took a forkful of my three-bean salad, in which I could only find two bean types, and which I was eating at my desk for the first time in two and a half years. Louise had stolen a large leather executive chair from somewhere – after the redundancies, random chairs were a regular feature – and they were currently re-enacting an office version of Mastermind. Twitch was in the hot seat and his specialist subject was ‘Coronation Street: Major Events 1960–2010’. Mouse was the quizmaster, firing questions at him from the Internet, Louise was timing him and so far he was doing well with three passes and a score of fifteen. Graham had his head in his hands and was staring down at his opened baguette and occasionally moving a hand from his head to pick out a gherkin.

‘I don’t know why you just don’t tell them not to put gherkins in. You do this every day,’ Louise said, watching him.

‘Concentrate on the time,’ Mouse said, panicked, then spoke even more quickly. ‘In 1971 how did Valerie Barlow leave the show?’

And in equally rapid speech Twitch fired back, ‘Electrocuted herself with a faulty hairdryer.’

Any moment from now Mr Fernández was going to walk through the door and after two and a half years in the job, I was going to have to reveal to the office my complete inability to speak Spanish. I was cringing with the embarrassment it was causing me already and what was surprising me was the horrible feeling that I knew I was going to let them down, a concern I had never previously possessed. The smaller the numbers got in our office, the more it felt like a dysfunctional family and although I was always on the outside looking in, I realised that though we weren’t quite a tight group we were certainly a less loose one. We didn’t all particularly like one another but we were protective of our unit, and in a way, I had betrayed them all. I had thought about pretending to be sick that day and also about confronting Fish Face about my lack of Spanish which would avoid the public embarrassment in front of the team but would be privately humiliating. In the end I’d decided against both routes because a part of me said that perhaps I could play my life at his own little game and there was a chance that I could learn an entire language overnight, and so after admiring Don Lockwood’s perfectly formed ear last night I had hit the Spanish language books. I had discovered at three in the morning that it was impossible to learn a language overnight.

Graham finally finished picking out his gherkins and took a bite of his baguette. He watched the game of Mastermind unfold with a weary look. It was at times like that I found him attractive; when he wasn’t pretending to be somebody he wasn’t. He looked at me and we shared a look of fond annoyance at the game. Then he winked and I detested him again.

‘Okay my turn.’ Louise practically lifted Twitch from the chair to jump into it herself.

Flustered, Twitch stood up and fixed his glasses.

‘Well done, Twitch,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’ He pulled up his trousers, so that his belly showed above and below his belt-line, and looked proud.

‘What is your specialised subject?’ Mouse asked Louise.

‘“Shakespeare’s Plays”,’ Louise said very seriously.

Graham was midway into taking a bite of his baguette. He froze. We all looked at her.

‘Only joking. “The Life and Times of Kim Kardashian”.’

We laughed.

‘You have two minutes, let’s begin. For whom was Kim Kardashian’s father, Robert Kardashian, attorney during a controversial case in the nineties?’

‘O. J. Simpson,’ she said, so fast the words were barely audible.

Twitch sat beside me and we watched.

‘What are you eating?’ he asked.

‘Three-bean salad but look, I can only find two beans in it.’

Twitch leaned over to study it. ‘Kidney beans, chick peas … did you eat the other one?’

‘No, definitely not, I’d have noticed.’

‘I’d bring that back if I were you.’

‘But it’s half gone, they’ll think I’ve eaten them.’

‘It’s worth a try. How much did that cost you?’

‘Three-fifty.’

He shook his head in disbelief and sucked in air. ‘Yeah, I’d take that back.’

I stopped eating and we returned our gaze to the Mastermind game.

‘In which spin-off show did Kim Kardashian move city to set up a new clothing store with her sister?’

‘Kourtney and Kim Take New York,’ she yelped. ‘The clothing store is Dash.’

‘You don’t get extra points for extra information,’ Graham complained.

‘Ssh,’ she silenced him, keeping an eye on the clock.

I heard Michael O’Connor’s voice in the corridor: loud, confident and informative as he pointed out the mediocre facts of the floor I lived on every day. Edna must have heard them too because she opened the door to her office and gave me the nod. I stood up and smoothed my dress down, hoping that crease-free humming-bird-patterned material would help my ability to speak Spanish. Michael O’Connor greeted Edna at the door and it was up to me to bring Augusto into the office.

I cleared my throat, held out my hand as I walked towards him.

‘Sr Fernández, bienvenido.’

