A woman nearby lights a cigarillo. ‘Want one?’
‘No, thanks.’
She turns her head, blows away the smoke, her bauble-sized earrings sparkling. ‘God, these events are tedious, aren’t they?’
‘Needs must. There’ll be no more shifts come January.’
She returns the half-smoked stump to its box. ‘What will you do?’
I shrug. ‘I really don’t know.’
*
At the end of my shift, my boss hands me an envelope. Inside is five hundred pounds and a handwritten note – To tide you over in January, and for your daughter.