky.

Mimi led the way, pushing Nimah and Kyrie towards the balloon seller. Nimah began bouncing on her BuggyBoard in excitement and Mimi realised why pushing the two of them had been such an effort for Talitha.

‘I want Frozen!’ Nimah cried, pointing at a smirking Elsa.

‘Pick someone else,’ Talitha instructed her eldest child, casting a disparaging look at the ice princess. ‘Anyone else.’

Nimah hopped down off the board and began walking around the balloon seller, carefully scrutinising what was on offer.

‘You want a balloon, Micah?’ Mimi asked her own child.

‘Out!’ he said, kicking his feet once against the seat.

Mimi unbuckled him and lifted him down onto the pavement, straightening out his rumpled clothes while he stretched up, arching his back like a little cat.

After much discussion, each child had picked a shiny balloon, three little fists gripping blue ribbons.

‘Oh my days, long time!’ Mimi heard Talitha call out as she rushed over to an older woman with open arms.

‘Auntie Mimi,’ Nimah called, tugging on the jersey material of Mimi’s dress. ‘Lace!’

She stuck out her little foot to show one tiny pink Air Max 90, and Mimi crouched down to retie it. While Mimi was tucking the ends of the laces into the sides of Nimah’s shoe,