The adults of the camp were greatly taken with Doctor Sot. There were six of them packed into the trailer around him. He was a break from the boredom – the boredom that was bred into them by suburbs and drab English towns. Doctor Sot found it difficult to tell them apart, even to sex them, but he knew well enough that the beauty was not here. There was muffled hilarity to the brief silences that yawned out between them. To fill these, he spoke of the importance of five portions daily of fresh fruit and veg.

‘Your broccoli is a powerful man,’ he said. ‘Handful of florets? There’s a portion, there’s one of your five.’

He spoke of oily fish, such as mackerel, for the sake of its Omega 3.

‘Ground control to Omega 3,’ said Joxie.

The travellers smoked their roll-ups and drank green tea. As this was not an official Outreach session, as it was more of a break-the-ice visit, Doctor Sot saw no reason why he shouldn’t offer to strengthen their tea. He opened the satchel and with a wink produced a full naggin.

‘Nip of this lad?’ he whispered. ‘Greatly medicinal.’

‘They do know yer out an’ about, yeah?’ said Joxie.

The evening began to flow. By the time a second naggin had gone around, the travellers had in their civility produced tins of own-brand supermarket lager and flagons of unlabelled cider. They questioned Doctor Sot as to what pills he might have in his satchel. He laughed them away.

‘It’s the six, just, is it?’ he tried. ‘Just the six of you, for grown-ups?’

‘Well there’s Mag an’ all, ain’t there?’ said Joxie. ‘Mag’s in her bender.’

‘Oh?’

‘She got one of her spells on, don’t she?’ said Joxie.

‘Spells?’ Sot asked.

There was no reply, and Sot fretted. He drank to brace himself. And he drank more quickly. And quickly it was as if Doctor Sot had become part of the camp – the travellers largely forgot about him. They were in and out of the horse trailer, attending to children and dogs. They smoked their roll-ups with a resin crumbled in. They sipped at their lager and cider. They didn’t say no to another nip of the Jameson – Doctor Sot fetched extra from Elizabeth – but their conversation was no longer centred on the visitor. They talked drowsily about making some dinner. They talked about how they were going to get the van sorted. They talked, at some length, of the significance of the number ‘23’.

‘Why have the children no hair?’ asked Doctor Sot.

‘Nits,’ said Joxie.