‘A truce,’ Amber chorused, closing her laptop and taking her older sister’s hand warmly in her own.

‘Great. Then can you please pay some lip service to my problems? I’m on fire here!’

‘Okay, calm down. Just take some deep breaths,’ Emerald advised, trying to suppress her laughter.

‘I need a doctor, not a Lamaze class – despite these childbearing lips.’

Emerald’s laugh exploded, like a sneeze. As Emerald fanned my fanny with a magazine, Amber got on the cabin phone and, struggling to talk without tittering, made a medical appointment on my behalf.

‘How was your night?’ I asked Emerald, to take my mind off my discomfort.

She grinned up at me. ‘I think my cub gave positive reports . . . if I understand “lol” and “grt” correctly.’

I snatched the magazine out of her hand and hit her over the head with it, then very gingerly dragged on the baggiest sweatpants I could find. Swathed in Emerald’s voluminous trackie daks, I waddled off to see the ship’s doctor, my siblings’ laughter ringing in my ears all along the passageway. En route I chided myself for following Emerald over to the dark side. I wondered if the captain could make an announcement – ‘We apologise for this temporary loss of service. Normal middle-aged mum activity will resume at the end of this routine midlife crisis.’

Our boat was due to dock at New Caledonia the very next day. With a sprained groin and swollen labia, how the hell was I going to get around the island? On my personal vulva-powered hovercraft, obviously. Wincing and mincing my way into the elevator, I promised my nether regions that I’d learnt my lesson. I was officially off men as a genre. Husbands were bad enough, but lovers were insufferable. In fact, celibacy had never looked so attractive.

With each painful step along the corridor, I contemplated exactly what men had ever done for me. Now that women are economically independent and can impregnate ourselves, if vibrators could change car tyres and clean gutters, would we need blokes at all? I wondered. Harry always argued that men are better at some things – parallel parking, insect-wrangling, jar-opening, elk-stalking and map reading, for example – but if a bloke can determine the exact kilometre-per-litre ratio of a five-hour trip through the Tasmanian wilderness, where he then effortlessly locates a remote fishing haven that’s not even on a map, then why can’t he find a G spot?

I pussyfooted down the hall on E deck and into the doctor’s waiting room, which resembled an upmarket day spa. A distinct lavender aroma hung in the air. Crossing to the reception desk, I ruminated that if more evidence was required of male inferiority we could just examine what excites the average male – food, footy and lingerie models. The trouble is, I’d clearly got all excited about nothing . . . and then married him.