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good,’ I said.
    ‘Because we are minors,’ Omid said. ‘And minors can perhaps join their family in UK. A new law.’
    He must be seventeen, I saw that now. He had to be, or else he would be left here.
    I understood him to be floundering in the choppy dark sea of my dream, bearing Nalin along through the waves and then lifting her into the boat, with every chance of being left to sink by himself.
    ‘Oh,’ I said again. ‘A law for minors.’
    ‘Age,’ said Murray. ‘It can be a problem when someone doesn’t have a birth certificate. The authorities tend to make arbitrary judgements based only on their impressions.’
    Like I had.
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘they stay with me, these two, for some time now and I can say for sure that they are minors.’
    All three looked at me. I never lie. I hate to lie. But this lying, if it was in fact lying, I was prepared to do. Let’s say it was for Grand-père.
    But what happened was that Omid held up a folder.
    ‘For us,’ he said, ‘is not a problem. We have birth certificates.’
    ‘And perhaps,’ Nalin said, ‘we give our blood.’
    ‘To show it matches our mother’s blood,’ Omid said.
    Nalin held her hand forward, thumb extended towards Murray, like a hitchhiker’s. Her thumb for the pricking, for the blood, for the proof. Fingerprints. Age. Genes. DNA. Proofs of the body.
    Murray finished making notes in his file and stood to leave, promising to be in touch, to send forms and to arrange for a lawyer in the UK to speak with their mother. I waited by the shelter as Omid and Nalin said goodbye to their friends, and then we three walked back to my car and drove home in the dark. By the back door, I patted the handlebars of my old motorbike. That’s another one that’ll be moving out of here soon.

Extending a Hand
    You sit on the side of the road, Mariam and you. The reception isn’t working inside today. Just that annoying crackling you get when someone is on the line, and most of the time there are no bars at all. Outside, here, passing the bridge that hangs over the side of the camp, with the towering fence, it is easier to get a signal. It’s also quieter.
    The kerb is a little cool but dry. A few people are walking up and down the street that leads straight into the camp. Mainly volunteers, mostly Brits, who park their cars or vans and then move on to the show inside. And it is indeed: the display of poor refugees, the lack of humane conditions. They, the ones who give up their time, are here to extend a helping hand, to help make things survivable. But you don’t need a hand; you have two of those. What you need is opportunities.
    It is sunny, thank goodness, and warmer than it should be for the time of year. You have clean new clothes on that were given out yesterday. The hoodie is a deep purple, with little yellow triangles on the front and theback. The stretch denims have that washed-out effect you like. It feels good today, with clean clothes, with the sun shining on your face. Mariam is talking about her mother again. You don’t want to think about anyone. It is enough to call, briefly, and be called. In between you want to forget that you are here and they are at home, and that here is not where you meant to end up at all. You nod along and hear about the ulcer that needs medical attention. Mariam’s mother has been asking her to send money for treatment. The local hospital is booked up, she has been waiting for weeks. The private clinic is too expensive. Mariam hasn’t told her mother that she isn’t anywhere yet. That she is living off donations. You told her from the beginning that that was a mistake: ‘Just tell her and then you can talk to each other like mother and daughter.’ But Mariam is the optimist of the two of you. She thinks of good outcomes; she leaps ahead. It would be three days, one week at the most here. Why worry her ageing mother with details of a place she wasn’t going to stay in long enough to understand its