“Smart man.”
I absolutely should not enjoy that as much as I do.
The first half of the shift stays quiet.
Not easy.
Quiet is not the same as easy, which is one of the things I am beginning to understand. Quiet after a night like last night is its own strange thing. A held breath. A room waiting to see whether the world is going to ask for more.
But no alarm comes.
So the board games come out.
Herd Mentality takes over the main table first. Kev, Mish, Rob, Sal and Pippa sit around it with the sort of grim competitive focus usually reserved for televised trials and family Christmases. I do not know the rules at the start, but apparently the aim is to think like everyone else, which makes it a fascinating failure for several people in the room.
“Name something you’d find in a shed,” Mish reads.
“Lawnmower,” Dan says from the next table without looking up from his cards.
“You’re not playing,” Kev says.
“I’m contributing culturally.”
Everyone writes.
Cards are turned.
Lawnmower. Tools. Paint. Tools. Lawnmower. One horrifying answer from Kev that makes Pippa stare at him for a full five seconds.
“What?” he says.
“A kayak?”
“I have a large shed.”
“That is not a defence,” Mish says.
At the smaller table, Dan, Lewis and two others play cards with a seriousness that suggests money may once have been involved and friendships may have suffered. Scrabble is opened, inspected and abandoned when Sal says she is too tired for vowels with consequences.
Cluedo lasts twenty minutes before Rob accuses everyone of withholding evidence.
“It’s the game,” I say.
“It’s suspicious.”
“You’re supposed to be suspicious.”
“I don’t like the structure.”
“This from a man who works in emergency services.”
“Exactly. We share information.”
Pippa is laughing.
Not much.
Not loudly.
