‘I’m not giving out to her,’ Management said.

‘Good, because you know she’s not all there.’

‘Why isn’t she all there?’ Henry piped up, in a rare moment of conversation.

‘On account of all, the, you know … ’ Lynn whispered.

‘What was that, Lynn?’ I said.

She looked directly at me. ‘You know,’ she repeated, stiffly.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I forget. Please tell me.’

‘You were,’ she cleared her throat delicately, ‘a fantasy girl.’

‘The pornography,’ Management stated, flatly. ‘The prostitution.’

‘And that’s just the stuff she has told us about.’ Lynn shook her head sadly. ‘It was a lot of work for me, you know, a lot of extra work for me. When I was doing up our history folders on the computer, I had no idea what to call hers. I stayed late. I couldn’t figure it out.’

‘What did you go with in the end?’ Management inquired.

‘Whoring Around.’

‘That’s a powerful title for a folder, Lynn,’ Management congratulated her. ‘You’re really improving at the computer.’

‘Don’t hold back, you two,’ I said. ‘Pretend I’m not here.’

Kevin’s sly smile.

‘Can we all try and enjoy ourselves please?’ Management’s voice was sharp, high with that animal bloodlust.

We nodded. Our heads bobbing, bobbing, bobbing.

Management was not above demeaning us. She had lofty, liberal ideas but she was as base as anyone I have ever encountered. She disguised it as fun and games – playtime – but it was tyranny. Pure, intentional terror. There had been ugly scenes in the past. Things had gotten nasty, once or twice.

That Friday, she took out a small cardboard box and placed it on the table in front of her.

‘Can you come up here, Kevin?’

Kevin lumbered towards her and as she rested one hand on his queasy, young shoulder she pressed an object into his palm.

At the sight Kevin’s whole body clammed up; he disappeared into himself. I caught only a flash of it – the sorrow, the roundness, the honking redness. As Kevin stretched that clown nose over his startled face, the silence in the backroom was clammy, damp.

‘Isn’t it amusing?’ Management asked.

‘It’s brilliant,’ I said. ‘May I have one please?’

‘The nose is just for Kevin.’

‘I would like one.’

‘Don’t be a sourpuss.’

‘Just give me one, would you?’

‘Why?’

‘Because it would look fucking good on me.’

Management rolled her eyes, weighed up something in her mind and, finally, threw me the prop. I placed it over my face in what I hoped was a demonstration of anger.

‘Now, isn’t this a nice evening?’ Lynn said.

*

The next morning I came to on Kevin’s couch, his Jaws T-shirt stretched foolishly over my chest, the shark slithering up to say hi. I could taste the night before – the emotion, the dramatics. My impassioned speeches left highly irregular tastes. Through the kitchen wall came the low murmur of television, accompanied by the mean movements of Kevin’s full-time bastard of a father. Fridays were not easy on Kevin either, make no mistake. After the meetings he frequently had dreams where he chased me off a cliff.