The train went over some points, clattering – and nothing mattered, really. Everything was funny, in the end. Someone came by on their way to the toilet, helping a toddler for whom the journey was a wondrous adventure. The child paused in front of Michael and stared at him, seeing what? Some wide-eyed monster, perhaps, like the dead man going endlessly round the Circle line. The child didn’t scream, though – she smiled. Her mother urged her onwards, and Michael smiled back and waved his fingers: the child did everything so, so slowly, and savoured everything she saw. She wanted to linger, and perhaps her mother was savouring everything too – the world was new again for her? The Asian woman’s rucksack caught the child’s attention, and she needed to touch its straps and play with the zip.

‘Come on,’ said the mother gently. ‘That’s not yours.’

Michael swallowed his fruit, and fast-forwarded to the realisation that he had become the butt of the younger workers’ jokes. Fast-forward to the interview, then, with a team leader accusing him of sexist behaviour because he had made a silly joke of his own and an angry, hassled co-worker had reported him. Rewind to school, where a weak silly joke could earn the derision of the friends you craved, and forward back to the present to discover the same state of affairs existed in a multi-billion-pound DIY empire: Michael, in his green elf-trousers, had misjudged it again.

‘Did you call her a silly girl?’

This was said by his team leader – a man in his early twenties called Tim.

‘I probably did. Yes.’

He poured himself a small glass of whisky, and smiled again.

‘Her contention,’ said Tim, ‘is that you disrespected her because of her gender. You demeaned her, Mike – and I have to agree.’

‘She was being silly, Tim. The joke wasn’t offensive.’

‘“How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb? One to change the bulb—”’

‘All right, it’s a bad joke—’

‘“And the other one to say, ‘It’s not funny.’” That’s going to offend some people, Mike.’

Michael smiled, wishing Tim would use his proper name.

‘We were telling those kind of jokes,’ he said.

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have been. And if you have a problem with Sunita, you should come to me.’

‘I don’t have a problem with anyone.’

‘We have procedures to deal with tensions and… disagreements.’