She plastered on a smile. ‘Good afternoon. Would you like something to drink?’

Julia looked around and a curl formed at the edge of her lips. ‘Well, well.’

Kate stood as Julia looked her up and down, taking in her red-and-gold Thai-style outfit. For the first time, Kate felt as if she was in fancy dress.

‘I had no idea,’ said Julia.

‘Do you two know each other?’ asked Julia’s friend.

‘We do . . .’ said Julia. ‘Our daughters go to the same school.’

Kate caught the surprised flicker in the other woman’s eyes and did her best to ignore it.

‘In fact, they’re in the same class,’ declared Julia.

‘Oh, how nice,’ exclaimed her companion. ‘Friends?’

‘Besties,’ said Julia, smiling at Kate. Her companion lifted an eyebrow as she caught the subtle sarcasm.

‘Drinks, ladies?’ repeated Kate.

‘I’ll have a sparkling mineral water,’ said Julia’s friend.

‘Me too,’ said Julia.

Kate went to walk away when—

‘Oh, actually, make that a Diet Coke,’ said Julia.

‘Sure,’ said Kate, going to the fridge.

‘Changed my mind. I’ll stick with the water.’

Kate froze. Was Julia winding her up? She glanced back over her shoulder but there was no smirk on Julia’s face, in fact she wasn’t even looking her way, she was deep in conversation with her friend. As Kate moved off, she heard Julia speak again, her voice lowered.

‘Her child’s on a scholarship. Probably felt sorry for her. She’ll be some quota-filler, bound to be. They need to show they’re helping out the lower end of society but really the whole thing is tokenistic. I mean, look at the mother. Daughter’s not got much hope of a future, not with that sort of millstone around her neck.’

Kate froze, her face burning. She daren’t look around; tears were pricking at her eyes, and that woman . . . she couldn’t let Julia see her face. She felt mown down, sliced in half by Julia’s words, and the worst bit was Kate found herself questioning the truth in them. She felt a sudden urge to run, and thought about leaving her shift there and then, but she saw Rick watching her from across the restaurant and remembered she was going shopping for a gift later, a gift she wouldn’t be able to afford if she lost her job. She stumbled on, willing the lunch shift to be over.

At the end, when she went to clear the table, she found the final insult. Julia had left no tip.

Kate was still subdued when she got to the shopping centre. Julia’s words had reverberated round and round in her head the entire bus trip. She hurried to the phone shop, hoping that shopping for Becky’s present would distract her. As she went in, she was faced with a display, right in the middle of the shop floor, of the new Apple iPhone. It had become a phenomenon since it had been released at the end of last year, but was laughably expensive.