The other thing that wasn’t yet quite normal, and this was not specific to Mr O’Connor but seemed to happen any time a new teacher joined, was that everyone appeared to have pulled up their socks, and be working much harder. Instead of the usual banal chatter and flicking through Ceefax that used to accompany tea breaks in the staffroom, now everyone began to stride purposely about with their papers, or bury themselves in their books and marking as soon as Mr O’Connor walked in. It was a natural group instinct of self-preservation, no one wanted to get shown up by fresher, keener new blood, and so everyone pretended to have an über-enthusiasm that tended to wear off as soon as the new teacher had been broken in and broken down by the relentless turn of the clock. Even Jonty, for whom Chaucer could hold no more secrets after a decade of ploughing through Canterbury Tale after Tale with his A level classes, was seen marking up his battered copies and muttering to himself audibly in Middle Englyshe any time anyone was close enough to hear.

Right on cue, Dermot walked in after taking lunch duty and greeted the teachers in the room collectively and individually - a lunch duty in itself, as it took him almost five minutes out of his precious remaining break. Shona, reading Voltaire’s Candide on the small window seat, stifled a smile as a flurry of feminine activity broke out concurrently with heightened energized working. Tarn, there’s really no need, I’ll make it myself this time … Well, if you insist, that’s really very kind of you, again.’ Dermot looked around the staffroom and made a beeline for the only person who wasn’t really looking at him.

‘Could I join you, Shona?’ he asked politely. Shona looked around wistfully at the many empty chairs that he could have picked, instead of squeezing himself next to her on the narrow window seat. Parvez had a customer in the Balham restaurant who did something similar - always taking the same seat at the small corner table and, even if the rest of the restaurant was empty, and the large table next to the corner table was full and blocking his way, making the other customers stand up so he could get to his usual seat.

‘Sure, Dermot, if you don’t mind holding your breath. It’s a bit narrow, I’m not sure it’s even made for two.’

‘Ah, but you’re just a scrap of a girl,’ said Dermot. ‘There’s plenty of room for my skinny Irish backside.’ Shona giggled, despite herself. She couldn’t help noticing that Dermot was a lot less formal with her than with the others; perhaps that little confrontation at their first meeting had broken the ice.