I give up. My thoughts are muddled enough trying to deal with the present.

“Bugger romance,” Sue says. “There’s two hundred quid on it. I can get my hair done and still have spare change for a dress.”

“You should have told me. My sex life can always adapt to your need to get your roots sorted,” I say sourly as I troop up the stairs. They follow, whispering together. “I am still here,” I say. They roll their eyes and walk through to the staff room to drop their coats off.

I zip into the men’s bathroom while they’re putting the coffee on for Susan and talking, and pull out my spare toiletries bag from my locker. My wash is perfunctory, but at least I manage to wipe off the remainder of the dried come on my stomach that I missed in this morning’s rush. I look at myself in the mirror for a long minute before sighing and shaking my head at my reflection. I straighten my tie before heading back to my office.

The room is dark with no windows, and it’s crammed with comfortable clutter—piles of books, boxes of leaflets, and a book stand that takes a layer of skin off my ankles every day. But my favourite scent of books and paper is soothing, and the sofa is insanely comfortable. It’s a necessary sanctuary today.

Bethany wanders in with the till drawer as I retrieve the cash bags from the safe. “Sue is setting the counter up,” she says, looking in the big desk diary. “For programmes, we’ve got the MP’s surgery today. He can commune with members of the public and fail to answer any of the questions they ask him.”

“Goodness, I hope he hasn’t forgotten to get a drink before he gets here. Knowing how you feel about making tea, he’s got a long dry morning in front of him.”

“Charlie, my feelings are as negative about making that twat’s tea as they are about him presuming that a woman has nothing to do apart from wait on his fat arse,” she says. “He’s an arrogant wanker. Ordering me to fetch him a drink like I was a waitress.”

“I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again,” I murmur, moving a pile of books and spilling the till money out onto the table. “Not when you asked him if he’d prefer you to grind the beans on your inner thighs before you had to leave on a quest to find more women whose equal rights he could grind to dust under his shoes.”

She laughs. “I still can’t believe he never reported me.”

“Too busy cowering in the toilets.”