Ben left the bench and the shade of the tree and the companionship of the pigeons, and walked through streets knowing he was going the right way, for about two miles. Now he was nearing a group of big blocks of flats. He went direct to one of them, and inside it, saw the lift come running down towards him, hissing and bumping, tried to make himself enter it, but his fear of lifts took him to the stairs. One, two, three ... eleven flights of grey cold stairs, listening to the lift grumble and crash on the other side of a wall. On the landing were four doors. He went straight to one from where a rich meaty smell was coming, making his mouth fill with water. He turned the door knob, rattled it, and stood back to stare expectantly at the door, which opened. And there an old woman stood, smiling. 'Oh, Ben, there you are,' she said, and put her arm around him to pull him into the room.
Inside he stood slightly crouched, darting looks everywhere, first of all to a large tabby cat that sat on a chair arm. Its fur was standing on end. The old woman went to it, and said, 'There, there, it's all right, puss,' and under her calming hand its terror abated, and it became a small neat cat. Now the old woman went to Ben, with the same words, 'There, Ben, it's all right, come and sit down.' Ben allowed his eyes to leave puss, but did not lose his wariness, sending glances in her direction.
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!
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.
He took it off. The jacket she had found fitted his big shoulders and chest but was loose around the waist. 'Look, you can pull it in.' There was a belt, which she adjusted. And there were trousers, too. 'And now I want you to have a bath, Ben.'
He took off the new jacket and his trousers, obedient, watching her all the time.
'I'm going to put away these trousers, Ben.' She did so. 'And I have got new underpants, and vests.'
He was standing naked there, watching, while she went next door to a little bathroom. His nostrils flared, taking in the smell of water. Waiting, he checked all the smells in the room, the fading aromas of the good stew, a warm friendly smell; the bread, which smelled like a person; then a rank wild smell — the cat, still watching him; the smell of a slept-in bed, where the covers had been pulled up covering the pillows, which had a different smell.
And he listened, too. The lift was silent, behind two walls. There was a rumbling in the sky, but he knew aeroplanes, was not afraid of them. The traffic down there he did not hear at all — he had shut it out of his awareness.
The old woman came back, and said, 'Now, Ben.' He followed her, clambered into the water, and crouched in it. 'Do sit down,' she said. He hated the submission to the dangerous slipperiness, but now he was sitting in hot water to his waist. He shut his eyes, and with his teeth bared, this time in a grin of resignation, he let her wash him. He knew this washing was something he had to do, from time to time. It was expected of him. In fact he was beginning to enjoy water.
Now the old woman, Ben's eyes no longer fastened on her face, allowed herself to show the curiosity she felt, which could never be assuaged — or indulged in.
Under her hands was a strong broad back, with fringes of brown hair on either side of the backbone, and on the shoulders a mat of wet fur: it felt like that, as if she were washing a dog. On the upper arms there was hair, but not so much, not more than could be on an ordinary man. His chest was hairy, but it wasn't like fur, it was a man's chest. She handed him the soap but he let it slide into the water, and dug around furiously for it. She found it, and lathered him vigorously, and then used a little hand-shower to get it all off. He bounded out of the bath, and she made him go back, and she washed his thighs, his backside, and then, his genitals. He had no self-consciousness about these, and so she didn't either. And then, he could get out, which he did laughing, and shaking himself into the towel she held. She enjoyed hearing him laugh: it was like a bark. Long ago she had a dog who barked like that.
She dried him, all over, and then led him back to the other room, naked, and made him put on his new underpants, his new vest, a charity shop shirt, his trousers. Then she put a towel around his shoulders and as he began to jerk about in protest, she said, 'Yes, Ben, you have to.'