#9:02

His body (solid, running to fat) occupies the folds of tatty, oil-stained work clothes. It rolls up inside the brown slacks and strains the blue fabric of his shirt into a series of gapes. His face is normally a whole mess of folds: cheek against jowl, nose against eyebrow, eye squinting at a latheing job.

Today, though, surprise and apprehension sit on his eyes, and iron flat his frown. His pudgy fingers have begun to fold around the letter the foreman is handing him, the letter they have all been dreading; they curl like bananas around the envelope, which begins to bend and crumple. It has only just turned nine o'clock, he thinks: the working day has barely begun; my working life is over.