Bernice was a slim and captivating, wildly flirty Jamaican woman with an outwardly sunny disposition but mainly a tongue that would, and could, lyrically destroy you. Nikisha had picked this up from Bernice as she’d grown older, and sometimes deployed it, but only when she needed to.

Then came Danny Smith-Pennington. His mother was Tracy Smith, a friendly and more than accommodating petite white woman with a dark blonde bob, who lived on the block near the bus garage where Cyril worked. Cyril would help Tracy carry her shopping up the dull stone steps to the flat until the day she asked him if he’d like to come inside for a cup of tea. When she fell pregnant, Cyril, in his own optimistic way, vowed to himself that he’d make strides to be present in the life of this child, and also to Nikisha, the two-year-old daughter he already had. That was the first time Cyril had ever notably lied to himself.

Three years later, Cyril became father to Dimple Pennington, and Elizabeth Adesina. Not twins, but born three weeks apart. Dimple arrived, weeping as gently as a baby could, three weeks early, while Elizabeth, who would be known as Lizzie by those close to her, arrived silently, precisely on schedule, and already seemingly unimpressed by the world she’d been born into.

Cyril had met Janet, Dimple’s mother, at a nightclub on Old Kent Road he was DJing at. His DJ name was Fireshot. It was also the name of the soundsystem he’d built back in Jamaica before London called his name. Cyril had liked Janet because she was big. His type was usually smaller, more lean women, but when he laid eyes on Janet’s heavy chest and big, round bottom from the decks, he was so distracted by what he saw that he dropped a bottle of Red Stripe on the turntables. Her full body piqued his interest in a way he hadn’t been able to let go of, physically or mentally. Cyril had promised her the world, and, suitably, had left her with a child. Janet, an Indian-Jamaican woman who had aspirations to be a legal secretary, knew nothing of Cyril’s previous children, and when she found out, she was equal parts livid and heartbroken, though she hid her disappointment. She wanted a child to love, yes, but she also thought that what she’d found in Cyril was a man who would love and support them both, not a man who could whisk up, on the spot, seventy-five reasons why he couldn’t pay child support this week, but that he ‘might be able to help in a couple weeks’ time’.

Book of the week: read an exclusive extract from People Person by Candice Carty-Williams