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‘Shake my hand,’ she said to me halfway up Thomas Street as I made my way back from an Occasional Cinema at Magpie, top of Picton Street.
I approached her shook her hand warm, clammy, weak grip.
‘I heard you earlier,’ I said, ‘where the film was showing. You shouted, “I’ve been in the valley of death and I’m still standing.”’
‘I’ve just got out of prison,’ she said. ‘How long you think I did?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Eighteen months and I’ve just got out.’
‘You said,’ I said.
She was using crutches, her feet were bare and the middle toe of her right foot was bandaged.
‘That’s my son,’ she said pointing at the young man wearing a stripey shirt and standing nearby astride a pushbike.
‘Look at my toe,’ said mother, and I did, ‘You want to know what happened?’
‘What?’
‘The police jumped me, got me down and held me and chained me, they did, then one of them hit my foot, look at it, it’s horrible isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said about the cut and bruised foot the skin of which was red and tight with swelling.
We didn’t speak for a moment with the traffic on Stokes Croft and voices from Hamilton House.
‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Yes, but that’s my son,’ pointing again at the young man.
‘You said,’ I said. ‘Is he looking after you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I need looking after.’
We Said goodbye, and as I neared Dove Street she shouted, ‘Hey,’ and I stopped and turned, ‘I’m in court on Tuesday.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said.
‘I’m giving evidence against a paedophile.’
‘Good luck,’ I said and with that made my way back home.