Prison visit No. 2

That was the day I went with Mikaylah, who was then 15, to the men's prison, to visit Bronson, the father of her baby.

Bronson was already a neighbourhood legend. At seven, he accounted for most of the family income, providing sexual favours for gang members. Now at 17, he was doing his first lag in adult prison.

When I rang to make the appointment, I was expecting the usual unsupervised chat in a room with a plastic table like a child's desk and plastic picnic chairs. But for Bronson, I was told it needed to be a non-contact booth visit. So we sat in a tiny booth like the ones people go to have joke photos taken, on two stools behind a thick perspex partition, with a rose of small holes in it, and we were told  if we when we had had enough we were to push the button.

Bronson turned out to be beautiful. Snake hipped, sloe eyed, cheek bones as high and fine as a Disney princess, the colour of caramel. His eyes were heavy lidded and languid and long lashed, and the most unusual dead black. He looked like a Persian catamite.

I briefly explained the purpose of our visit. The baby, Galaxy, named after the car, was now nine months old. Mikaylah had shown little interest in her. Mikaylah's mother Jax was already her main carer, and Jax was doing well on methadone and kept a tidy ship. We wanted to keep Galaxy away from the child protection services. We needed Bronson's agreement for Mikaylah's mother to have the parenting order in her favour.

Bronson readily agreed. He had no interest in my proposal. I had nothing to offer him. He had more pressing matters to hand.

Their conversation was demotic, barely verbal. I can remember almost every word, because they used so few of them. They made no eye contact. Bronson sat directly in front of Mikaylah, hunched and tense and barely flexing, except for his eyes, hypervigilant under their lids and lashes, always on the move.  Mikaylah sat leaning back, almost as if she was relaxed, turned half away from him, fiddling, buying little escapes with tosses of her head.

- Whatcha been doing.

- Nothink.

- Whatcha been doing.

- Nothink.

- Who you been with.

- Nobody.

- Who you been with.

- Nobody.

- I hear you been with that Teina.

- (She shrugs).

- I thought you hated her guts.

- Well, she's got a car now. (Mikaylah looks aside to me and shrugs and grins briefly. I interpret this to mean What you must think of me. But I may well be wrong. Today, Mikaylah is as mysterious as quantum physics.)

- Whatcha been doing.

- Nothink

- Who else you been with.

- Nobody.

(Repeated).

- I love you babe.

- (She sighs and stares at the wall).

- Babe. You know I love you babe.

- Yeah, well.

- D'ya love me babe.

- (Silence).

-  Cos I love you babe.

- I dunno.

- I still love you babe.

- I dunno.

(He leans forward and drops his voice)

- Babe, you know. You know what I do.

- (She shrugs).

- You know what I did in your room.

I pushed the button. An alarm sounded. The prison officers arrived just as Bronson launched himself at the perspex partition, howling and punching it. They pulled him back by his shoulders. He kicked out. He was in the air. He was horizontal when he left the room. The door slammed. We could hear punching and kicking and dragging. He was still howling, wordlessly, he never had any words anyway.

The prison officer escorted us out. He seemed impressed. Who was that? he asked. I told him. Where's he from? he asked. D Block, I said. Jesus Christ, he invoked.

When we got outside into the dazzling heat and the wind that was stripping the decent earth, I lost all professionalism. I rounded on Mikaylah. You can do better than this! I shouted. You will do better than this! You will have nothing to do with him! Whatever becomes of you in the future, Mikaylah, if he ever comes near you again I will hear about it and I will Do Something! I mean it!

She stood there, that big pale girl in her giant shoes, in that unholy heat, and gaped at me. Lines of dust had slaked themselves in the crevices of her makeup. Her lip gloss had formed a viscous pink pool on her lower lip, a sorry substitute for a tear.