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on, darlin?’
    â€˜One of them called me a traitor, do you know?’
    Norman is incensed.
    â€˜Me! Me, who served fourteen year in the Territorials!’
    â€˜Norman’ll have a cuppa as well, hen,’ Moira says.
    Here is how Moira and Norman work together, how they’d got on sharing the same corner space of RDJ Construction’s Surveying Office for fourteen years: if you make the tea for the two of them, you always pour the water over the teabag in Moira’s special oversized teacup with the flowers on it, then pull it out immediately and add it to Norman’s mug (bright blue, says World’s Best Dad! in red), which already has one bag in it. You let Norman’s tea stew for the time it takes to go to the fridge and get the milk, pull the sugar down from the cupboard with the anonymous notice that we all know is Elaine’s work on it:
    Would Everyone wash up there own Dishes and Cup’s please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Three sugars for Norman and a splash of milk. The tip of a spoon in the sugar for Moira. Then, and only then, you take the two teabags out of Norman’s mug. This is how Norman told me to make the tea, exactly this way, when I was settling in on my first day.
    â€˜Moira doesn’t like it strong. Not at all. Me, I’m the opposite, see. I like brickie tea! Tea to put hairs on your chest! But Moira, it’s just delicate for her.’
    His voice softer, more reverent, as he told me this than I’ve ever heard it since.
    Moira and Norman are both married to other people, have been for years. Only when they go home, though. All that time they spend together in the day, looking after each other, smiling affectionately at each other, checking that the other one gets their tea right. And it would never occur to either of them.
    Graeme is already in the staff kitchen, on his knees in front of the fridge, trying to find the perfect spot for his sandwiches.
    â€˜It’s because of the new development,’ he’s saying. ‘They announced that we’d won the contract to do it last night, and it was all over the papers this morning. They gave the full address and everything, but the protesters still didn’t work out which entrance was ours till Elaine arrived.’
    â€˜What’s the new development?’
    â€˜Oh yeah. We were keeping the bid a secret, and Ian mentioned it to the office on Friday, but you were away at your hen weekend. I’ve had my sister on the phone this morning giving me a total earful of it, and she’s never usually up before twelve.’ He’s still smirking.
    â€˜What’s their objection to it? Ach, is it the Christians again? We’re not knocking through another church for those bloody style bars?’
    He passes me a tabloid, folded open, the ink of it grainy on my fingers. I read and flinch.
    JACKSON GROUP BUY OUT VICE GIRL BASE
    â€˜The new development is on the site of a brothel?’
    â€˜Heh, heh. No, I think it’s like a shelter, actually. Just down the road, that’s hows we got the contract. You know, where all the, heh, eh, prossies go and hang out. On the night shift, eh?’
    Chuckle, chuckle. He’s blooming under the idea of it now, the fur coat and nae knickers of it, lads-mag innuendo nudging away at his little boy smile.
    â€˜The Sanctuary Base? So presumably, that mob outside are the people who work there?’
    â€˜Well,’ He lowers his voice, leans into me so I can get a bettersmell of his Lynx. ‘I heard Elaine saying that actually, some of them are the hookers !’
    The word has me before I realise. That dirty hooker . Three days ago I wouldn’t even have paused.
    It takes Graeme a couple of seconds to realise that I’m not sharing the joke, by which time I’m working on an encouraging half-smile so as not to hurt his feelings.
    Graeme and I are the only people under thirty in this company. I know that because I’ve got access