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avoid a fight. “What you gawping at?” one boy had said, just after I arrived in secure, and promptly punched me, bloodying my nose, which was swollen for the rest of the trial. The social worker dabbed at me with a tissue, “Well this won’t look good for the jury,” she said, as if a bruised nose could make anything worse.
    I taught myself to avoid eye contact and now I’m in danger of tripping up.
    Cate told me to go to the supermarket for food, and there’s a Spar on the corner of the docks near the cinema, a red and white sign, people coming in and out.
    I follow a man who looks like he knows what he’s doing, copying him by taking a silver trolley, though mine has wonky wheels and skids me into the stack of pot plants. Fruit is first. Fruit is good, but there’s so much of it and not just apples and oranges. I pick up a spiky yellow fruit, then put it down. I might hate the taste. What food do I like? Chips and porridge and sausages. I’ve never had a pointed fruit so instead I choose a bag of apples that say Value on them and go to the next section, which is dairy. The fridge in the flat isn’t big, so I just buy milk and margarine but even then there are so many different types and I don’t know if I want sunflower or olive oil or butter, or skimmed or full fat milk. I push the trolley, still mostly empty, round to the checkout because I’m worn out and it’s already taken too long to buy just the few things I have. Also, I’m worried about the money side of it even though I know my milk and apples can’t possibly come to fifty-seven pounds and forty-five pence. I’m lined up behind other trolleys when I realise that I want to try something new, that I’m Ben now and my life is different. When it’s my turn to put my food on the conveyer I see that the woman on the till is watching me, a pleasant face with deep wrinkles worn by smiles.
    “Hello, love.” Her name badge says SHIRL.
    I think of Mum suddenly, this woman is about her age, and I wonder why she never smiled like that, why she was always in bed with a headache when a job would have helped her feed Adam and me. I can feel my face going red as I think about these things so I concentrate on placing my items on the black belt that moves them towards the woman: bread, milk, beans, coke.
    “Do you need any help packing?” she says, and I don’t know what she means, then she laughs and I realise it’s a joke because I only bought a few things.
    “Can I go and get something?” I say. “Something I forgot.”
    Shirl looks behind me, where other customers with heaving trolleys wait in line. “Be quick,” she says, and I dash back to the fruit aisle and pick up the strange pointed fruit. I run back with it, and the man behind me, the one I followed coming in, glares at me as I hand it to Shirl.
    “What’s it called?” I ask, hoping it’s okay that I don’t know.
    “Star fruit,” she tells me. “But don’t ask me what it tastes like.”
    She tells me how much I owe, and I take one of the notes from my pocket,
    “Thanks, love.” No-one would smile at Humber Boy B or call him love, but she’s smiling at Ben, so I smile back. “Here’s your change.”
    “Thank you,” I say, as she places it in my palm. I awkwardly pick up my food, lodging the milk into my elbow, but then she says, “Here,” and hands me a plastic bag. What an idiot I am, not knowing to ask for a bag. She opens it and takes the milk, then packs the bag for me and passes me the handles.
    “See you later,” she says.
    See you later. It’s nothing, just a saying I’ve heard on films or TV, but it’s friendly. My first trip out and I’ve done well. Back in my flat, I put the milk in the fridge and wonder whether apples go there too. I should have bought cereal. I’ll have to go back to the shop, maybe tomorrow. I line up my other purchases on the kitchen counter, labels facing forward, just like I used to organise my shower gels in prison. Lots of us