‘What the fuck do you want?’ said Dan, as he opened the door.

For a few seconds, Porter just stood there. What do I want? he wondered to himself. He tried to hold on to the thought for a moment, but the splitting headache soon drove it away. ‘Some work,’ he said plaintively.

‘Nothing doing,’ snapped Dan. ‘Now piss off.’

Porter stepped inside. It was warm in the kitchen and the grilling of sausages and the frying of eggs filled the room with cosy warmth. Over by the sink, he could see a pile of dishes, at least fifty of them. ‘There’s work,’ he said. ‘I can see it.’

‘Which of the two words “piss” and “off” are you having trouble understanding?’ snarled Dan.

Porter stood his ground. Anelka, a Bulgarian or Romanian or maybe Ukrainian girl with dishwater-blonde hair and a sullen face, stared at him. There was a shudder on her face as a gust of hot air from one of the ovens caught Porter and carried his smell straight to her. ‘Maybe tomorrow?’ he said.

‘Forget it,’ said Dan sourly. ‘There’s plenty of Bulgarian blokes looking for work right now. They put in a full shift for a pound an hour, they don’t nick the grub, and they don’t stink of Special Brew. Now piss off.’

But Porter kept walking forward. Dan had already been distracted by a waitress shouting at one of the chefs that some eggs were overcooked, and was no longer paying attention. The words bounced off him, the way rain bounced off the windscreen of a car. It just gets wiped away, he thought. So many humiliations have been endured already, one more doesn’t make any difference. Maybe try Bulgaria, he decided with a wry smile, at the same time as he took half a sausage from a dirty plate. So many of their blokes are over here, there must be some work going spare there.

‘Hey, leave that food alone, you old tosser,’ snapped one of the chefs.

Without thinking, Porter kept on walking through the kitchen, and out into the lobby of the hotel: there were so few staff on duty nobody tried to stop him. A clock on the wall said it was just after eight. Nobody was checking in yet. Too early. One of the cleaning girls was arranging some freshly cut flowers in reception. She glanced at Porter suspiciously, then looked quickly away: she could tell he didn’t belong here, he realised, but it wasn’t her job to deal with him. Too scary.

In the corner of the lobby, a flat-screen TV pinned to the wall was tuned to Sky News. The half-sausage he’d just eaten had made Porter realise how desperately hungry he was. It was more than a day since he had eaten: yesterday’s calorie intake had consisted of half a pint of vodka. There was no money in his pocket, however. And little prospect of getting any, not now Dan had refused to give him work.