At the end of the meeting, the dishes didn’t take very long. Two of them washed, two of them dried and Kadie checked the room was cleaned up and locked up. Then they all stood at the front door and Kadie turned the lights off and pulled the door so that it locked and then they tried it a couple of times each to check it was locked and it was time to go home.

By the time they got home it was quite late. Kadie didn’t want to come in for a cup of tea, so when they got inside they put the food away. Some of the cupboards hadn’t been used before and were dusty. They hadn’t bought a dishcloth so Greta used a tea towel and water. There was hardly any dishwashing liquid left. They hadn’t thought to put it on the list and now they had no more money. But it would be okay. Heidi and Dell said there was dishwashing liquid in the kitchen at work and they could borrow some from there.

‘We didn’t use the taxi chit,’ Heidi pointed out. Which was true.

Around eleven, everything was in the wiped-down cupboards and they were sitting in the lounge each with a cup of instant coffee.

‘It seems weird,’ Greta said. ‘There are some things you shouldn’t have to buy.’

The others nodded.

‘Like coffee,’ Dell said. They nodded again. ‘Like, everyone needs coffee. They give away instant coffee at hotels.’ They all nodded, but Greta and Peggy had only been to hotels when they were on a job and they didn’t really notice the coffee. But it did seem unfair. No one got paid much and you had to pay for everything – it seemed hard out. But all of them felt pretty happy about how tonight had gone.

‘We should do this again.’ Heidi looked into her coffee, but she knew everyone would be nodding.

‘Where does Kadie live?’ Greta asked. It had just hit her that maybe she had gone a long way out of her way to drop them home. ‘Should we have given her some petrol money?’

Dell shook her head. ‘Nah. She’s literally down the road.’

‘It’s totally on her way,’ Heidi said.

‘Have you been to their place?’ Peggy asked.

Dell and Heidi nodded.

‘Oh.’ Sometimes Peggy and Greta had no idea about Dell and Heidi’s life. They’d been to the shop in the mall twice. Once to drop something off, and once because they’d decided to go to the mall.