She shrugged and put two pounds fifty into the Flora box.

Now that there was no one else to serve, Kassim wiped the table, put away the unused paper plates and the bag of plastic spoons. He shook open a black rubbish bag and started to move around the room, picking up empty paper plates and cups. Basheer was stacking up the chairs. Heavily built and with greying hair, it always surprised Kassim how quickly and efficiently he worked.

‘Did the complaint reach you?’ Kassim asked. Basheer nodded and continued with his work. ‘Well?’

‘There has to be complaints. Alhamdulillah the auction raised a thousand pounds. And they still haven’t counted the donations yet. It’s been a success.’

Basheer’s wife, Samia, interrupted them. She carried a large plastic bowl. Her one-year-old son clung at her skirt, whining. ‘We’ll put all the leftovers here and then give it to the birds. We can’t throw all this away.’ She put the bowl on one of the tables.

True enough, the chicken bones were clean but most of the plates had remains of rice. Kassim began pushing the uneaten rice into the bowl before dumping the paper plate into the bag. As he moved away he heard Samia say to Basheer, ‘Leave these chairs for Kassim; you’ll just make your back worse.’

Kassim reached the table next to where Dina was sitting. ‘Did you like the talk early on?’ he asked her.

‘I missed it.’

He nodded. ‘Me too, I was cooking the rice.’

‘It’s good,’ she said, swallowing another mouthful. She was not discerning. Her mother, Shushu, rarely cooked proper meals because she was always on a diet. Shushu imposed these diets on her daughter too who was even more overweight. The dieting made Dina continuously peckish, uneasy. She often binged on crisps and Mars bars, and the diets inevitably failed but they were never officially abandoned. Dieting had become a way of life, part of the house, part of the mother-daughter relationship. Whenever Dina found an opportunity like tonight, away from her mother, she devoured the food, indiscriminately.

‘I work in a kebab shop,’ Kassim said. He nodded towards Basheer, ‘He owns the shop. The meal tonight is a donation.’

Kassim pushed more paper plates in the bag and tied it up. He hauled the bag away.

By the time Dina finished her plate, the only people left in the room were Kassim, Basheer, another man, Samia and her toddler. Most of the chairs were stacked and put away. Kassim was wiping the tables with a cloth and the other man had started to hoover. The machine was old and the hose kept breaking off.