Once his mother, it was evening, clutched his head against her apron, so that she must have pricked her hands.

‘You are not my son,’ she clanged, ‘otherwise you would act different.’

But he could not, did not want to. Sometimes, anyway, at that age, he felt too dizzy from growing.

‘How?’ his voice asked, or croaked.

But she did not explain. She flung his long body away.

‘It’s not a matter,’ she said, ‘that anybody can discuss I will ask Mr Stutchbury to see what we must do and how.’

Mr Stutchbury was so influential, as well as having been a mate of Herb Skerritt’s all his life. Mr Stutchbury was something, Mrs Skerritt believed, in the Department of Education, but if she did not clear the matter up, it was because she considered there was not all that necessity.

She bought a T-bone steak, and asked him round.

‘What,’ she asked, ‘should we do with Clay I am a widow as you know and you was his father’s friend.’

Mr Stutchbury drew in his moustache.

‘We will see,’ he said, ‘when the time comes.’

Then he folded his moist lips over a piece of yellow fat from the not so tender T-bone steak.

When it was time, Mr Stutchbury thought up a letter to some fellow at the Customs and Excise.

Dear Archie [he composed]

This is to recommend the son of an old friend. Herb Skerritt, for many years in the Tramways, died in tragical circumstances – of cancer to be precise...

(Clay, who of course opened the letter to see, got quite a shock from a word his mother never on any account allowed to be used in the home.)

... it is my duty and wish to further the interests of the above-mentioned boy. In brief, I would esteem it a favour if you could see your way to taking him ‘under your wing’. I do not predict wonders of young Skerritt, but am of the opinion, rather, that he is a decent, average lad. In any event, wonders are not all that desirable, not in the Service anyway. It is the steady hand which pushes the pen a lifetime.

I will not expatiate further, but send you my

Salaams!

The young lady whom Mr Stutchbury had persuaded to type the letter had barely left the room, when his superior called, with the result that he forgot to add as he intended: ‘Kindest regards to Mrs Archbold.’ Even persons of influence have to consider the ground they tread on.

But Clay Skerritt started at the Customs, because Mr Archbold was not the sort to refuse Mr Stutchbury the favour he asked. So Clay took the ferry, mornings, in the stiff dark suit his mother had chosen. His long thin fingers learned to deal in forms. He carried the papers from tray to tray. In time he grew used to triplicate, and moistened the indelible before writing in his long thin hand the details, and the details.