The girl starts to wail. ‘That’s the one I want.’

A switch seems to be triggered inside his small body and I can see his impulse to smack the girl before it happens. I’m forced to grab his hand as it flies in the air. I hold on to him firmly and pull him away from the shed.

‘That’s not ok, Tommy. You can’t go around hitting people.’

He looks at me, like Who are you kidding? Heat rushes to my cheeks.

‘Would you like to see the room where I sleep?’

He shrugs, hands deep in the pockets of jeans I don’t recognise. Who bought him clothes? Did they take him shopping? He hates the bright lights, the thumping music, the crowds, just like me, hates the ‘stupid’ other people. Do the folk minding him know this about him? Do they let him grab anything orange he likes off the shelves? Underneath his favourite fleece hoodie (the one I stole for him last year) he’s wearing a new orange T-shirt. Jealousy grabs me by the throat, rattling me around.

‘What’s she like, Tommy, the lady who is looking after you?’

He almost disappears inside himself, his head hunched low.

I look towards the sky.

‘Where has Mr Sunshine gone to today, Tommy?’

He looks up, his focus intense, seeking out the concentration of light behind the thick membrane of cloud. His eyes dart all round, never alighting on one spot. After a few moments he gives up. He has never not managed to find the spot where Mr Sunshine is hiding.

I point, over his shoulder. ‘There. See?’

He shakes his head. ‘He’s gone away.’

‘He hasn’t disappeared, Tommy, remember? He’s up there somewhere. It’s up to us to find him.’

His eyes are cast down towards the gravel path beneath his feet. What does he see?

‘It’s only a matter of time, Tommy, before the sky is blue again. You know that, right?’

He doesn’t respond, seemingly irritated by everything about me.

‘What colour is the room you’re sleeping in, darling?’

He actively scuffs the front of his trainers, a long, deliberate, provocative scuff.

A part of me wants to smack him, another part wants to crush him close, sing in his ear over and over: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine… He has no interest in seeing my room, and anyway, what was I thinking? I don’t want to show him the four institutional beds in the dreary, stuffy room. What kind of an image would that plant in his mind? Why has he not asked me any questions: what, who, when, why? His enquiring mind never used to stop questioning, sorting, labelling, packaging. Have they given him some sort of sedative? Is that why his eyes are as dead as any addict’s in here?

I stamp my feet into the ground, shaking my head – push that one away. A leaf floats loose from one of the sentinels: a skinny, anaemic-looking fellow. Mr Droopy – how’s that one, Dad? That’s a new one!