The queue in the Post Office is, as always at this time on a Thursday, being pension day, winding its way right round the shop and out the door into the pissy morning.

Rhodri's not having a good day. First of all, the rain has been getting into the TV aerial cable for weeks now, and this morning the picture on GMTV was so fuzzy he couldn't make out if it was Ben Shepherd or Fiona Philips that was interviewing some F-list celebrity about their pioneering charity work for "the kiddies" whose parents can't afford proper foot spas or something: it was hard to make out. So he switched the TV off, which meant that he missed the travel report that would have told him not to use the Eccles by-pass because a truck had overturned and spilled its load of traffic cones all over the road. Which made him seventeen minutes late for work. Again.

Then when he finally got here, he discovered that Kelly had rung in sick and they'd got Carlito in to cover for her. Rhodri has a bit of a "thing" for Kelly; he does not have a bit of a thing for Carlito. Carlito's gay, and, although Rhodri has nothing against the gays, Carlito's just a bit... stupid.

"What's wrong with Kelly?" he asks Carlito once he's settled into his chair at the Post Office counter.

"She's sick," says Carlito.

"I know. But with what?"

"What do you mean, 'with what'? Isn't it enough that she's sick, without you wanting her to have something else wrong with her?"

Rhodri sighs. Conversations with Carlito all too often go this way. He presses the button that makes the man's voice say "Cashier number two, please". He likes that voice, it sounds kind of warm and a little bit sexy, in a non-threatening way. But it's not the man's voice, it's the woman's.

Carlito smirks. "You sound butch today," he says.

Rhodri tries to change it back to the man's voice, but it's stuck. "Who's been messing with this?" he says.

"Bronwyn was there before," says Carlito.

"What was Bronwyn doing here? She's not qualified," says Rhodri, trying the button again.

"Cashier number two, please," says the woman's voice again, prompting an old baggage from the queue to come and jostle for position at the window with the other old baggage that was already there, waiting to get served.

"One at a time, please," says Rhodri, sniffing his fingers. He recoils. Beef 'n' onion. A sure sign that Bronwyn's been there, like she's sprayed her territory, is if his keyboard, and consequently his fingers, smell of beef 'n' onion.

"I just want this envelope," says the first old woman. "It's like Sodom and Gomorrah in here."

"Forty-nine pence," says Rhodri, and he sighs again when the woman produces a bag of pennies from out of her coat.

She counts them out one by one, placing each one carefully on the counter.

"...Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine," says Rhodri. "Thank you, love. Now if you could just move away from the counter," adding, "and die," under his breath.

The next old woman peers at him through inch-thick glasses. "You were prettier last week," she says. "Can you tie my shoe up for me?"

"What?" says Rhodri.

"It's come undone in the queue. I can't bend down. It's a Health and Safety issue."

Carlito smiles. "It's a Health and Safety issue," he says.

The woman peers in Carlito's direction. "She understands," she says. "And she's prettier than you. Will you do it for me, love?" The woman moves away from Rhodri's window and onto Carlito's.

"It would be my pleasure," says Carlito, through gritted teeth. As he passes Rhodri on the way to the security door, he whispers, "And don't be checking me out while I'm bent over. I know what you're like."

Rhodri rises above Carlito's mucky humour. Carlito disappears through the security door and appears on the other side of the partition.

"I'm going to have to go down on you, love," he says, dipping out of sight below the counter. "Don't take it as a proposal of marriage."

Rhodri sighs resignedly and presses the "Cashier number two, please" button again. A tall woman with a twitchy eye comes to the counter.

"I'd like to cash this cheque, please," she says.

Rhodri looks at her. "This is a Post Office," he says. He glances at the cheque: it's made out to "Cash" and it's for four million pounds.

"I know that," says the woman. "Do you think I don't know that? Do you know who I am?"

Rhodri scans her face.

"No," he says, "No, I don't."

"I'm Moira Stuart," says the woman. "Off the television."

"The Hogmanay thing?" says Rhodri, confused.