We shook hands. He was extremely handsome and I became even more flustered. We looked at one another in a long silence.

‘Em. Em.’ My mind went completely blank. All the phrases I’d learned quickly flew out of my head in an obvious act of sabotage.

‘¿Hablas español?’ he asked.

‘Uh-huh.’

He smiled.

Finally I remembered something. ‘¿Cómo está usted?’ How are you?

‘¿Bien, gracias, y usted?’ The words were fast and didn’t quite sound like the voice on the tape but I recognised some of them so just went with it, trying to speak faster like him.

‘Uhhh. Me llamo … Lucy Silchester. Mucho gusto encantado.’ It’s a great pleasure to meet you.

He said something long and fast and detailed. Smiling sometimes, then looking serious, using his hands in a presidential way. I nodded in turn, smiling when he did and looking serious when he did. Then he went silent and waited for a response.

‘Okay. ¿Quisiera bailar conmigo?’ Would you like to dance with me?

His forehead wrinkled. Behind Mr Fernández’s head I could see Graham trying to stuff his baguette into a drawer in a panic as if eating at his desk at lunchtime would rob him of his job. Gherkins were flying everywhere so I went to Twitch’s desk instead. This knocked me off course; in my head I had planned to begin my spiel with Graham and now I had to move down to the second paragraph of the piece I’d learned in my head. Twitch stood up, fixed his glasses, proud as a peacock.

‘I’m Quentin Wright, pleasure to meet you.’ Twitch, twitch, blink, blink.

Quentin looked at me. I looked at Augusto. My mind went blank.

‘Quentin Wright,’ I said in a kind of Spanish accent, and they shook hands.

Augusto said something. I looked at Twitch and I swallowed hard. ‘He’d like to know what you do here.’

Twitch frowned. ‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’

‘Eh, yes.’

He looked confused but then went on a rant, talking about his past experience and what an honour it was for him to work for the company. It would have been touching if I hadn’t wanted to stop him after every single sentence. I looked at Augusto. Smiled. ‘Um, he said, un momento por favor.’ One moment please. ‘España es un país maravilloso.’ Spain is a marvellous country. ‘Me gusta el español.’ I like Spanish.

Augusto looked at Twitch, Twitch looked at me.

‘Lucy,’ Twitch said accusingly.

I was sweating; I could feel a hot rush flow through my body. I don’t ever remember feeling so very … embarrassed. ‘Em …’ I looked around the room trying to think of an excuse to leave and then Gene Kelly rescued me again and it came to me: Don Lockwood’s text. ‘Estoy buscando a Tom.’ I’m looking for Tom.

They both frowned.

‘Lucy,’ Quentin asked rather nervously, twitching far more times than I’d ever seen before, ‘who’s Tom?’

‘You know Tom,’ I smiled at him. ‘I have to go find him, it’s very important that I introduce Mr Fernández to him.’ Then I looked at Augusto and repeated, ‘Estoy buscando a Tom.’

The room was spinning as I started to walk away. Some shouting from the corridor stopped me in my tracks. It was such a relief to hear a distraction that I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. Then the others in the office reacted and I knew I wasn’t. Michael O’Connor and Edna stopped talking, he popped his head out the door to take a look. Then there were more voices shouting, loud male angry voices. Then there was scuffling, then breathing and panting as if people were getting physical. And then a couple of things happened all at the same time. Edna said something to Michael O’Connor and he quickly closed the door to protect us all from whatever it was; Mouse and Nosy instantly huddled together; Cock quickly moved closer to them to protect them. Edna looked as if she had seen a ghost, and seeing her face made me think it was the end. Michael O’Connor very smoothly made his way to Augusto, took him firmly by the elbow and led him into Edna’s office where he closed the door behind them, leaving us sitting ducks for whatever it was that was going on outside our door.

‘Edna, what’s going on?’

Her face was white and she was confused and clearly didn’t know what to do. The shouts got louder outside as they made their way closer, there was a bang as it sounded like a body hurtled at the wall beside us, followed by a shout of pain, and we jumped. Suddenly Edna kicked into boss mode and her voice was firm.

‘Everybody, I want you all to get down under your desks. Now.’

‘Edna what’s—’

‘Now, Lucy,’ she shouted and everybody got down on the ground and crawled under their desks.

