The door opens – I hadn’t really thought about that – and in comes New Boy Simon, head down, reading a piece of paper, heading for the urinal. He actually walks past me, then stops, stares ahead, walks backwards.

‘Am I seeing things?’

‘Hi Si …’ I have to clear my throat. ‘Simon.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, I just had a bit of an accident with a cup of coffee and I had to wash my shirt and it’s er …’

‘Taking a bit of time to dry. Yes. So I see.’

He’s looking at me with a half smile on his face. Well, I am half naked. He’s in no hurry to move along.

‘So I’m just …’

‘Yes.’ Another pause. A slight flicker of his left eyebrow. ‘I’ve got a spare shirt you can borrow. If you would be seen dead in any of my clothes.’

‘Oh, that’s okay’

‘It’s clean. In fact, it’s never been worn. You can have it.’

‘No, really, I couldn’t,’ I say, as if I’m refusing a piece of expensive jewellery.

‘Stay there. I’ll be right back.’

The shirt is still in its plastic wrapper. It’s from Marks and Spencer. But it’s white, and there’s nothing obviously wrong with it. I put it on. It’s a bit tight across the shoulders and the chest.

‘There. Looks better on you than it would on me,’ says Simon, brushing a possibly non-existent thread off my back.

‘Thanks, mate,’ I say. ‘You’ve saved my life.’

‘All in a day’s work,’ he says, and he goes to the urinal. I tidy my hair and brush the crumbs off my trousers while his piss drums against the metal.

‘You know,’ he says, as he’s putting himself away and I’m about to leave, ‘you should take care of yourself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you know. You’re out there every weekend caning it …’

‘No, I’m not. I’ve hardly been going out at all recently.’ I’m embarrassed even to say these words, because it’s well known that ‘I’ve hardly been going out at all recently’ is gayspeak for ‘I’ve been spending more time in clubs than in my own home’.

‘Sorry. I just don’t like to see you … like this.’

‘Like what?’ I’m getting aggressive, which is no way to behave to someone who’s just given you a shirt.

Simon puts his hands up and backs away. ‘Okay. Okay. Forget I said anything.’ He leaves the toilet.

‘Fucking idiot,’ I say, but I’m not sure if I mean him or me.

The afternoon is more or less a disaster because it’s painfully clear to everyone in the presentation meeting that I haven’t got a clue what’s going on, that Anna has done the whole thing and when she asks me to fill in some of the finer details I mumble and grope for words and promise to get a spreadsheet in everyone’s inbox first thing in the morning. Anna just looks at me over the top of her glasses, like a schoolteacher, and makes some excuse that we haven’t been sent that information yet, but Robert’s on top of it, even though we have and I’m not. My heart swells with gratitude but I know I’m in for a bollocking when we get out.