On my last day Helen had ordered me a leaving cake decorated with a pair of scissors, and the cake-makers seemed to have assumed that I was a hairdresser; we all gathered around the box as Helen opened it to reveal something the shape of a record deck smothered in glittery icing, topped not only with a pair of scissors, but a to-scale sculpture in marzipan of a pair of hair straighteners, and a comb made from black icing.

‘Can you eat glitter?’ asked Helen.

‘You never told me you were so gay, Paul,’ said Leo.

‘I’m just not into men who look like you.’

‘Have you read Sophie Lancaster’s last column?’ asked Helen.

‘That’s not me she’s referring to,’ I said, but Leo was already on his phone looking for it.

Helen had congratulated me cautiously when I told her I was leaving, as if I was playing some kind of prank. She repeated ‘digital marketing’ in the same tone she might have ‘the Catholic priesthood’. Leo quoted Bill Hicks and advised me to think again, or to kill myself. There was no rationalising what I would do: I would be one of Satan’s little helpers.

‘Trying to persuade people to buy books? Literary fiction? Critiques of neo-liberalism?’

‘I’m joking. And wow. It’s weird hearing the word neoliberalism come out of your mouth.’

‘I’ve never really got used to it coming out of anyone’s mouth.’

‘It has a specific meaning, you know?’

‘Yeah, and… seven syllables.’

‘You won’t be doing that stuff, anyway. You’ll be making book trailers for Jeffrey Archer.’

‘What’s a book trailer?’

‘How did you get this job again?’

‘I needed it.’

Which wasn’t strictly true. Helen had offered to find me more shifts when I’d told her that the reason I was leaving was so I could get a mortgage. After a few months my bank statements together with our deposit might have looked plausible to moneylenders. But I didn’t want to wait. I was scared they would change their mind, that there had been a mistake. The new job clarified things neatly for the lenders, and now I was this far stepped in shit, it was easiest to buy a new pair of shoes.

*

Towards the end of the day I began to say hello to a suspicious number of my friends who were converging on the shop.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked Helen.

‘Everyone has come to enjoy their last glimpse of one of the strangest characters this shop has seen.’

‘I see what’s happening here,’ I said.

‘Good. In that case it won’t ruin the surprise if you help Leo carry up the Prosecco and the ice bucket. We bought quite a lot, as it’s for you.’

*