On his way to work he passed through the park. The park was big but he had to walk the whole length of it because he could not afford the Tube or the bus. On his way through the park he saw a naked woman in her forties or fifties, with very long legs, sunning herself not far from the bins, and quickened his pace. There are many species of tree in that park and he spent about five minutes regretting that he knew so little about them, that he could not distinguish between oak and beech or hawthorne and elm. Eventually he reached the other side of the park, the side facing the restaurant, and felt better for the exercise. Since he still had about fifteen minutes until his shift began, he thought he’d reward himself with a cigarette. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a flattened pouch of tobacco, frayed at the edges and almost empty. It had cost him nearly thirty pounds and he couldn't buy another for at least four days so he'd been saving it, cunningly, for moments like this one.
When he is flush and has plenty of tobacco in his jacket pocket he rolls his cigarettes very roughly, wide at one end, and smokes a lot of them. But when each cigarette becomes a gift he gives himself he takes pains to roll them as neatly and beautifully as possible.
One leg crossed over the other, half in, half out of the bright sunshine, he sat and watched the businessmen in blue shirts rush by, whose arses he'd be licking in about ten minutes' time. He took a drag of the wonderful cigarette and heard a crisp little sizzle, and whenever he exhaled the smoke of the cigarette the smoke hung around for a second in stringy light waves. When he was finished he stood up, stopped for a second to look at a parakeet, and threw the cigarette stub on the ground. Then a man came up to him and issued him with a £200 fixed penalty notice. On his way home from work he bought more tobacco.