They lay there for a few minutes after, warmed in a ray of sun from the skylight, tangled up in each other. She could smell woodsmoke on his skin, and earth, something dark and real.

‘This is well nice,’ she said.

‘I agree,’ he said, kissing the top of her head.

‘We should get back, though.’

‘You’re a perfect worker bee, you.’

‘Yeah well, maybe I am. Come and help me stop this, yeah.’

In the living space, it was still going on. Fran was on her knees, huffily scrubbing the floor with a rag, while Gaz and Spider tried to occupy the maximum amount of space with their bodies, Xanthe shouting into each of their faces in turn. Sammi pushed Mark, in the small of his back, and he grinned at her. There was something cruel about his smile, sometimes.

He walked into the centre of the room with his limbs long and loose, movements easy, arms out, flat palms at angry face-height.

‘Now look here. We need to resolve this.’

The reason she’d wanted him to sort this out was because, when he spoke, people listened. She’d known schoolteachers to have that effect; never one of her peers. The stern confidence of him, like it had been bred in somewhere along the way. They all responded to it; the room stilled, settled itself quietly around that lean, golden centrepoint.

Mark shook his hair out of his eyes and reached out to each of them in turn. He looked like Jesus, Sammi realized, one of those blond master-race Jesuses from the Sunday School books.

‘Spider, mate,’ he said, his accent blunting. ‘Let’s look at this rationally, eh? We’re not just trying to recreate the old systems here – we all came to this place because we’re committed to making a new way of living, yeah? And we’re not going to do that if we fall into these easy traps where the women end up doing all the housework.’

He was careful not to use any of Xanthe’s buzzwords, Sammi noted. No ‘patriarchy’. Clever. He was clever, that man-not-hers. Every word measured out and perfectly placed.

‘And, Xanth, it’s important to be mindful that men like Spider bear the scars of their upbringing. Spider wants to overcome his conditioning, don’t you, mate? But he needs our support as he goes through that process. I’m not asking you to do his dishes for him; I’m asking you to understand why he leaves them out.’

Had anyone else said this, Xanthe would have ripped them apart. Dizzied by the full beam of Mark’s enthusiasm, though, she looked almost pacified.