VANE:
But you won’t play that to anyone, will—
[Door slams.]
Thirty seconds later, Elle rejoins us at the table.
‘That was amazing,’ says Em. ‘Where did you get that from?’
‘I just pretended I was you,’ says Elle.
‘Oh,babe.’
‘Can we focus?’ Jonny gestures at his headphones.
We all re-insert our earbuds and start paying attention to the conversation upstairs.
VANE:
… thing is, if you apologise to people like that, they just go one step further and start asking you to resign. They’re absolutely unbearable. She’s probably never voted in her life. Just as well.
HAWTHORNE:
At least you handled it with dignity.
VANE:
People like that are the reason you can’t say anything to anyone any more. Fucking prudes. Like all Becky’s friends. Listen to this. She had some of her uni chums round last night, right? And all I say,allI say to them is—
WESTCOTT:
Can we start our actual business here?[Assorted grumblings coalescing around ‘yeah, all right’.]Right. Thank you. As you know, we have to have the meeting of the Balham Brats today. We’ll get to signing the official paperwork later. But we have something much more important to do first, something the five of us – now four – have been working on for six months now.
