‘And suing,’ June said. She was nodding her head now, agreeing with herself because maybe no one else was.

‘Oh.’ Greta left it there. She looked at Peggy, neither of them fully understood.

Niall tried to break the uncomfortable silence. ‘You gotta watch those EFTPOS machines.’ A few people laughed, more in relief than anything else.

‘Kill you,’ June said and looked down like she was finished.

Duncan cut one of the sausages on the barbecue and spread it apart to see if it was cooked. He started putting some of the sausages on a plate he’d balanced on the wooden trolley the gas barbecue sat in. When eight or so of them were on the plate he lifted them up and Niall went over to get the plate off him.

‘Do you want one?’ Niall asked Duncan.

‘Not just yet, thanks,’ Duncan said, and he took another sip from his beer bottle.

Niall carried the plate of sausages over to the trestle table. People picked up slices of bread and buttered them in their hands.

‘There’s some onions.’ Duncan started picking up the sliced onions off the barbecue with tongs and putting them on another plate. Donna leaned over and got the plate of onions and put it on the table.

‘Do you want one?’ she asked.

‘Not just yet,’ Duncan said. Then, ‘Oh. Go on then.’

Donna buttered him a piece of bread. ‘Onions?’ she asked over her shoulder.

‘Yeah. Thanks,’ Duncan said.

Everyone else was talking, so no one really took much notice except Greta and Peggy. They were in a conversation that only required nodding, so they watched Donna butter the bread and take it to Duncan. When Duncan had it, she went back for the sauce container. This is how people helped each other out, Peggy and Greta thought, these small dances of politeness and care. They talked about it sometimes. How it must be lonely, and how people weren’t meant to be alone – like, just one of them – and even though everyone thought they were weird, it was being by yourself that didn’t entirely make sense. Like the whole of society was trying to correct that one fault.

‘That’s why people get married,’ Greta had said one Saturday when they were lying in bed talking about it.

Peggy nodded her head. ‘And the sex.’

Greta agreed but also said, ‘But not just for the sex. You can get sex anywhere.’

Peggy had to agree that maybe the sex was secondary. Maybe the care was the primary reason. Humans were born with spares – two arms, two lungs, four chambers in the heart. They had to manufacture the rest. Everyone needed to care for someone, and everyone needed to be cared for by someone.

‘Babies,’ Peggy said.

Greta nodded.