In the mirror, Harold met a face he only dimly knew. The skin hung in dark folds, as if there was too much of it for the bone behind. He appeared to have several cuts to the forehead and cheekbone. His hair and beard were wilder than he expected, and from his eyebrows and nostrils shot stray long hairs like wires. He was a joke old man. A misfit. He looked nothing like the man who had set off with a letter. He looked nothing like the man who had posed for photographs and worn a pilgrim T-shirt.

The waitress provided water in a disposable cup but did not invite him to sit. He asked if anyone might lend him a razor or a comb, but the manageress in the grey jacket came swiftly over and pointed to the sign at the window: NO BEGGING. She asked him to leave, or she would have to call the police. No one looked up as he moved to the door. He wondered if he smelt bad. He had been outside so long he had for gotten which smells were good and which were not. He knew people were embarrassed on his behalf, and wished to spare them that.

At a table beside the window, a young man and his wife crooned over their baby. There rose such pain inside Harold, he didn’t know how he would keep upright.

He turned to the manageress and the teashop people and he met them face on. He said, “I want my son.”

Speaking the words sent his body shaking; not with a gentle shiver but a spasmic shudder that came from deep inside. His face twisted as grief tore through his chest muscles and swelled its passage up his throat.

“Where is he?” said the manageress.

Harold squeezed his hands to keep himself from falling.

The manageress said, “Do you see your son here? Is he in Berwick?”

A customer put his hand on Harold’s arm. He said more gently, “Excuse me, sir. Are you the man who was walking?”

Harold gasped. It was the kindness of the man that unpicked him.

“My wife and I read about what you did. We had a friend we had lost touch with. Last weekend we went to visit. We spoke of you.”

Harold let the man talk, and hold his arm, but he couldn’t reply or move his face.

“Who is your son? What is his name?” said the man. “Maybe I could help?”

“His name is – ”

Suddenly Harold’s heart plummeted, as if he had stepped over a wall and was tumbling through emptiness. “He’s my son. His name is – ”

The manageress looked coolly back at him, waiting, waiting, with the customers behind her, and the kind man with his hand on Harold’s sleeve. They had no idea. No idea of the horror, the confusion, the remorse raging inside him. He couldn’t remember his son’s name.