Greta arrived about five-thirty with a couple of plastic bags full of bowls that clinked together. She walked over to Peggy who was standing beside the trestle table they’d set up in the shade next to the barbecue. They put the salads on the table and undid the Gladwrap. Greta took her backpack off and took out the bread they’d made, which was wrapped in a tea towel. Peggy had mixed and kneaded it lightly the night before, leaving Greta to turn it out, prove it and bake it. Peggy dug into the backpack Greta had brought and pulled out a chopping board and a knife. Duncan had some sliced white bread to wrap the sausages in and Peggy and Greta looked at each other as they realised maybe the bread was too much. Greta said to Duncan, ‘Sorry, maybe the bread is a bit much.’

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘You can never have too much bread,’ and everyone nodded and made agreeing noises.

Peggy grabbed a Pump bottle out of the bottom of the backpack and drank long from it.

‘There’s Coke,’ Niall said, pointing towards the drinks table with the hand holding his beer.

‘All good, thanks.’ Peggy pushed the pop-up top of the bottle down with the palm of her hand. ‘How was today?’ she asked no one in particular.

Niall shrugged.

‘It was okay.’ Billy took a drink from the bottle of beer he was holding.

‘The system’s playing up,’ Greta said, grabbing a glass from the table as she talked. ‘I think it’s slower than it should be.’ She wasn’t really talking to Peggy and she put her hand out for the Pump bottle and Peggy pulled the top up and passed the bottle to her without looking. Neither of them looked. The others looked, though. Not noticeably but Duncan noticed it. It sent the tiniest ripple through the group. Greta and Peggy didn’t pick it up or they picked it up and thought it wasn’t about them. They were okay together, like this, with the people from work. Everyone could assimilate it, like when someone gets a new haircut, or they push their hair behind their ear, and you remember they have a helix piercing.

‘When’s the new system coming?’ Greta poured water from the bottle into her glass and handed the bottle back to Peggy again without looking or acknowledging the movement.

‘No shop talk,’ Duncan shouted, looking at the barbecue, turning over sausages. Everyone laughed.

‘They’ve put the roll-out back again,’ Donna said.

‘Have they started beta?’ Niall asked. No one knew but they suspected not. It was quite likely they would start testing at their office. It was one of the biggest.

‘It’ll be a nightmare,’ Duncan said. He was that kind of boss.

‘It couldn’t be worse than the elderly horse we’re riding home,’ Billy said. The others nodded.