Work from home, on the telephone, perhaps? It just didn’t matter now, but he had tried. Deliver newspapers. Deliver leaflets. Stop people in the street and get their views on particular products. Work with children, work with the sick – you seemed to need years of experience to do either of those things, but cleaning pubs and houses? That kind of job was easy enough to find. He was offered work by a firm called Mina’s Cleaners, and the manageress contracted him to spend two hours cleaning a pub six miles from where he lived, starting at half past five so he could get to another – three miles beyond – at quarter to eight. Four hours’ work would bring in just under forty pounds, and if he did it every day that would double his income if he could persuade the DIY store to give him shifts that started at eleven.

Jo was away, so the acting team leader – that was Tim or Tom again – changed things in Michael’s favour. So began a week of cleaning and… it didn’t matter.

It just didn’t matter, but why did people use toilets so that their excrement smeared the entire bowl and seat? How did vomit get on walls, behind the pipes? Why did the pub have so much brass to polish, and why was the hoover so lacking in suction even after he’d emptied it and checked every single joint?

One of the pub managers phoned Mina.

‘I don’t think he’s been in,’ he said. ‘It’s a bloody mess.’

Mina relayed this faithfully, and Michael explained that he had been in, and he’d spent two hours doing his job as the landlord slept upstairs. Yes, he’d missed the brass plaques on some of the doors, but only because the women’s toilets had been particularly foul, and someone had moved the mop. He’d given up hunting for that, and cleaned the floors on his hands and knees, but the landlord thought he hadn’t been in – or that’s what he claimed, because he resented paying Mina her commission and wanted a confrontation. Michael was thus sucked into another world of anger and accusation, but this one had real shit and sick – and when Jo returned she put him straight back on early mornings.

‘I can’t do them,’ said Michael.

‘You’ve got to be flexible,’ said Jo.

‘I have another job,’ said Michael.

‘Everyone wants to avoid the early shifts,’ said Jo. ‘You have to do your bit—’

‘But I’m getting too many.’

‘You’re getting no more than anyone else.’

‘That’s not how it feels.’

‘That’s how it is, Mike. That’s the truth. If you can’t do early mornings, you can’t be on the team.’