Single, scared and trapped

Coming to the end of my week finding out what it's like to live as an unemployed single mother on an estate in Hackney, two things are on my mind. The first is that I've only got £17 left in my pocket, out of my £116 weekly benefits. Next week, when I return to my normal life as a professional woman, things will be different. My 10-month-old son Sebastian and I will have left Mayfield Close, on the Holly Street estate, and there'll be money in my bank account.

The second focus for my thoughts is 16-year-old Kelly, for whom next week and the week after will be the same: an endless round of petty crime, drugs and no future.

Entering Kelly's world has been the low point of a week in which I've been woken in the middle of the night by a girl being attacked, listened to a grandfather describe being mugged by two teenage girls; and heard how much better things are now that the crack dealers and prostitutes have been evicted from the upstairs flats.

The first time I met Kelly she was hanging out on a motorbike with her girlfriend Lacey, and their two mates, Jacko and Leon. Gamine and pale, Kelly wears her hair pulled back, accentuating her cheekbones, and her big glistening earrings pull down on her tiny ears. Once I've managed to extricate her from the group, I ask her about her dreams for the future.

"I want to get myself a boyfriend who's a gangster, get their money and buy drugs, drink, clothes and get buzzing. Make him pay for everything. Usually they f*** you and leave you. That's how come girls end up single mothers. But I'm lucky. I can look after myself."

Tomorrow is Kelly's birthday. She'll be 17. How are they planning to celebrate?

"Nothing. Look for some trouble. Get drunk. Smoke some stuff." Happy birthday! I say, before returning to my flat, past the dustbin dumps and the litter in the flower beds. Only one week in and I hardly notice the mess any more.

The next day is Saturday and the weather is playing havoc with my dwindling finances. Temperatures are in the eighties, I've got no sunblock for my baby and no parasol for the pram either. I decide to try to get by without them.

By mid-afternoon it's so hot my son has turned pink, one of his eyes is streaming and swollen, and I am wracked with guilt. An eye infection. Maybe conjunctivitis. I head for Kingsland Shopping Centre, where a cheering sign in the entrance warns thieves not to even think about plying their trade, and peruse the suntan lotions. They are so expensive. I buy one for £5.64. The pharmacist advises me to bathe Sebastian's eye in warm water with cotton wool. Another 99p. And I am out of baby wipes. I suppose I could use loo paper, but I'm not prepared to - the wipes cost £2.99. That's £9.62 all together, leaving me £7.38. This is no way to live.

Maybe Labour's New Deal for Lone Parents is the solution. Down at the JobCentre Plus on Mare Street, they couldn't be more helpful or friendly.

They explain all the benefits: how I would be eligible for childcare support if I went on a training scheme but wouldn't be if I worked more than 16 hours a week; how I could apply for Working Family Tax Credit; how they would help with childcare for the first six months, subsidise uniforms, transport to interviews.

Blimey. Sounds like they've thought of everything. Then comes the crunch. What kind of jobs pay the most? I ask the adviser - looking at Sebastian, mindful of the fact that a job has got to be worth leaving your child with a stranger for.

"How much you earn is not the most important thing," comes the reply and I nearly eat my appointment card. "Doing a job you want to do and is flexible, that will fit into your timetable, that's the most important thing." Silly me. I select four jobs that promise flexibility and stimulation: market researcher (commission only, meets national minimum wage), accidents claims canvasser (£14,000 per annum), interviewer (£6.51 per hour, must have own transport and landline telephone) and freelance canvasser (meets national minimum wage, plus commission).

Own transport, landline telephone, commission only, minimum wage - it's not looking good. The advice of one single mum who lives on the estate is ringing in my ears: don't work full-time. It's not worth it.

She earns £17,000 a year and loves her public sector employment training job. "But," she says, "I've just discovered that I'm better off working part-time. I take home £270 a week. My cousin, who works part-time, takes home £500 a week because she gets her money topped up with the Working Family Tax Credit, housing benefit, full childcare costs."

Back on the estate, an ambulance draws up outside the house where Kelly, the 16-year-old, lives. Her mother has just been attacked in the phone box at the end of Mayfield Close.

Two boys from a neighbouring estate sprayed her in the face with a fire extinguisher, then bashed her on the head. One of the ambulance women is trying to persuade her to go to hospital. She doesn't want to go. The police arrive next. One of the neighbours, a well-dressed, grey-haired woman in her fifties, has come out to find out what is going on.

