Hannah has only smoked a joint once before. It was at the Ritz with Cate last summer, and it made her feel dizzy and ill. She is self-conscious as she makes her way over to the window. She takes the joint from Lissa—a short exploratory drag. Lissa watches, amused, from the corner of her eye, then takes up the pad and pen.

“Spit,” says Hannah, taking a longer drag this time. “Speaking of which, I might have made this a bit wet.”

“It’s fine,” says Lissa, “keep going.”

“Phlegm,” says Hannah.

“OK. Don’t say phlegm again.”

“Phlegm.”

They both snort.

“Dandruff?”

“Dandruff will work.” Lissa stops scribbling and comes back to the window. They are close to each other. She catches Hannah’s smell of incense and shampoo.

“What about babies?” says Lissa, taking back the joint.

“What about them?”

“Well, aren’t they a form of abject in themselves?”

“Maybe.” Hannah scrunches her nose. “Or at least what’s around them. What’s it called? Some sort of fluid. Amniotic.”

“Yeah. That’s it. We should form a band,” says Lissa, giggling. “The Amniotics. No—wait—The Abjections.”

They are really laughing now.

“Oh god. We should. The Abjections. I love it.”

THEY PRINT OUT band T-shirts: black with hot pink writing across the chest. The hot pink is allowed, they decide, as it is ironic. They name their abjections, giving examples of each from their own life. They discuss whether a man’s sperm leaving your body—leaving its trace on your knickers after sex—can be seen as an abjection in itself. (Having not yet had sex, Hannah lets Lissa do the talking here.) They declare there are many different types of vaginal discharge: the one that leaves a white crust, the one that leaves a yellow crust, the one that floods you when you’re turned on. They discuss whether discharge—with its pejorative connotations—is itself a patriarchal term. They decide that there are as many different types of vaginal abject as Inuits have words for snow.

They watch with satisfaction as the boys cringe. They feel a new power. They become electric. They become friends.

Hannah

SHE WAITS IN THE QUEUE FOR THE FISHMONGER, HOVERING over the threshold, the sun strong in the window, the shouts and calls of the market behind her. It has been a warm day; the ice is melting and the remains of the day’s catch are blood-and scale-streaked. Two young men in waders pass between the front and a chopping block at the back, where the fish are gutted and bagged.