The Vacation Student programme rolls on; a succession of new chinless wonders and It Girls parades through our offices on a weekly basis; all with “connections” and each more irritating than the next.

“Is there a cloning machine somewhere in Surrey?” Jane asks.  “I’ve never met so many boring, useless, homogenous sloans.”

Jane has never been one to mince her words.  But, for once, we all agree.

“I never thought I’d say it but I find myself pining for the Hamish Days,” says Liz.

This admission alone proves the seriousness of the situation.  One girl – Tamara – is so vacuous that she makes Melinda look like Mastermind.

“So, like, what’s this for?” she points to a stapler.

“Stapling paper,” Danielle informs her.

“Oh,” she nods, “Can it staple other things too?”

“Certainly,” she smiles,

“Like what?”

“It works well on fingernails,” Danielle’s eyes sparkle with mischief.

“Does it?”

“Absolutely; you wanna try?”

“Yeah!!”

Danielle grabs the stapler and advances like an assassin. Malcolm appears just in time to save Tamara from almost certain impalement.

“I have a Court hearing this afternoon, Tamara; if you would like to accompany me?”

“Like in Boston Law?”

“Sorry?”

“A hearing, like in Boston Law, on TV? With lots of glamorous clothes and clever arguments.”

She has, clearly, never seen the English Court system in action

“Well, not quite.” Not at all. “It’s what is known as a ‘directions hearing’, not very exciting, really, although the background case is quite interesting.”

“Does it involve any crime?”

“Er, no, it’s a landlord and tenant dispute.  We don’t really do criminal law.”

Although we do act for quite a number of corporate villains – her father included.

“Oh,” her face falls. “I thought there might be a little bit of it; some fraud and stuff at least, i want to be a criminal psychologist when I graduate.”

“I see,” he considers this, “So, why are you spending the summer in a law firm?” And depriving genuine law students of the chance to do the same.

“Cos my father said I should.”

Even Malcolm seems irritated by this.  He can’t understand this mentality: all he ever wanted to do with his life was be a lawyer (although, frankly, he would be better suited to Undertaking).

He shuffles off with Tamara leaving Jane to voice what we all feel.

“I don’t know where we’re going to get decent trainees from this year,” she huffs, “Certainly not from this pool of invertebrates.”

But, of course, it is!  After lunches at The Oxo Tower, Breakfasts at Tower 42 and suppers at Coq d’Argent, they are all desperate to join us.  Who can blame them? They think Litigation is one long party.

And when The Boss orders us to escort them to Peacock Chambers summer drinks they think they’ve died and gone to heaven.

“A Champagne reception in Kensington Roof Gardens?!” gasps Tamara. “Wow that’s amazing. You get to go so such fantastic places!”

“We get invited to one party a year,” Jane puts her straight. “And only because The Boss is friends with the Head of Chambers.”

“Wow! Really? Does that mean we get to go in the VIP tent?!”

“There is no VIP tent.”

“Oh,” her face falls. “That’s a shame; VIP tents are wicked: you get really cool cocktails and goody bags and stuff.  Still, I’m sure it will be amazing. I haven’t been to KFG”, ‘KFG’!, “since my best friend’s 18^th; she got really drunk and tried to kidnap one of the peacocks.”

Jane’s eyes narrow. “I think you will find this a more sedate affair.”

But I’m not so sure.  Not judging by previous years: which have usually ended with fights, propositions and scandal.  But we don’t tell Tamara that, it would only add to her excitement.

By the time we roll up for the party she is beside herself anyway.  “This is sooooooooo coooooool!” she claps her hands.

Roger Fortesque Smythe greets us; looking unusually flushed (the air of the un-dead he usually carries being, surprisingly, absent). “Welcome Team Alistair!”

“Welcome RFS!” Alistair claps him on the back like a long lost brother. “Another fabulous soiree I see.”

“Oh, you know how it is,” he smirks.  “We could have never predicted that it would become the social event of the summer season.”

Hardly. Flocks of black-suited lawyers are crowded into the garden, masking any sign of floral beauty.

“I don’t know why they waste their money on expensive venues,” Liz surveys the crowd. “All lawyers want is free booze and the chance to out-boast their competitors. They don’t need a fancy garden to do that.”

“But then that would deprive Peacock Chambers of the chance to show off how much money they make.”

Too bloody much, judging by the lavish trays of canapés being passed around.  We corner one of the waitresses and consume half our body weight in smoked salmon blinis.

Tamara is, already, on her second glass of pink Champagne. “I love this stuff!” she tells us. “I can’t believe it’s on tap!!”

“Pouring alcohol down their throats is the only way to get lawyers to communicate civilly,” I explain.

“No!?” she giggles. “I don’t believe that.  All the lawyers I have met have been really nice to me.”

