I dabbed at my mouth with a napkin and told myself to eat a little slower. I’d also be doing my stomach a favour. “Sure you don’t want any?”
Henry leaned back in his chair and opened the top button of his jacket in one fluid motion. “Thank you, but I don’t eat meat.”
“I can’t afford to not eat something. Apart from peanuts. I’m allergic to them.” I tore open several ketchup sachets and squeezed their contents into the lid of my burger box. “Are you allergic to anything?”
“Wasps.”
“Have you been stung before?”
Henry looked at me appraisingly. “You’re pretty nosy.”
“I’m just making small talk,” I answered with a shrug.
“Yes, I was stung once when I was a kid.”
“Was it bad?”
“Pretty bad. Shelley had to take me to hospital.”
“Is Shelley your mum?” I asked. If his dad’s contact was saved in his phone with his full name, it was possible he called his mum by her first name.
“No, she was my nanny.”
I drowned a chip in a lake of ketchup. “Was?”
Henry’s mouth twitched. “Yes. I’d say being twenty-six makes me a little too old for a babysitter, don’t you think?”
“Oh. Of course. I just thought...” I fell silent and felt myself blush for the second time in several minutes. “Never mind. Forget what I said.”
“Don’t worry, I already have. Shelley now lives with her husband near Bristol, and...” Henry broke off when a group of women sat down at the table next to us—all of them looking at us. Strictly speaking, they were looking at Henry. I slid down lower in my chair, but Henry didn’t move. If anything, he straightened his shouldersand raised his chin a little, as though projecting strength was his way of facing uncertainty.
“Doesn’t it bother you when people stare at you like that?” I asked quietly.
“No. What bothers me is the reason why they stare.”
“You mean your dad?”
He grimaced slightly. “So you know about that.”
“Of course. I live on the streets, not on the moon.” I unwrapped my second burger and lifted the top bun to put several chips on it. “In fact, I ended up at the protest outside your hotel earlier in the week. Unintentionally, though.”
Henry looked suspicious. “How do you end up at a protest unintentionally?”
I hesitated, weighing up whether or not to tell him the truth. I decided that he’d sussed me out by now anyway. Besides, we’d probably never see each other again after today. Who cared what he thought about me. “I stole a wallet, and the guy noticed. I ended up caught in the protest when I was running away from him, so I just joined it until the coast was clear.”
“How long have you been doing that?” Henry asked, ignoring the women at the next table and fixing his attention fully on me.
“I don’t really know. It snowballed over the years. It started with shoplifting just every once in a while. Sanitary products my mum and I couldn’t afford. But after getting caught two or three times, I switched to pickpocketing. I don’t like doing it, but I don’t have any other choice.”
“Why don’t you find a job?”
“Oh my god! Of course! What an excellent idea. Why didn’t I think of it sooner?” I replied with exaggerated enthusiasm, something in my chest tightening. Henry had no way of knowingthat I constantly got asked things like that. People acted as though being homeless was a fate I’d chosen freely, one I could change with enough motivation and determination.
Henry grimaced apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to...”
“It’s OK,” I interrupted. It wasn’t his fault, after all, that he’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. “I don’t expect someone like you to understand. Believe me, I want a job, and I’d work hard, but there aren’t many employers queueing up to employ a homeless high school dropout.” I kept my explanation simple, although that wasn’t the full story. I didn’t have the tools or resources to even fill out a job application, and I couldn’t do anything without a permanent address, which I would need to get both a contract and a new bank account, now that my old one had been blocked. It was a vicious circle, hard to escape. It wasn’t an excuse; it was a fact.
Henry cleared his throat. “You dropped out of school?”
