‘Cheers.’ As Mai accepted a mug from Lisa, Ashling said hospitably, ‘Come over to my desk and pull up a chair.’

Trix and Lisa also gravitated immediately to Ashling’s desk, reeled in by avid interest in the exotic Mai.

‘I like your bag,’ Lisa said to Mai. ‘Lulu Guinness?’

Mai gave a surprisingly raucous bark of laughter. ‘Dunnes.’

‘Dunnes?’

‘A chain store,’ Ashling explained, with red-cheeked earnestness. ‘Like Marks & Spencer.’

‘Only cheaper,’ Mai added, with another snigger. Despite her lotus-blossom face she suddenly seemed very ordinary.

As Lisa circulated, topping up mugs, Mai said, with sly humour, ‘This is a great place to work, do you do this every day?’

There followed a burst of slightly hysterical laughter. ‘Every day? Not at all! Not at all! Special occasions, bank holidays, that kind of thing.’

‘You won’t tell Jack on us, will you?’ Trix asked.

Mai flickered her eyes in caustic scorn. ‘As if!’

‘Where do you work? What, um, what do you do?’ Trix dared to ask.

Mai tossed her heavy hair, her tilted eyes were all-knowing and instantly she’d become an inscrutable, mysterious babe again. ‘I’m an exotic dancer.’

This plunged the office into a short, nonplussed silence, before everyone rallied in ultra-blasé fashion. ‘Isn’t that lovely?’ they chorused stoutly. ‘Good girl yourself.’

‘Aren’t we having great weather for it?’ Boring Bernard got it wrong, as usual.

‘Good for you,’ Lisa managed. She bet that Jack and Mai had great sex and she flared with bilious jealousy.

‘What’s an exotic dancer?’ Mrs Morley muttered to Kelvin.

‘I believe it involves some, er, nudiness,’ he whispered tactfully, mindful of her elderly sensibilities.

‘Oh, so she’s a lap-dancer. She must be minting it.’ Mrs Morley studied Mai with something suddenly akin to respect.

‘No, I’m fecking not an exotic dancer,’ Mai said scornfully, flipping back to being ordinary. ‘I’m joking. I work flogging mobile phones but because of the way I look people expect me to be some sort of sex kitten.’

‘Isn’t that desperate altogether?’ another enthusiastic chorus kicked off. ‘Fierce! Aren’t people awful eejits?’

‘Have I got this right, she’s not a lap dancer?’ Mrs Morley discreetly enquired of Kelvin, who shook his peroxide head. It was hard to tell who was more disappointed.

‘It’s dreadful tereostyping,’ Ashling complained. I’m twisted, she realized.

‘It is,’ Mai complained, fuelled by her second mug of washing-up liquid and champagne. ‘I was born and brought up in Dublin, my father is Irish, but because my mother is Asian, men treat me like I’ll know all these special Oriental tricks in the scratcher. Ping-pong balls and the like. Or else they’re shouting, “Egg-flied lice” after me in the street.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Either way, it gets me down.’

She flicked a look around at Kelvin and Gerry who were watching her lasciviously, then huddled nearer to Ashling, Lisa and Trix and said candidly, ‘That’s not to say that I’d never try the ping-pong balls. Of course I’d lay on something special if I really fancied the guy.’

Like Jack, do you mean? Everyone wanted to ask. But no one had the nerve. Not even Trix. But as the number of full bottles continued to diminish and the empties mounted up, tongues loosened.

‘What age are you?’ Trix asked.

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘And how long have you been going with Jack?’

‘Nearly six months.’

‘He’s terrible cranky sometimes,’ Trix admitted.

‘Who are you telling! Since the business of Colleen started, he’s been in a fouler. He works too hard and worries too much, then he goes sailing to unwind and I never get to see him. I blame you lot for his bad mood!’

‘That’s funny!’ Trix exclaimed. ‘Because we blame you.’

At that, Mai began shifting and wriggling in her seat.

‘Sorry, are we embarrassing you? We’ll shut up,’ Ashling interjected. But with disappointment. She was finding this fascinating.

‘No, it’s OK,’ Mai grinned, still wriggling. ‘Knickers up my bum, drives me mad.’

She was so pretty and fresh and brazen that Lisa swallowed. She was sure she hadn’t imagined Jack’s interest in her, but she could see how he’d find Mai alluring.

By the time Jack returned, everyone had kicked back to such an extent that they didn’t even bother to hide it.

‘Having fun?’ he half-smiled.

‘’sabankoliday,’ glared Mrs Morley, an infrequent tippler, who in the last hour and a half had passed through suspicion, mellowness, marvellous well-being, maudlin regret, and had now arrived, as expected, at aggression.

‘Certainly is,’ he agreed.

‘Hello, Jack.’ Mai gave a shark’s smile. ‘I was passing and I thought I’d come in to say hello.’

Jack looked embarrassed.

Mai followed him into his office and closed the door very firmly.

When Trix put her mug up against the door, then put her ear to it, everyone laughed. But no mug was needed. Mai’s voice, high-pitched and berating, carried to the furthest desks. ‘How dare you ignore me when I visit you… If you think I’m going to put up with…’

Nothing at all could be heard from Jack, but he must have been saying something because there were pauses between Mai’s accusatory bursts.

‘Keep all the exits clear,’ Kelvin said, like an air-hostess.

And sooner rather than later, Jack’s door opened, Mai emerged, blazed a furious trail to the door and then she was gone, leaving the air humming with her absence. She hadn’t said goodbye to anyone.

‘Now that the floorshow is over, I’m going,’ Kelvin announced, swinging his inflatable orange rucksack on to his back. ‘I’ve seventy-two hours of Class As ahead of me.’

‘Me too,’ Trix said.

‘Me three,’ Boring Bernard agreed, once more grasping the wrong end of the stick.

Everyone packed up and sloped off, until the only people left were Jack and Ashling. Jack because he was waiting for a call from New York, and Ashling because she was meeting Joy at half six and didn’t think there was any point going home. While she waited, she kept working because she was in the process of setting up a database for Lisa, and had fallen very behind because of the earlier impromptu drinking session.