“S'cuse me, duckie,” she said. “Couldn't help noticing- you didn't take a ticket!” She leaned towards me and I saw a lifetime of poverty etched into every line of her face. Alcoholic fumes enveloped me.

       “Ticket?” I queried over the hubbub of voices.

       “Yes, from the machine over there. Then they know whose turn it is.” As she made the last remark, she pointed vaguely in the direction of the counter clerks.

As I hurried over to the machine the stench of unwashed humanity hit me. The grey walls threatened to suffocate me.

       “Lovely baby!” she remarked as I returned to my seat. Thankfully, my three-month old son, Joe was fast asleep, as he had been last night when Ben and I had a blazing row. It all began a month ago when Ben was made redundant from his accountant's job. He was irritable and flew into a rage whenever Joe woke for a feed during the night.

       “Shut that kid up, Emma!” he yelled. “Or I'll shut him up permanently!”

       “What the hell does that mean?” I replied, my eyes fogged with sleep. I was gripped with fear. I didn't know him anymore. Money went missing from my purse. Then, last night Ben went out and got blind drunk on Joe's child benefit. That's when I stood up to him. He hit out at me with a thundering blow that caught me on my face.

This morning I woke to find his clothes gone and only ten pence in my purse. A note on the empty `fridge reassured me that he'd gone for good.

So here I was!

       “Number sixty two please proceed to booth number four,” a mechanical voice ordered.

       I glanced at my ticket. Sixty-two. I gathered my things together and hurried over.

       “How can I help you?” said the young woman with clean, shining red hair. Her synthetic smile was as false as the pink lipstick slashed across her mouth. Her smile did not reach her cold, lacklustre eyes. How could she understand what I had been through, I asked myself. Before I could reply to her question, an older woman emerged from an office behind the counter. She approached the woman with red hair and beckoned her.

       “Excuse me for a moment,” said the younger woman. They stood three or four yards away, speaking in an undertone. The red head looked down at her designer shoes as she listened. The older woman towered over her, hands on her hips, her back ramrod straight. Her face was white and her lips were drawn back like an animal about to pounce. At last she finished speaking.

       “O.K.” said the younger woman audibly. Finally, she returned to her seat opposite me, her face noticeably red.

* * *

With my supervisor's words ringing in my ears, I returned thankfully to my seat.

       “Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said brightly to the woman with the bruised face. My own face burned. My hands shook as I held my pen. I was shaken by the reprimand I had received. I deserved everything Glenys said and more. It was all true. I was unreliable. I had been an hour late two days running.

       “This isn't Butlin's, you know, Jill,” she had said, with her usual sarcasm. She asked why I had been late and I had mumbled something about childcare problems. I couldn't tell her about Colin, and how he'd walked out on me and our baby son.      Glenys had tried to warn me years ago. Colin had abandoned her daughter when she found out she was pregnant.

       “She tried to trap me,” he'd said in his defence. “She's a scheming bitch!” I had believed him.

       I looked across at the smartly dressed woman in front of me, noting her cultured accent- and the black eye. The unmistakable scent of an expensive perfume came from her direction.

       “Name?” I asked making eye contact as I'd been taught. She was very different from the usual type of claimant, I mused.

       “Emma Armstrong-Jones,” she replied automatically.

The baby stirred in the top-of-the-range buggy. As she held the fractious infant in her arms, her mask slipped and her whole sorry tale came tumbling out.

       “I was a college lecturer before I had Joe,” she told me. “Now, look at me! I'm claiming Income Support.”

       I handed her a paper tissue from my supply. I leaned forward slightly, nodding as I listened intently to her story.

       After the relevant paperwork had been completed, I arranged for an immediate giro payment so that essentials could be bought for Joe. With an encouraging smile I handed her a sheaf of leaflets about childcare and financial help for mothers wishing to return to work.

       She smiled. “I can get through this,” she said. “One day Joe will be proud of me.”

Emma and I were two of a kind, I mused.

       “Yes, I can get through this, too,” I whispered to myself, as she walked away with baby Joe in his buggy.

       I sighed and pressed the buzzer.

       A mechanical voice said, “Number seventy-three please proceed to booth number four.” I pinned on my welcoming smile.