From under mine I could see Mary huddled up under hers, rocking back and forth and crying. Graham, who was close by, was trying to reach out to her from under his desk to comfort her and also silence her. I couldn’t see Louise, she was on the far side of the room and Twitch was as still as could be, sitting on the floor staring at a photograph of his wife and children, the one of them all having a picnic, with his son on his shoulders and his wife carrying their daughter, the photo where he had most hair and I wondered if he was happier then, and because of it. I peeked outside to see where Edna was and I saw her standing up, taking deep breaths, pulling down the end of her suit jacket, then taking more deep breaths, then pulling down the end of her suit jacket some more. Every few moments she would look up at the door and have a determined look in her eye, as if she could take on anything, and then it would waver and she would take her deep breaths and pull down on her jacket again. And what did I do? All I could do was stare at the three-bean salad that I had knocked on the floor in the craziness, and piece by piece go through the beans looking for a third type. Kidney bean, tomato, sweetcorn, pepper, chickpea, kidney bean, red onion, lettuce, chickpea, tomato. It was all I could manage to stop myself from doing what my body and mind wanted to do, which was freak out.

The shouting and bangs got louder and louder. We could see people running past our window at top speed, women with their shoes in their hands, men without their jackets, just running. Everybody was running, why couldn’t we? My question was answered very quickly. I saw someone running in the opposite direction to the fleeing men and women, a familiar shape. He was running straight to our door. Then I saw a team of security men chasing him. Our door burst open.

It was Steve. Sausage.

He had his briefcase in his hand, his suit jacket was ripped at the sleeve and there was blood gushing from a gash in his forehead. I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. I looked at Twitch to see if he could see what I could, but his hands were in front of his face, his shoulders were shaking, he was quietly crying. At first I was relieved, it was only Steve. I was about to jump out from under my desk and run to him when he threw down his briefcase and dragged a nearby desk across the floor to block the door. Despite his physical shape he moved quickly, and then piled chair after chair on top of the desk to block the door. Once he was satisfied, he picked up his briefcase again and with his breathing way out of whack, made his way to his desk.

He started shouting, ‘My name is Steve Roberts and I work here. My name is Steve Roberts and I work here. You cannot remove me from these premises.’

When the others realised who it was, they began to slowly creep out from under the desks.

Graham was first up. ‘Steve, man, what are you—’

‘Stay away from me, Graham,’ Steve shouted, his breathing all over the place; the blood was dripping from his nose and his chin down onto his shirt. ‘They can’t take this job away from me. All I want to do is sit down and go to work. That’s all. Now back off. Seriously, you too, Mary, you too, Louise.’

Quentin was still under the desk. I stood up.

‘Steve, please don’t do this,’ I said, my voice shaking. ‘You’ll get into so much trouble. Think of your wife and your kids.’

‘Think of Teresa,’ Graham said, adding the personal touch. ‘Come on.’ His voice was gentle. ‘You don’t want to let her down.’

Steve was softening, his shoulders were relaxing, his eyes becoming a little less hardened but they were so black, so dark and wild. He was looking around as though he was wired, as though he was on something, not able to focus on one thing.

‘Steve, please don’t make this any worse,’ Edna said. ‘We can end this now.’

But it was as though a switch was flicked and he turned again. He glared at her and almost threw his briefcase at her and my heart quickened. ‘It can’t get any worse, Edna, you have no idea how bad things are already. You have no idea. I am fifty years old and today a twenty-year-old girl told me that I am unemployable. Unemployable? Apart from the day my baby girl was born, I’ve never missed a day’s work in my life.’ His voice was full of venom and he directed his anger at Edna. ‘I’ve always done my best for you, always.’

‘I know that. Believe me—’

‘You are a liar!’ he shouted, voice thick with rage. His face was bright red, the veins in his neck protruded. ‘My name is Steve Roberts and I work here.’

He put his briefcase down, pulled out his chair and sat down. His hands were shaking as he tried to open his briefcase. When he couldn’t do it he yelled so loudly we all jumped and he thumped his fist down on the desk. ‘Graham, open it!’ he shouted. Graham hopped to it and opened the brown battered briefcase that Steve had carried with him every day that I’d been here, and then he wisely took several strides backward, away from Steve. Steve calmed a little then placed his mug back down, the one that said Steve likes his coffee black with one sugar, but he banged it down so hard that the bottom chipped. He replaced his basketball and hoop and the photograph of his children. There was no packed lunch. His wife hadn’t planned on him coming in today. They were messily placed, not as he had them before. Nothing was like he had it before.

‘Where’s my computer?’ he said quietly.

Nobody answered.

‘Where’s my computer?’ he screamed.

