He sat there like a dog expecting a rebuke, his teeth revealed in that other grin, which she knew and understood now, a stretched, teeth-showing grin that meant fear.

'Ben, you must go back to your mother and ask her for your birth certificate. She'll have it, I'm sure. It'd save you all the complications and the questions. You do remember how to get there?'

'Yes, I know that.'

'Well, I think you should go soon. Perhaps tomorrow?'

Ben's eyes did not leave her face, taking in every little movement of eyes, mouth, her smile, her insistence. It was not the first time she had told him to go home to find his mother. He did not want to. But if she said he must. For him what was difficult was this: here there was friendship for him, warmth, kindness, and here, too, insistence that he must expose himself to pain and confusion, and danger. Ben's eyes did not leave that face, that smiling face, for him at this moment the bewildering face of the world.

'You see, Ben, I have to live on my pension. I have only so much money to live on. I want to help you. But if you got some money — that office would give you money — and that would help me. Do you understand, Ben?' Yes, he did. He knew money. He had learned that hard lesson. Without money you did not eat.

And now, as if it was no great thing she wanted him to do, just a little thing, she said, 'Good, then that is settled.'

She got up. 'Look, I've got something I think would be just right for you.'

Folded over a chair was a jacket, which she had found in a charity shop, searching until there was one with wide shoulders. The jacket Ben had on was dirty, and torn, too.