“Well, Lindsay, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it, haven’t they? Otherwise, we’d fall into the hands of some of them dangerous radicals. You know the ones—they’re out there, ready and waiting to turn us into a matriarchy, leaving us lads to be nothing but the playthings of you lasses,” Tom said, leaning so close she could smell the beer on his breath and see the individual hairs in his thick, curly beard. He hadn’t changed much, she thought, either superficially or more deeply. These days, there were gray hairs among the brown in his hair and beard, but his warm brown eyes were still the same, holding the eyes of his audience, whether it was one person or a thousand, forcing them to be the ones to look away first.

“You should be so lucky, Tom,” she said.

He smiled the familiar smile, his full sensual lips barely parting. His crooked teeth were the only chink in his armor that Lindsay had ever noticed. But even that he turned to an advantage. She had heard him once in full flood, explaining how he would never have his teeth fixed because every time he looked in the mirror they reminded him of the importance of a free National Health Service, and of how his working-class roots had prevented him from having the gleaming white smile of the bosses. It was a performance that had to be seen to be believed. He winked confidentially and said, “Oh, but I am lucky, Lindsay, I’m a very lucky man.”

“I wonder if you’ll still be saying that at the end of the week,” Lindsay mused softly.

Jack’s brows dropped in a frown that seemed to promise the wrath of God. “I hope you’re not threatening me already, Lindsay. Bloody hell, woman, you’ve only been back in the country five minutes.”

“You sound very paranoid, Tom. Fancy you feeling threatened by a little woman like me! As it happens, it’s not me you’ve got to worry about. Maybe you should have taken more time to consider the consequences when you decided to behave like management.” Lindsay moved to one side, hoping to get away.

Jack’s scowl deepened and his nostrils flared. “You always were full of piss and wind,” he said. All the fun had gone out of it now. The rest of the group had fallen silent, shifting uneasily, almost imperceptibly moving back from the two antagonists.

“It used to take more than that to rattle you, Tom,” Lindsay said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t realize that dumping union staff on the dole queue was such a sore point with you.”