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only. He came over and rested his forehead on Anna’s shoulder, his habitual greeting.
    ‘Hi Jamie,’ she said and Mariner could see her fighting the impulse to put her arms round her brother and squeeze him tight, something that would have caused him more distress than reassurance. But in the last days everything and everyone had become more precious and the need to reach out and physically hold on had become more pressing, almost a primeval urge.
    Jamie was also adjusting to new circumstances. Along with the move to the hostel, his care worker Simon had also moved on, and Jamie had not entirely taken to his replacement. Today Luke was upbeat. ‘He’s settling in really well. He likes walking to the shops and going on the bus to the swimming baths and is generally coping better with new experiences.’
    ‘How’s the sleeping?’ Anna asked. Night times she knew had not been easy.
    ‘We’re getting there,’ said Luke elusively. ‘And how are you?’ he asked Anna, in what now always seemed to be a loaded question.
    ‘We’re fine,’ Anna said, ‘better each day.’ But she didn’t say what a slow process it was proving to be.
    From the hostel it was a short walk into Bromsgrove town centre where, by way of an alternative Christmas treat, they took Jamie for a McDonald’s. From the outset Mariner was jumpy, Jamie seeming to walk too close to the edge of the pavement to be safe.
    ‘Jamie,’ Mariner warned. Jamie moved away from the kerb but within a few paces had drifted back again as traffic raced by just a few inches away. ‘Jamie, stay on the path,’ Mariner said.
    ‘He is,’ said Anna, pointedly. ‘He’s fine.’
    But as they rounded a corner Jamie teetered on the edge of the pavement and unable to stand it any more Mariner lunged towards him and grabbed his arm. Jamie pulled away in alarm and almost into the path of an oncoming HGV that blared its horn. Yards later they reached the safety of the pedestrian area. Anna was incredulous. ‘What the hell were you doing?’
    ‘He was too close to the road. I thought he’d get hit.’
    ‘Well thanks to you he nearly did. You know he doesn’t like to be touched.’
    ‘I forgot. I don’t know why I did it.’
    Mariner hated fast-food chains with a vengeance. In his experience they were anything but fast and the food was barely edible. This one proved to be no exception. Excessively bright and filled to capacity with people taking a break from last minute Christmas shopping, the noise and the chaos made his palms sweat and his heart race. The incident with Jamie had shaken them all up too. Mariner couldn’t wait to get out, but instead, the tension between them tangible, he and Anna sat in near silence sipping bitter, watery coffee while Jamie, oblivious to the atmosphere, slowly munched his way through a Big Mac, large fries and a chocolate donut, pausing only occasionally to noisily suck coke through a straw. At the adjacent table a mother yelled intermittently at her gaggle of kids, every other word an obscenity. A joyous experience it was not. One of the toddlers, pale-faced with huge grey eyes, fixed an unwavering gaze on Mariner and suddenly he was confronted again with Chloe Evans’ beseeching face. He jumped up.
    ‘I’ll see you back at the hostel,’ he said. And Anna knew him well enough to let him go.
    Mariner walked into the centre of Bromsgrove where the statue of A.E. Housman dominated the High Street. A Shropshire Lad had been the only book of poetry at Mariner’s grandparents’ house.
    He met Anna back at the hostel but, before they left, Louise asked to speak to them both in the privacy of her tiny office. ‘It’s a bit awkward,’ she said, apologetically. ‘We still haven’t had any payments through. You owe quite a bit of money.’ She passed Anna an invoice. ‘I wouldn’t mention it now, but I’m under pressure from the finance department.’
    Anna was mortified. Since the takeover she’d changed her method of payment