‘I don’t know,’ Edna said, her voice trembling a little. ‘They came and they took it this morning.’

‘Took it? Who took it?’

Banging began on the door to the office as security tried to get in. The door wouldn’t budge, he had cleverly – though I think accidentally – placed one of the chairs below the door handle and it was firmly lodged. I could hear voices outside talking at top speed, trying to figure out what to do. They were worried, not so much about us I imagined but about the two heads of the company inside, and I was hoping Steve wasn’t going to find out any time soon either. The action at the door wasn’t doing anything to help Steve’s temper. The constant rattle of the chairs and desk at the door was like a slow simmer and we were all waiting for the big explosion. Steve was starting to panic.

‘Well then, get me your computer,’ he said.

‘What?’ Edna was taken aback.

‘Go into your office and get me your computer. Or better yet, how about I take your desk, how do you like that?’ he shouted. ‘Then I’ll be the boss around here and they won’t be able to get rid of me. Maybe I’ll fire you,’ he shouted. ‘Edna! You’re fucking fired! How do you like that?’

It was beyond disturbing watching a colleague fall apart like this. Edna just looked at him, gulped hard, didn’t know what to do. Her two bosses who held her life in their hands were hiding out in her office.

‘You can’t go in,’ she stuttered. ‘I locked it at lunchtime and I can’t find the key.’ She struggled saying it and we all knew, even Steve in his demented state knew, that it wasn’t true.

‘Why are you lying to me?’

‘I’m not, Steve,’ she said a little stronger. ‘You really can’t go in there.

‘But it’s my office,’ he shouted, moving closer to her. He shouted in her face and she blinked with each word. ‘It’s my office and you have to let me in. It will be the last thing you do before you pack up your things and leave!’ His demeanour was intimidating, there were six of us in there, two more in Edna’s office, and together we could have taken him down but he had us all captivated, frozen in our spots in fear of a man we thought we knew.

‘Steve, don’t go in there,’ Graham said.

Steve looked at him, confused. ‘Why, who’s in there?’

‘Just don’t, okay?’

‘Someone’s in there, aren’t they? Who is it?’

Graham shook his head.

‘Quentin, who is it?’

It was only then I’d noticed Quentin had risen from below the desk.

‘Tell them to come out,’ he said to Edna.

She was wringing her hands.

‘I can’t do that,’ she said, giving up, her confidence dying.

‘Quentin, open the door for me.’

Quentin looked at me; I didn’t know what to do.

‘Open the damn door,’ Steve screamed and Quentin scurried over. He opened the door slowly, didn’t look inside and immediately returned to his desk to be away from the action.

Steve moved a little closer to the office, peeked inside. Then he started laughing. But not happy laughter, it was demented, disturbing.

‘Get out,’ he said to the men inside.

‘Look, Mr …’ Michael O’Connor looked at Edna for help.

‘Roberts,’ she whispered, but not deliberately.

‘You don’t even know my name,’ Steve screeched and his face was bright red, his nose was covered in blood, the bloodstain on his shirt was spreading. ‘He doesn’t even know my name,’ he shouted to the rest of us. ‘Just yesterday you ruined my life and you don’t even know my bloody name,’ he yelled. ‘My name is Steve Roberts and I work here!’

‘We all need to calm down here, maybe open the door and tell everybody outside that we’re okay, then we can discuss what’s happened.’

‘Who’s he?’ Steve said, looking at Augusto.

‘This is … he doesn’t speak English, Mr Roberts.’

‘My name is Steve,’ he shouted. ‘Lucy,’ he screamed and my heart went from a mile a minute to stopping. ‘Get over here. You speak languages, ask him who he is.’

I didn’t move. Quentin looked at me with concern and I knew that he knew.

‘He’s Augusto Fernández from the German office and he’s here to visit us today,’ I said, my voice cracking along the way.

‘Augusto … I’ve heard of you. You’re the guy who fired me,’ Steve said, getting worked up again. ‘You’re the fucker who fired me. Well, I know what to do with you.’

Steve rushed towards him and it looked as though he was going to punch him.

Michael O’Connor grabbed Steve to pull him back but Steve was quick, he punched him in the stomach and Michael went flying back into Edna’s office and landed on the ground. I heard the bang as his head hit the desk. I don’t think Steve noticed. He had stopped inches before Augusto’s face. We waited for a head butt, a punch, something awful to happen to his perfect sun-snogged Spanish face but it didn’t happen.

