The young woman's head rises, yet tears and silence are her only answer, as we all pause to take in her life. To judge her and then to condemn her.

There’s no need for a jury of twelve good men, though, not here in night court. The shopkeeper with the dry, itchy skin or me with my ready meal: after a long shit day, we’re just both glad there's someone more fucked than us right now.

The young woman stands there, still and upright, wiping her hand across her wet face, and then losing it into her hair, inhaling snot up her nose loudly at the same time. I coldly think to myself, Jesus, the second person crying at this counter?

The shopkeeper sighs and then turns around as if to get something off the shelf behind her; she is about to say something, just as the shop door thrusts open, and a young man bursts in shouting: "Have you given her those fucking cigarettes yet Indi? Come on, you know we're good for it, you know us Indi.” He begins to smile, realising how desperate he looks, attempting to turn his pleading into a joke.

There's a pause as they look at each other, the young man and the shopkeeper. But in silence, she shakes her head from side to side.

"You think you're better than me, do you, don’t you?", the young man shouts, his voice rising. "You, better than me?", he shouts again, his eyes looking her up and down, "it's my fucking country, and you’ll never be better than me, never! You fucking Pa..." He stops half-way through the word, checking himself, dwelling over the consequences as the anger on his face subsides into a smile again. His head dips as a hand scratches at his hair. He then looks at the young woman and shouts at her: “You’re fucking useless you are. Come on, let’s go, now!"

The door closes, and the shopkeeper turns around to place a pack of cigarettes back onto a shelf.

"No, sorry, Mandy, I can't help you", she says, coldly, as the young woman replies, "he'll hit me now, you know he will Indi."

The shopkeeper pauses, looking down on her in silence before turning to me and saying, ”you're 18p short love."

What the fuck? My hand dips into one pocket, then another, oh, shit, I don’t have it, fuck me, I think, as the young woman walks away from the counter, buying me more time from the judgement to come. Then she stops in her tracks, turning around to shout aggressively through her tears, "You know what, fuck you Indi!" She turns and slaps the one pound cinema-style bags of popcorn with her open palm, sending them flying. And then she's gone too, heading into the night, missing out on the laughter that remains inside from those behind me in the queue.

The shopkeeper turns to look at me, incredulous and yet semi-amused, a smirk drawing on her face as if to ask, as her shoulders arch, what was all that about? But she knows, and she knows that I know too. The smirk and shrugged shoulders are just window dressing that hides her shock and surprise. Her clenched fist by her side, the sign of her trauma, her grip relaxes and her palm slowly opens like a flower in the sun to smooth down the ruffles of her clothing. Her pursed lips still try to contain the inhaled air which she has had gasped inside.

I smirk back and then pause as I feel my stomach drop before I steel myself to tell her that I don’t have it, that I don’t have the 18 extra pence. For a moment, I think about going to get something cheaper, and then maybe asking if I can owe it to her, but her falling face has the answer. She knows that I don’t have it even before the words pass my lips, or my hand rises to reclaim my coins. She says nothing, her eyes looking through and beyond me as she beckons the next customer forth with her hand with the same open and closing motion. She’s seen it all before, and so I walk away, hoping that I can leave my shame at the counter, with the ready meal, but it comes with me as I skulk away towards the door. I think I hear laughter, but I don’t look back. I pull the shop door open and feel the cold air hit me, but the shame still clings on, even when the darkness outside embraces me.

I stop and pull up the hood of my coat to hide my head, or perhaps to hide away from it all. Pulling it too far over my head, initially, and then having to pull it back a little, so that my eyes can see the glory. The glory of the stocky red-faced man, from before, still there in his Barcelona shirt to protect him from the cold, as he leans against a bus shelter opposite the shop door, twenty feet or so, down a slight incline, with spread-eagled fingers at the end of an outstretched arm. I watch him making the levees break once more, while a tin of beer, held by his other hand, tilts backwards in the air so that he can throw its contents down his neck. I watch him gulp it down and then belch up the displaced gas.

6/7