He couldn’t see how it made any difference to Tesco’s grand plans if he gave his presentation on Friday instead of tomorrow. But his manager insisted. It was irritating to be subject to someone else’s arbitrariness. It was just a culture of performative zeal. McKinseyites were supposed to be the shock troops of capitalism, sacrificing themselves to smash through problems. James was supposed to be eagerly hurling himself into the fray. But he couldn’t quite get himself geed up.

“Business is the biggest thing no one talks about. People don’t even want to call it business. They want to call it economics because it sounds more abstract. Britain still has this very old-fashioned snobbish disdain for what used to be called trade. “But where do they think aeroplanes come from? Or penicillin? Or the internet? This stuff doesn’t just appear. And unless you live in the countryside, it’s businesses that create the material reality we live in. The shoes you’re wearing. This table. This salt shaker. The salt in the shaker.” He picked it up and waggled it for emphasis. “Business and technology create the facts of our lives; culture is just the commentary on how people feel about it. Business is the last taboo.”

James was twenty-seven and never had a boss again. Until that moment, he and Roland had lived as employees, as if in the warm, dark, cosy-fetid hold of a ship. What happened up at the helm was not their concern. Their preoccupations were how to get a better position, and the whims and characters of their superiors and colleagues. Even James had never cared about what was best for McKinsey. Now, however, they were up and exposed. The wind blew away the comfy indoor reek; the horizon was a wide blue empty circle around them, as if the ship were the fluttering needle on a gigantic compass. And they had to choose the direction.

“Mmmm Alice, I want you to arouse my interest in index investing. I want to dock my turbine in your industrial port.” Roland was amusing himself. “Text me a schematic of your erogenous zones.”

But he could see Roland was still thinking about muslins. He gave up and said, “Did you see about McKinsey?” Roland was glancing at Alice. “Um, no. I don’t think so?” “They’ve been caught consulting on how to maximise opioid sales in the US. How to push higher doses and make doctors prescribe more.”