‘Next week some time.’

‘Is that so? Well, I’m going out with him on Monday night… That’s sooner,’ she added, just in case Lisa hadn’t noticed.

She and Lisa locked into a tense, truculent scowl.

‘So I win!’ Ashling didn’t know what had come over her.

Startled, Lisa glowered at Ashling, at her meek face doing its best to be confrontational. She’d been bested. And to her surprise, she thought it was funny. She began to laugh. ‘Good for you,’ she chortled.

It took Ashling a moment to swing with the change of mood, then she too started laughing. They were both being ridiculous!

‘God, Lisa, it’s not even as if we want the same thing from him,’ Ashling was briefly brave enough to say. ‘Why are you bothered?’

‘Dunno.’ Lisa indicated ignorance with a downward moue. ‘I suppose a girl’s got to have a hobby.’

28

The offices of Randolph Media buzzed with an end-of-term mood. It was the Friday of the June bank-holiday weekend (which had thrown Lisa entirely because in England the bank holiday had been the previous weekend), coupled with the news about the L’Oréal ads, coupled with the fact that Jack Devine was elsewhere, coupled with the arrival of a crate of champagne which was meant to be a reader-competition prize. (‘What area of France does champagne come from? Answers on a postcard to… First one out of the hat wins twelve of the best…’)

Lisa looked at the champagne, looked at her watch – quarter to four – and looked at her staff. They’d worked so hard over the past three weeks and Colleen was actually shaping up to be not a total disaster. She’d just remembered how important it was to keep morale up amongst the workers. Well actually, if she was honest, she had to admit that she was in the mood for a drink and suspected she might have a mutiny on her hands if she poured one just for herself.

Theatrically, she cleared her throat. ‘Ahem,’ she said gaily, ‘would anyone care for a glass of champagne?’ Meaningfully, she inclined her glossy head at the crate, and it was the work of a moment for everyone to realize what she was getting at.

‘But what about the reader competition?’ Ashling asked anxiously.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Trix hissed, then turned to Lisa. ‘That would be the business, Lisa,’ she toadied, loudly. ‘We can celebrate you getting that loads-a-money ad from L’Oréal.’

No second bidding was needed. The words, ‘Lisa says we can drink the reader-competition champagne, Lisa says we can drink the reader-competition champagne,’ blew like a whispering breeze across the office. Tools were downed and demeanours relaxed. Even Mercedes looked cheerful.

‘But we don’t have any glasses.’ Lisa was suddenly anxious.

‘No problem.’ Before Lisa changed her mind, Trix was already ferrying a trayful of dirty coffee-cups to the ladies’. The first time in six months that she’d done the washing-up. She was back in double-quick time and it didn’t matter a damn that she hadn’t rinsed the mugs properly because any excess of foaming could be attributed to the champagne.

‘It’s not terribly chilled, I’m afraid,’ Lisa said graciously, putting a chipped ‘Windsurfers do it standing up’ mug full of frothing champers into Kelvin’s beringed hands.

‘Who gives a fiddler’s!’ Kelvin enthused, delighted to be included, despite not working on Colleen.

The small clump of clerical staff waited anxiously in their corner to see if they were getting any. Huge sighs of relief all round when Lisa popped the cork on a second bottle and arrived bearing mugs emblazoned with the respective legends ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’, ‘Kia-Ora, I’ll be your dawg’ and two ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin’s.

‘Your good health, Mrs Morley.’ Lisa gave ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ to Jack’s over-protective PA.

‘Cheers,’ Mrs Morley muttered suspiciously.

When everyone had a mug, Lisa raised hers and said, ‘To all of you. Well done for all your hard work over the past three weeks.’

Ashling and Mercedes exchanged a moment’s incredulity. You’d swear Lisa was drunk already. Everyone then drank deeply, except for Trix. But only because she’d already finished hers. And it didn’t take the others long to catch her up. Silence stretched, as everyone’s eyes flickered between the foam at the bottom of their empty mugs (which continued to crackle and fizz in a strange radioactive fashion) and the ten remaining bottles.

Lisa shattered the silence. ‘Shall we open another?’ she asked innocently, as if it had just occurred to her.

‘We could, I s’pose.’ Trix did a good imitation of not caring either way.

‘Sure, why wouldn’t we?’ One mugful had considerably softened Mrs Morley.

But as Lisa was unwinding the wire helmet, the office door opened and everyone tensed. Fuck!

There was a good chance that Jack would go mental if he caught them slugging reader-competition champagne during office hours.

But it wasn’t Jack, it was Mai. Her heels were enormous and her hips were tiny. But not as small as her waist. Ashling was queasy with envy and admiration.

Mai seemed rather taken aback by the complete silence in the office and the way everyone was staring guiltily at her. ‘Is Jack in?’

The silence endured.

‘No,’ Mrs Morley mumbled, wiping her mouth in case she had a champagne moustache. ‘He’s gone to put manners on the people at the television studio.’ Then she triumphantly folded her arms, her demeanour implying that, really, it was Mai who Jack should be putting the manners on.

‘Oh.’ Mai’s plump mouth was pouty with disappointment. She twirled to go, her wall of silken hair swishing with voluptuous weight.

‘You can wait if you like,’ Ashling found herself saying.

Mai swung back. ‘Would that be allowed?’

‘Sure! In fact, why don’t you have a drink?’ As soon as she’d said it, Ashling braced herself for the wrath of Lisa. Bad move to invite their boss’s girlfriend to join in with their lead-swinging. Ashling suspected she was perhaps a little tipsy.

But instead of being furious, Lisa agreed, ‘Yeah, have a drink.’

The thing was, Lisa was as curious as everyone else about Mai. More, probably, all things considered.