"Are you alright?" said the tall man.
I looked up at him for a long moment.
I want you to understand what a strange question it was. In twelve years, I had been asked many things. What did you do? Where have you been? Who told you that? Why are you like this? But I could not remember anyone, ever, simply asking whether I was alright. It sounded like a word from another language, one I had read in a book and never heard spoken.
"Am I alright?" I repeated, slowly, as if tasting it.
"Yes."
I thought about it. I did think about it. I gave it honest consideration. I was hungry, and tired, and my feet were sore. My father had thrown a basket of water at me that morning. A woman I had washed dishes for had told me to find my supper elsewhere. Thirty strangers had watched, and a boy named James was probably still sitting in a puddle somewhere, plotting.
"I'm not in the mood to talk," I said.
It came out sharper than I meant. I think my hunger was speaking. But to my surprise, the tall man did not take offence. His mouth gave a small twitch, at one corner, and he nodded as if I had said something very sensible.
"Quite right."
"Excuse me?" The thin man had gone red. He had taken a step forward, his finger pointing. "Do you know who you are speaking to?"
"No," I said honestly. "Who?"
"This man is the—"
"Steven."
The tall man had not raised his voice. He had only said the name. But the thin one stopped as though he had walked into a glass door.
"It's all right," said the tall man. "I am Martin. This is Steven. We are here for some business." He looked at me. His eyes were very grey and very steady. "You may not remember, but you returned my wallet a little while ago."
"I remember. Of course I do." I scrambled to my feet, brushing off my trousers. "You have not accused me of stealing, have you? Because I didn't. I know I look like it."
"You look like nothing of the kind."
"I look like a gutter."
"You look," said Martin, "like a boy who has been sitting in one."
I stared at him. Then I laughed.
I could not help it. It was such a precise, tidy, unexpected little sentence, said without the faintest shadow of pity, that it surprised the laugh right out of me. It was only a short one, and rusty, but the tall man's eyes warmed, very slightly, as if I had passed some small and private test.
* * *
"What is your name?" said Martin.
"Janah Jackson. Everybody calls me JJ."
"JJ." He tried it. "A good name. Short enough to shout."
"People often do."
"And what is the matter, JJ?"
"Nothing serious. I can manage it myself." I straightened my shoulders. "Thank you, sir. I appreciate your concern. But I'm very late, and I have to go back to school, so—"
I turned.
I made it three steps.
"JJ," said Martin, behind me. "Wait."
I stopped. I do not know why. I have thought about it a lot. There was nothing in his voice that compelled me. It was no louder than before. It simply held a kind of quiet that was hard to walk away from, like the stillness of a lake.
"Perhaps," he said, "you would accept something from me. As thanks."
I turned slowly.
He had taken out his wallet. The same chocolate-brown one. He had opened it, and in his big, careful hand he held out a fan of crisp green notes.
They were hundreds.
I do not mean three. Or five. I mean there were, I think, about forty. He held them out with both hands, perfectly seriously, like a priest offering a sacrifice to the gods, and his face wore an expression of such complete and gentle blankness that I could not tell, for a moment, whether he was joking.
Beside him, Steven made a faint wheezing sound.
I looked at the money.
I will be honest with you. I looked at it for a long time. It was more money than I had ever seen in one place. It was more than my father earned in a month. It was enough for new shoes, and a school uniform, and a year of dinners at Seller's, and a bed with a real mattress, and a small present for my mother.
I could feel every part of me leaning toward it, like a plant toward light.
And I thought: This is the very kind of thing the whole town expects of me.
A boy takes the money. A boy proves he's a thief, in the end.
I put my hands behind my back.
"No, thank you, sir," I said.
"No?"
"I don't take money for returning a wallet. It isn't a job. It's only manners."
He did not move.
"Are you sure?" he said, very softly.
"I'm quite sure."
"It would be a very big help."
"I know."
"You are hungry."
"Yes."
"And I am offering."
"Yes, sir, and it's very kind." I swallowed. It was surprisingly hard to say. "But if I take it, then it was never a good deed. It was a trade. And I would like to keep it a good deed. It's the only one I did today."
* * *
There was a long silence.
I heard a bus go by, and a hawker calling, and the faint sound of Seller's radio from the market. I heard Steven swallow. I could feel the tall man's gaze on my face. It was no longer measuring. It was something more complicated, an odd, bright, wondering look, as though he had been walking a long road and had just been shown a very old door.
"Then what will you accept?" he said.
I thought about it.
"A plate of rice," I said.
"A plate."
"Of rice. With some stew. If it isn't too much trouble." I flushed. "I'm very hungry, you see. And I did wash a lot of dishes, and nobody paid me. So it would be a fair trade, if you like. I returned the wallet. You buy me lunch. We're even."
Martin Wilson looked at me.
Then, very slowly, with the air of a man who has not done it for a long time and has half forgotten how, he began to smile.
