‘I just remembered that you’re out of the office this afternoon. Do you need me to do anything? And what are you up to? I hope it’s something scandalous.’ She winks at me. ‘If it is, can I come with you?’

‘Nothing scandalous, I’m afraid. I have my smear test.’

‘Ah, nice. Good outfit for it.’

This is why she’s my work wife. Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ. With us, the latter part of the saying is definitely more suitable.

‘I remember the last time I got my smear test. God, it wasn’t great.’

I worry her anecdote isn’t going to make me feel better about my upcoming appointment.

‘The nurse had to keep getting bigger implements. Eventually she actually said to me, “I’ve never seen such a big vagina on such a small girl.” I swear that’s exactly what she said. Since then I’ve been doing Kegel exercises for at least fifteen minutes every day.’

I look at her suspiciously. ‘Were you doing them in the comms meeting yesterday morning? When everyone was talking about how to handle the kids-changing-colour issue?’

‘Oh my God – yes! How did you know?’

‘I remember glancing over at you and thinking it looked like you were concentrating really hard, but I knew you weren’t. Good idea doing them in meetings.’

‘I know, right? Really keeps me looking present.’

I look at the clock.

I’m definitely not going to start any new work now. ‘Wanna get lunch?’ I can go to the doctor’s straight from there.

Penny’s smile widens. ‘Sounds great. Let me go get my money.’

‘Who you texting?’ She nudges me.

Penny knows all about my dating life, so no doubt she thinks my smile is for Toby. She’s wrong.

‘It’s my mum. I’ve asked if I can go home this weekend. She’s now panicking that she won’t have time to clean the house and is already apologizing.’

‘Ah, a classic mum problem.’

We head out of the building and turn left towards the tube.

‘Sushi place round the corner?’ Penny is always a bad influence when it comes to spending money on food.

‘Sure. Let’s treat ourselves.’ I’ll get some batch-cooked soup out of the freezer for dinner.

She strides next to me, her long legs making me walk a touch quicker than normal. ‘Thanks for suggesting we go to lunch. I don’t know what it is, but the office has had a really bad vibe recently. Is it just me?’

I hadn’t really thought about it. To me, work always has a bad vibe. ‘I guess we have had a lot of new people start recently, which I think makes people like Joan a bit on edge. All the extra competition.’

‘I don’t like it. Every time I go into a meeting, the first five minutes are taken up by people boasting about why they’re so great and all the impressive things they’ve done. I’ve done impressive things too, but forgive me if I’m not a shouter.’ She’s getting louder and louder as she talks. ‘I worry that if I don’t shout about how great I am, people will forget me.’