20
Later, Jay and I lay slumped in opposing chairs in the first-floor common room. We had adopted identical postures of exhausted inactivity, flopped like a pair of stringless marionettes.
On the table before us stood an emptied chocolate pot.
We had not spoken for a while. Neither of us had the energy, I think, or perhaps our minds were too busy with their own thoughts. It had been an unusual week, after all.
But it occurred to me that Jay wore an expression of particular, and deepening, despair, and I felt moved to enquire.
‘My first assignment,’ he said, as though that explained everything.
When nothing more was forthcoming, I cautiously prompted: ‘And?’
‘Going to get fired.’
‘For what?’
‘Disobeying a direct order.’
I scoffed.
‘What?’ he said. ‘You heard Milady.’
‘Yep.’
He