It was a warm smile. It started in his eyes and spread to the rest of his face, and it changed him entirely. For a moment I saw not a rich, grave, tired man in dark glasses, but somebody younger and gentler, with a lot of kindness folded up in him like a spare coat.
"A plate of rice," he said. "Yes. I think that can be arranged."
"It's a very reasonable request."
"It is the most reasonable request I have been given in my life." He put the wallet away. "Steven."
"Yes, Master?"
"We are going to lunch."
"Where?"
"There." He pointed, across the road, at the blue tarpaulin and the crowded benches. "I believe it is the finest food in County A."
"But sir," said Steven, in a tone of faint despair, "that is the one place where they will recognise you."
"Nobody has recognised me in this shirt for two days."
"It's the shoes, sir. They said Italian."
"They are very comfortable shoes."
* * *
I will tell you what happened at Seller's stall, because I think you will like it.
We crossed the road. We pushed through the crowd. I walked in the middle, small and barefoot, between a tall man and a thin one, and I felt the whole market turn to stare. Whispers ran along the benches. A fork stopped halfway to somebody's mouth.
Seller was ladling stew.
She looked up, and she saw me, and she opened her mouth to say something sharp.
Then she saw Martin.
I have never seen a face change so fast. It went from irritated to confused to wary to astonished, like a train going through four stations. Her eyes dropped to his shoes. They climbed to his jaw. They took in the set of his shoulders, the line of his posture, the faint authority that settled round him like a coat.
Her ladle fell into the pot.
"Good afternoon, madam," said Martin.
"Good—" Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. "Good afternoon, sir. Welcome. Sit. Please sit. We have the best rice in all the county." She was wiping her hands on her apron, over and over, with the helpless, fluttering energy of a bird that has seen a hawk. "Anything. Anything. What can I bring?"
"Rice, please. Stew. A little chicken, if you have it."
"Of course."
"And a second plate for this young man."
Seller looked at me.
It was a very short look. But I saw the colour rise in her face, slowly, from her neck to her forehead, and I saw her eyes drop. For the first time in my life, I saw Seller ashamed.
"JJ," she said, hoarsely. "I—"
"It's all right," I said.
"I didn't mean—"
"I know."
"You can eat as much as you want."
"I will," I said, and I sat down.
* * *
The plate she brought was enormous.
It was heaped with steaming rice, glossy red stew, a whole fried egg, three pieces of chicken and a spoonful of something I could not name that smelled of heaven. I stared at it as if it might vanish.
Martin sat opposite me. He ate slowly, with careful, small movements, watching me over the rim of his glass. Steven, beside him, was nibbling a piece of bread with the haunted expression of a man who has been told to relax.
I ate.
I ate the way you eat when you have not eaten properly for three days. I tried to be polite. I tried to use my spoon like a person. But I could feel my hands shaking, and I could feel my eyes stinging, and I kept thinking: This is real. This is real. This is a real plate.
When I looked up, I saw that the tall man was no longer eating.
He had put down his fork. His hand, on the table, was perfectly still. He was looking at me with an expression I did not understand, quiet and steady and very, very sad.
"JJ," he said, gently.
"Mm?" I said, through chicken.
"Tell me about your family."
I swallowed.
"There are five of us," I said. "My mother. My father. My brother Derrick. My sister Jesse. And me."
"And your father's name?"
"Donald. Donald Jackson."
I did not see what happened to Martin Wilson's face when I said it. I was looking at my plate. I only heard the faint, sharp sound of a glass being set down too hard, and a thin, startled gasp from Steven, and then a long, long silence, in which nobody said anything at all.
I looked up.
He had not moved. He was sitting in exactly the same position, his hands flat on the table, his back very straight. But something had changed. It was as though a light had gone out behind his eyes and been replaced by a different one, much older, much colder and infinitely more careful.
"Donald Jackson," he repeated.
"Yes, sir."
"And your mother?"
"Mara."
"Mara." He closed his eyes briefly. "Of course."
"Sir?"
"Eat, JJ." He opened them. His voice was perfectly calm. "Finish your food. You must be starving."
I did. I finished every grain. And when I looked up again, he was smiling, but it was a different smile, very thin, very controlled, like a man holding a door shut with his shoulder.
"You will be late for school," he said.
"I know."
"Go. Run. I won't keep you." He rose. "It was a pleasure to meet you."
"And you, sir. Thank you for the rice."
"It was a great pleasure."
I ran. I do not know why. Something told me to. I ran all the way to the end of the market, and at the corner I stopped and looked back.
He was still standing at the table.
He had not moved. Steven was beside him, speaking quickly, urgently, with a lot of waving hands. Martin Wilson was not listening. He was staring after me, down the long bright street, with a look I would have given everything in the world to understand.
I did not hear what he said to Steven, then. I read it on his lips. I am quite good at that, you will find. It comes from a lifetime of being talked about.
He said two words.
Find everything.