This room was where the old woman had her life. On a gas stove was a saucepan of meat stew, and it was this that Ben had smelled on the landing. 'It's all right, Ben,' she said again, and ladled stew into two bowls, put hunks of bread beside one, for Ben, set her own opposite him, and then spooned out a portion into a saucer for the cat, which she put on the floor by the chair. But the cat wasn't taking any chances: it sat quiet, its eyes fixed on Ben.
Ben sat down, and his hands were already about to dig into the mound of meat, when he saw the old woman shake her head at him. He picked up a spoon and used it, conscious of every movement, being careful, eating tidily, though it was evident he was very hungry. The old woman ate a little, but mostly watched him, and when he had finished, she scraped out from the saucepan everything that was left of the stew, and put it on his plate.
'I wasn't expecting you,' she said, meaning that she would have made more. 'Fill up on bread.'
Ben finished the stew, and then the bread. There was nothing else to eat except some cake, which she pushed towards him, but he ignored it.
Now his attention was free, and she said, slowly, carefully, as if to a child, 'Ben, did you go to the office?' She had told him how to get there.
'Yes.'
'What happened?'
'They said, "How old are you?"'
Here the old woman sighed, and put her hand to her face, rubbing it around there, as if wiping away difficult thoughts. She knew Ben was eighteen: he kept saying so. She believed him. It was the one fact he kept repeating. But she knew that was no eighteen-year-old, sitting there in front of her, and she had decided not to go on with the thoughts of what that meant. It's not my business — what he really is, sums up what she felt. Deep waters! Trouble! Keep out!