"That's Moira Anderson. I'm Moira Stuart. Off the news," says the woman.

"Reading it, or making it?" mutters Rhodri, as he pictures this woman caught on CCTV setting fire to an orphanage.

"What was that?" says Moira.

"Nothing."

"You must recognise me." Moira puts her head at a professional angle and shuffles her cheque as though it were her papers at the end of the news.

"Oh..." says Rhodri. "That Moira Stuart. It's just... on the television you look a lot more... black."

Moira looks at him nervously. "Yes, well," she says. "The television adds ten pounds. Everybody knows that."

Rhodri stares at her blankly.

"Anyway..." he says. "I'm sorry, I can't help you. But good luck with all the news."

Moira's eye twitches violently.

"Just give me the money!" she says.

"What money?" says Rhodri, feeling under the desk for the silent alarm switch.

"The money out of the till!" says Moira.

Rhodri presses the button under the desk. It's a blob of chewing gum. He takes his hand out from under there and sniffs his fingers again. Juicy Fruit as well. He gags.

"Look, Ms Stuart," he says, calmly getting up out of his seat. "I know you got the sack from the news and all, and it must be difficult. I don't know how transferable those... reading the news skills are. But this isn't the answer."

"Just give me the mother-fucking money, asshole!" yells Moira. She rams her hand into her coat pocket and points it at him.

"You're not really Moira Stuart, are you?" says Rhodri.

Somebody from the queue of death gasps, "She's got a gun! Get down!" and for the next five to ten minutes Rhodri and Moira freeze in half a Mexican stand-off as fifty-odd pensioners creak and groan and slowly and painfully lower themselves onto the carpet.

"Is it a banana?" says Rhodri.

"What?" says Moira, looking round nervously.

"In your pocket," says Rhodri. "It's not a gun, is it? Is it a banana?"

"No!" says Moira, defensively. "Look. I'll blow your mother-fucking brains right out of your knowledge box, you fucking cu-" she says, before suddenly disappearing out of sight under the counter with a loud crash.

A weak cheer goes up from the pensioners, who all start to try and get up off the floor again.

Rhodri peers over the edge of the counter. Carlito has his arms tight round Moira's ankles. She's squirming, but he's tenacious.

"I'll get her gun," says Rhodri, coming round through the security door.

He puts his knee in the small of Moira's back as she curses and flails like a navvy in a swamp. Rummaging in her pocket for the gun, Rhodri produces a satsuma.

"A satsuma?!" he says. "You were holding up a Post Office with a satsuma?!"

"Yes, well," says Moira, her mouth full of carpet. "The bananas looked a bit off. A bit over-ripe, you know."

"You couldn't get a courgette?" says Rhodri. "A half cucumber? For God's sake, woman, not even a parsnip?!"

"I was in a hurry," says Moira. "And supermarkets make me nervous."

"Are you on drugs?" says Carlito, trying hard not to look up Moira's skirt from his position by her ankles.

"Some," says Moira. "But not all of them. You won't tell my boss, will you?"

"You've got a boss?" says Rhodri.

"Who is it?" says Carlito.

Moira thinks for a long time. "...Reginald Bosanquet...?" she says, tentatively.

"No, we won't be telling Reginald Bosanquet anything," says Rhodri.

The old baggage whose shoelace had come undone has managed to lever herself up against the counter; she shuffles over and stands peering at the scene. Then she gives Moira a kick in the ribs Roy Keane would have been proud of.

"Bitch!" she says.

"Ow!" says Moira. "What was that for!? I didn't take your precious pension, did I?!"

"That, lady," says the old woman, "is for presenting The Best of Jazz on Radio Two. I fucking hate jazz. And if I ever meet Humphrey Fucking Lyttelton, he'll get worse. So think on."

Rhodri, Moira and Carlito stare as the woman adjusts her woolly hat and makes her way through the sea of pensioners writhing around on the floor like beetles stuck on their backs.

"Ay, Rhodri," says Carlito. Rhodri looks at him. Carlito mouthes, "Moira Stuart's not wearing any knickers."