How can they do that, in broad daylight, I ask her. "They are not afraid of anyone," she replies. "They know the police can't do anything - 'cos they're under-age. They can do what they like. They don't go to school. I don't know what they do all day. I've lived here 36 years; it used to be like a country estate. Lovely. I don't feel safe now. I never go out at night. Or if I do, I go out with my friend who lives here. If there are two of you, you're all right, aren't you?'

I leave the police and ambulance crew to it. As I am walking off to my flat, I see one of the officers double back to Kelly's front door. He comes back clutching the small fire extinguisher like a trophy. "For forensic evidence," he says to his colleague, and they both laugh.

Twenty minutes later, after they've gone, I knock on Kelly's door. I want to ask her mother if she is all right, whether she needs anything.

There's no answer. I try again, assuming she's afraid to answer the door. Third time and still no joy, so I turn to walk away, at which point Kelly and her best friend Lacey walk into the Close.

"Happy birthday, Kelly! How's it been?" It's a stupid thing to say, I know, but I don't know if she knows about her mum's misadventure yet.

When I'd met Kelly the day before she'd been a tough-talking street kid with hell on her mind. Today, there's desolation behind her mascara'd and bloodshot eyes. "Last night I was kicked out of home and today my mum's been attacked." Her eyes may be red raw but one thing is certain: they are not caused by tears on her mother's behalf.

"If she just left people alone this wouldn't have happened," says the errant daughter. According to Kelly, her mum went to the phone box (when she should have stayed inside), saw the two boys making a call, grabbed the receiver from one of them, kicked him then punched him in the head. I picture Kelly's mum, a woman as fit and fearsome as a chubby schoolgirl.

So the other boy, who just happened to have a small fire extinguisher in his hand, sprayed her in the face.

Meanwhile, her mum had kicked her out (not for the first time) because the flat was burgled and she blamed her daughter - claimed she knew the boy concerned.

"I was also kidnapped," says Kelly. I raise my eyebrows. "Two men put me in a car then dumped me in de Beauvoir estate."

"Why?" I ask. "Because I wouldn't give them what they wanted."

"Which was?" Now it's her turn to raise her eyebrows.

She says she knows who attacked her mum. When I ask if she'll tell the police, she says she is going to talk to the boys first, see if they'll say sorry. As if.

Then it's back to her mum: "This isn't her Close. Other people don't tell her what she can and can't do, and where she can and can't go. This will keep happening to her until she learns. If she left people alone, they'd leave her alone."

"Well, they didn't, did they," I say, "they broke in last night." All this time Lacey has been standing next to her friend, nodding. Kelly is staying with her until she gets her own flat.

"How will you pay for it?" I say, naively. "Social services will pay," she replies indignantly. Of course.

At this point a man pulls up in his car. He's waiting for Kelly. "He's going to take us to the fair," she says. I tell her to look after herself. Fat chance. As I head back to my flat, I notice some boys playing football on the tarmac pitch. Yesterday it was padlocked. Great, I think, someone's acknowledged that they need somewhere to play.

The lock is intact. A 14-year-old girl points to the broken and rusting wire fencing that has been ripped up to make a bolt-hole. "One of the kids has just gashed his leg on the wire. They lock it to keep the drug addicts out," she says matter-of-factly.

"Needles, cannabis, condoms, it's all in the bushes. You can't leave a kid alone for a minute around here. They'll get knocked over, get nicked (kidnapped) by someone, anything can happen. People get raped. The boys go around in gangs. You're all right if they know you."

Just after 7.30pm I see Kelly being given a leg-up by another girl. She's managed to get the window open of her mum's flat and she's climbing in. I leave them to it. Not for the first time, I choose not to get involved. Watch my own back. That's the advice one mum gave me when I moved in. Not very community spirited, I admit, but then that has been knocked out of me.

My own jailor now, I retreat inside my ground-floor flat, lock the metal security gate and the front door, then put the telly on. And turn the volume up.

It's been a long week. I never expected living as a single mother on income support to be easy, and I am humbled by the determination and spiritedness with which many of the mothers I met just get on with their lives and do their best - turning a blind eye to the downsides of life on the Holly Street estate.

But I can't help thinking it's preferable to kick off family life with two parents. That way there's more money, plus a bonus prize: two parents for the offspring. All right, it's not always that simple, especially if you've crawled your way through our dire education system, have no positive parental experiences to draw on, no self-esteem.

Wherever you live, poverty, like loneliness, is a curse. But being poor in a rundown, crime-ridden borough like Hackney is about as tough as it gets.