‘Jayzus, you’re early,’ Bill grumbled in alarm.

‘Nice weekend?’ Lisa asked acidly.

‘Bedad, I did indeed,’ Bill said expansively, and launched into an account of visits from grandchildren, visits to grand-children…

‘Because I didn’t,’ Lisa interrupted.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he sympathized, wondering what it had to do with him.

But on the good side, Lisa thought, as she went up in the lift, she’d made some decisions. If she was going to be stuck in this horrible bloody country, she was going to build up a network of friends. Well, maybe not friends as such, but people whom she could call ‘darling’ and bitch about other people to.

And she was going to have sex with someone. A man, she hastily specified. Never mind the New Bisexuality which she’d profiled in the March issue of Femme – one sheepish snog with a model at the Met Bar had been all she could manage. Like Sensible Chic, having sex with women just wasn’t for her.

That terrible weekend urge to call Oliver was a clear sign that she needed a bloke. Jack, if possible. But, with a hardening of her resolve, she decided if Jack wanted to play Burton and Taylor with Mai, she was going to find someone else. Perhaps that would bring him to his senses. Either way, things couldn’t go on as they were.

Of course, she mightn’t be able to find a suitable boyfriend immediately. But she swore to herself that at the very least before the week was out she was going to sleep with someone.

Like who? There was Jasper Ffrench, the celebrity chef, he’d certainly been up for it. But he was much too much of a pain. There was that Dylan she’d seen with Ashling. He was a babe. Married, unfortunately, so she wasn’t really likely to run into him in a nightclub. Spending the weekend hanging around DIY stores would be a better bet.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she said aloud, coming to a halt when she walked into the office. Champagne bottles, mugs, tin foil and wire were strewn everywhere, and the place stank like a pub. Obviously the cleaner didn’t think it was her job to clear up the remains of Friday’s beano. Well, Lisa wasn’t going to wash anything, she had her nails to think of. Ashling could do it.

To Lisa’s jealous contempt, every single other member of staff was late. They’d all had a wild three days. Even Mrs Morley, who, after her couple of mugs of champagne on Friday, had spent the weekend on the sauce.

Now it was payback time – all and sundry were moany and depressed, especially Kelvin, who’d punctured his inflatable orange rucksack with his thumb ring in a tragic looking-for-a-biro accident on Sunday night.

As everyone studiously avoided looking at the dirty cups, comparisons of hangovers abounded.

‘It always gets me more in the stomach than the head,’ Dervla O’Donnell confided to the general populace. ‘Nothing but two rasher sandwiches stops the queasiness.’

‘Nah, it’s the paranoia that does for me,’ Kelvin shivered, flicking a furtive glance at her, then dipping his head down again immediately.

Even Mrs Morley admitted shyly, ‘I feel as though a dagger is being stabbed repeatedly into my right eye.’

Lisa longed to join in and couldn’t. The icing on her pissed-off cake was when Mercedes swanned in, laden with bags covered in airline stickers. Apparently she’d gone to New York, of all places, for the weekend. Spoilt bitch, Lisa thought bitterly. Lucky bitch. And how come everyone seemed to have known about it except her?

Mercedes had been commissioned to bring back several items: white Levi’s for Ashling – apparently they were half the price over there; a Stussy hat for Kelvin, which you couldn’t get in Europe; and a consignment of Babe Ruth bars for Mrs Morley, who’d been to Chicago in the sixties and had never been able to settle for Cadbury’s since. The lucky recipients fell with glad cries upon their items and money changed hands briskly.

‘I was thinking of killing myself,’ Kelvin cheerfully sported his new hat, ‘but now I’m not going to.’

Lisa watched sourly. She could have asked Mercedes to bring back Kiehl’s body butter. Not that she would have. But she would have enjoyed refusing to ask her.

As well as the requested items, Mercedes brought generous presents for the office – forty flavours of jelly beans, bags of Hershey kisses and armloads of Reece’s peanut-butter cups. But when Mercedes offered her a bag of Hershey kisses, Lisa shuddered, ‘Oh no. I always think American chocolate tastes slightly like sick.’

Mrs Morley – her mouth full of a Babe Ruth – gasped at such sacrilege and, momentarily, Mercedes’ shark-dark eyes bore into Lisa’s. Lisa saw contempt, possibly even amusement in there.

‘Whadever,’ Mercedes deadpanned. And Lisa nearly combusted. Mercedes had been to New York for two days. Two days! And she had a New York accent.

Last of the non-managerial staff to arrive was Trix, contributing considerably to the strong, aromatic mix.

‘Cod above,’ Mrs Morley exclaimed, showing an unexpected tendency to play to the gallery. ‘This, ahem, plaice stinks.’

‘Ha ha,’ Trix said scornfully.

This triggered a ton of fish puns.

‘You smell fish-ious, Trix!’ Kelvin exclaimed.

‘Oh, don’t carp,’ Ashling soothed.

‘Shoal-ong, best if you go home,’ Mercedes surprised everyone with.

Kelvin proved to have quite a gift for it. ‘Salmon chanted evening,’ he sang, his arms outstretched, ‘you might meet a stray – ayne – ger.’

‘Here’s another song for you!’ Boring Bernard got things right, for once. Pulling up the collar of his shirt, and despite his red tank-top and suit trousers, he attempted a little jive. ‘Hake, rattle and roll! I said, hake, rattle and roll

In strolled Jack, hands in pockets, wreathed in smiles. ‘Morning all,’ he said cheerfully. ‘D’you know, this place is a shambles.’

Trix turned to him. ‘Jack – yeah, I know, Mr Devine to me – they’re all making fun because I smell of fish. They’re singing songs about it.’

‘What kind of songs?’

‘Go on,’ Trix instructed a discomfited Kelvin. ‘Sing for our glorious leader.’

Kelvin reluctantly obliged.

Jack grinned.

‘And you,’ Trix said to Bernard.

Bernard did a very half-hearted reprieve of his earlier show-manship.