“Don’t be fooled,” Jane sniffs. “They are not nice to each other.”

This is proven a little while later when two partners from “magic circle” firms end up in a tussle over the last mini quiche.

“Wowee! That fight was great!” (We have, now, lost count of how many glasses Tamara has imbibed). “Like something from Mad Men! I thought they were going to punch each other. I can’t wait to tell everyone at Uni about this.  And I’m definitely going to take my Dad’s advice and go to Law School.”

“I think you may have a false impression of the law,” Liz cautions. “Being an Assistant is really hard and not very rewarding work. We all want to escape.”

“BUT WHY?!” she shrieks. “You have AMAZING careers! You get to go to wear great suits, go to fancy meetings and come to places like this.”

“Only the partners get to behave like that and it takes at least ten years to become one of them.”

“Ten years?” Her face falls for a moment but then The Boss appears and instantly undoes all our good work.

“Enjoying things?” he asks her.

“Amazing!” she grins.

“Well,” he tells her, “If you decide to come and work for us, this is just one of the many perks you will enjoy; Assistants at CWS work hard but they play hard too.”

No we don’t:  we get home late, eat cereal for supper and fall into bed in a state of exhaustion.  But it’s no use; she’s too stocked on Champagne, canapés and flattery to listen.  With a vacant grin, she allows The Boss to take her on a tour of the great and the good.

But by half past nine it’s a different story.

“Helen!” Liz is calling me from across the throng. “Come here!”

I push my way through the sea of black. “What’s wrong?”

She gestures to a corner of the garden.  The Boss is nowhere to be seen but Tamara is standing on a bench doing some sort of exotic dance; waving her arms above her head and wiggling her bottom; much to the amusement of the assembled crowd.  Jane says we should leave her to it, but Liz and I decide to intervene. We move in with a pincer movement to try to bundle her away.

“No way!” she shouts at us.  “I’m having a great time!”

“You are showing everyone your knickers,” Liz points out.

“So what!  I haven’t had this much fun in ages!”

“Neither have we!” calls one of the crowd.

“Are you an adult entertainer?!” says another.

“No, she is not!” Liz says indignantly. “She is a Vacation Student; she’s just had too much to drink.”

“No I have not!” she shrieks, sways to the left, then the right; and collapses into a flower bed. “Oooooh!”

She gets a round of applause from the crowd. Typical.

We try to get her to the Ladies, but she pulls away in the throng and gives us the slip.  After a frantic search, we find her snogging Ben de Vellington.

“What a gruesome sight!”

“We have to break it up,” Liz agrees. ”She’s not in a fit state to fight him off and her father would never forgive us if she ended up with a baby de Vellington.”

“You’re right.”

Using the same technique as before, we move in on either side; then, I distract him as Liz yanks her away from his clutches.

“Hey!” she protests.  But, before she can fight back, panic flashes across her face; she lurches forward and pukes an enormous torrent of pink vomit into the fountain.

Even de Vellington has the sense to back off as we pick her up and sponge her down with an apologetic look at the waiting staff.  As they try to clean up the fountain we escort her out; weeping and wailing her way towards the exit; leaving a trail of expensive, Champagne-flavoured sick behind.

Alex takes bets on whether she will make it in the next morning but she does: looking pained, wearing shades and nursing a triple espresso. She slumps into a chair in the corner of my office and sits there, saying nothing.  Thanks to Jane, everyone knows what happened.  Malcolm and Clive are not at all impressed but, as usual, The Boss finds a way to play it to his advantage.

“Good morning Tamara,” he beams.

“Morning,” she mutters.

“I gather you made quite a night of it, after I left? That’s funny, because I was just saying to your father –“

“You haven’t told him have you?!”  She gasps.

“No,” he frowns. “Why would you rather we kept this to ourselves?”

“Yeah!  He would bloody kill me!”

I can see the cogs in his calculating brain whirl into place. “Well,” he smirks, “I suppose there is no need for him to find out; not if you don’t want him to….”

“I don’t! Please don’t tell him!”

“I can’t see any need for him to know; not if you put in a good word for us here; tell him what a fabulous time you’ve had; what a great team of lawyers we are and how he should agree to give us first call on all litigation work he might have?”

So that’s it.  He’s blackmailing her!

“Yeah, sure! Of course!” she nods, grateful for any reprieve. “I shall certainly get him to do that.”

“Marvellous,” he smiles. “Isn’t it nice how we have all been able to help each other like that. There must be a word for it.”

Nepotism, it’s called.

“Collaboration!” he laughs. “That’s it.”

“Like in the War?” she frowns.

Yes, exactly like that.

“Oh, no, not at all,” he waves his hand. “Think of it as mutual support.”

“Mutual support,” she smiles. “I like that.”

“That’s the way The City works.”

Which is why Jane, Liz, and I might as well retire.