AIDAN. No but. I’d hate for you to feel like I think this is okay.

CHARLOTTE. I don’t.

AIDAN. It’s not okay. This is not okay.

CHARLOTTE. I know. She’s fucking fourteen.

AIDAN. This is not that sort of publication. We have nothing but the deepest respect for the women, the legally adult women, that we feature on our pages. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable working here.

CHARLOTTE. I don’t feel uncomfortable.

AIDAN. Good. That’s good.

CHARLOTTE. I just feel really sad.

They look at each other. CHARLOTTE goes. SAM is still on the floor.

AIDAN. Sam, get up.

SAM. I can’t.

AIDAN. We didn’t know.

SAM. I chose the photo.

AIDAN. These things happen. It’s not your fault.

SAM. No but I think it, I think maybe it is, because, because…

,

AIDAN. Because what, Sam?

SAM. No I just. I did, I had a feeling, I had this, quite, a deep feeling of deep, unease, or

AIDAN. A feeling is not, there was no / reason for you to –

SAM. Dread. Actually, but I get that quite a lot, feelings of dread.

AIDAN. I’m sorry, but your feelings are not my priority / right now –

SAM. No but when I rang him up, the boyfriend, to tell him, she’d won, I had to, talk him through the consent form and his voice was a bit, croaky a bit sort of –

AIDAN. Shit. Okay. Shit.

SAM. Yeah, like breaking, but he said he had a cold, and after, he made a request. To be friends with me. On Facebook / and I –

AIDAN. You didn’t, please tell me / you did not –

SAM. No, I thought it’d be, crossing a line and also, also I’d talked to him, on the phone and to be honest, I honestly thought –

AIDAN. Yes?

SAM. I thought he was a bit of a twat, sorry, so I didn’t, accept his – but I did have a look at his photos, and there was, this one folder called ‘Year 8 go to the Somme’, and there were pictures of him, with her, with Carrie or it looked like her standing in a field of white gravestones, you know the ones like teeth with poppies growing, and she was doing that ‘V’ sign, that peace sign girls always do and, he was behind her sort of laughing, sort of grabbing her, like –

He grabs, with two hands, where his breasts would be.

They were in uniform. School uniform, not.

And, and I had quite a big wave of it then, the dread, but. But then I always get that when I think about the Somme because.

AIDAN. Sam. This isn’t.

SAM. Because it’s the Somme and what else can you think.

SAM leans over, hands on his knees, hyperventilating. AIDAN rubs his back.