‘Please give me back my job,’ Steve said in a gentle voice that broke my heart. Blood had rolled down to his mouth and it spattered as he spoke. ‘Please.’

‘He can’t do that, Mr Roberts,’ Michael said from inside, clearly in pain.

‘Yes, he can, give me back my job, Augusto. Lucy, tell him I want my job back.’

I swallowed. ‘Em …’ I tried to think of words, I tried to think of all I’d learned but the knowledge just wasn’t there.

‘Lucy!’ he roared and he reached into his pocket. I thought he was going for a handkerchief. It would be normal for him to reach for that, blood was pouring from his head, covered his nose and was on his hand from where he’d wiped his mouth. I waited for the handkerchief to come out of his pocket but instead I saw a gun. Everybody screamed and dived to the ground, apart from me because it was pointed at me and I had frozen.

‘Tell him to give me my job back.’ He moved closer to me, all I could see was a black thing pointing at me. It was shaking in Steve’s trembling hand. I could see his finger on the trigger and he was trembling so hard I was afraid it would go off any minute. My legs were shaking; I could feel my knees about to go. ‘If he gives me my job back, I will let him go safely. Tell him.’

I couldn’t answer him. He rushed at me again, the gun only inches away from my face. ‘Tell him!’ he screamed.

‘For fuck’s sake put the gun down,’ I heard Graham yell, terror in his voice.

Then the others started shouting and it was too much, it was too much for me to bear. I was afraid it would be too much for Steve to take too, all those voices, all those terrified voices confusing our thoughts.

My lips were trembling, my eyes filling. ‘Please, Steve, don’t do this. Please don’t do this.’

He toughened up, ‘Don’t cry, Lucy, just do what you’re paid to do and tell the man I want my job back.’

My lips trembled so much I could barely make out the words. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘I can’t, Steve.’

‘Just do it, Lucy,’ Graham said encouragingly. ‘Just say what he wants you to say.’

The banging on the door stopped and I felt lost. More lost than I’d ever been. I thought they’d left us. They’d left us on our own.

‘I can’t.’

‘Do it!’ Steve shouted. ‘Do it, Lucy!’ He waved the gun closer to my face.

‘Jesus, Steve, I can’t do it, okay? I can’t speak Spanish. Okay?’ I shouted back.

There was a silence, everyone looked at me in shock as if that revelation was more surprising than the brandished gun, then they remembered, and quickly returned their gaze to Steve.

Steve was looking at me as shocked as everybody else, then his eyes darkened again and the trembling in his hand stopped and his arm firmed up. ‘But they fired me.’

‘I know. I’m sorry, Steve. I’m really sorry.’

‘I didn’t deserve it.’

‘I know,’ I whispered.

In the middle of the thick silence, while Michael was slowly rolling onto his side to get to his feet and the others were cowering together, Quentin stood up. Steve whipped around with the gun to face him.

‘Jesus, Quentin, get down,’ Graham shouted.

But Quentin didn’t move. Instead he faced Mr Fernández, who was in a terrified state on the floor, and in a firm voice with what sounded like word-perfect Spanish he began to speak to him. Augusto rose to his feet and also remained cool and responded, his voice authoritative and believable even though none of us had a clue what he was saying. In the middle of this madness they carried out a conversation of complete calm. Suddenly there was the sound of a drill from outside. Movement, at last, and the door handle began to rattle. Steve looked at the door and it seemed that a little part of him gave up.

‘What did he say?’ he asked Quentin. His voice was quiet and we could barely hear him over the noise of the drill.

Quentin, full of twitches, recited Augusto’s response. ‘He said that he is very sorry about the error which led to you losing your job. He is sure there was a mistake in the system and as soon as he is able he will make a phone call to head office to have you reinstated. He is very sorry for the distress this has caused you and your family and he will very quickly make plans to have you back in the job as quickly as possible. It is obvious from your actions today that you are a fine dedicated worker that he and the company should be extremely proud of.’

Steve’s chin lifted higher with pride. He nodded then. ‘Thank you.’ Swapping the gun to his other hand, he moved towards Augusto and reached out with his free bloodied hand. They shook hands. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘It’s an honour to work for your company.’

Augusto nodded, warily and wearily both at the same time.

Then the door handle fell off, the door burst open, the desk was thrown across the room and three men dived on Steve.

As soon as I had the opportunity that day I made my call.

He answered.

‘Okay,’ I said, my voice still trembling from the shock. ‘I’ll meet you again.’