She shrugged her shoulders but, to his relief, left. Feeling so much anxiety that he worried he might be about to have a heart attack, he decided that he had no choice but to reach for the instrument of his potential downfall and face whatever monsters lay in store for him. It took about a minute for it to burst into life but, once it did, the texts began to pour in. He scrolled through the names, his thumb swiping up the screen as he scanned them quickly. Various journalists, a few politicians and a bunch of older celebrities all sending messages of support and saying that they didn’t know what all the fuss was about. He’d delete them later. The only one he engaged with was from his producer, Ben Bimbaum, who told him that they needed to talk, and could he be at the BBC at eleven o’clock.

George Cleverley

I’m always at the BBC at eleven o’clock. You could set your watch by me.

He’d barely sent the message when the little dots appeared on the screen to show that Ben was replying. He must have been staring at his screen, contemplating the flatness of the Earth, waiting for George to turn his phone on.

Ben Bimbaum

Great! Looking 4ward to chatz!

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he grunted.

The ridiculous thing, of course, was that he had been trying to be supportive. He’d always got along well with Aidan, the receptionist at Arlo, Quill, Fitzgerald & Connolly, and it was an incontrovertible fact that he rarely got along well with anyone. Particularly anyone under the age of thirty. And so, when he had learned that Aidan was now Nadia – oh! it was the same word backwards! he just got that! – he had tweeted a note of support, despite how rude he – she – had been to him earlier.

@GeorgeCleverley Much love to Aidan @AQFC as he continues his transition. Brave, authentic & inspiring. #TransRights #TransPride #BraveNewWorld #TotalSupport

The shit had hit the fan almost immediately without him even fully understanding what he’d done wrong. All right, he admitted to himself, he knew what he had supposedly done wrong. He’d called Nadia ‘Aidan’ in his tweet. And used the ‘he’ pronoun. But Christ alive, was that a hanging offence?

The whole commotion hadn’t even been initiated by him, for his initial tweet had originally been liked by a couple of hundred people without any adverse comments at all. It was only when some idiot called @TruthIsASword had tweeted in response that things had started to kick off.

@TruthIsASword Sickened by this transphobic tweet. Man in ur position? Her name is NADIA. SHE is transitioning. Stop the hate, old man. #DeadNaming #MisGendering #Transphobic #HateCulture #BBC #CisMalePrivilege #BeKind #DropDead