There is an awful lot of pressure to be a ‘woman’s woman’. Everyone’s talking about ‘women supporting women’, and ‘the power of female friendship’. It’s enough to make me stop reading the papers. Female relationships being written about like a bond men could never understand. How we are ‘stronger together’, how ‘magical things happen when women unite’. How girls run the world, according to Beyoncé. I don’t know if I’m particularly on board with any of that. I’m not sure I particularly like women, just because they are women.

My relationship with the fairer sex has always been extremely complex. For most of my life they have fought against me. It started with my mother, then the girls at school, picking on me in the changing rooms and making monkey sounds at the very sight of my flesh.

These women, my friends, are not cruel to me, despite me being quite unpleasant a lot of the time. After Liam said those awful things at our wedding I was so embarrassed that I barely saw them until Bonnie was born. They turned up unannounced at my house, like they were hosting some ridiculous intervention. Luckily, I was wearing my dressing gown. I allowed them in. They gathered around Bonnie like mad aunties. I didn’t admit it to them, but I enjoyed their visit. I told them I would resurface on the proviso we never talked about the wedding, that they never asked me any questions relating to what happened, and that they never showed up at my house unannounced again. They agreed to all of the above. Each stating again how much I had helped them at various times, and how they all owe me their support.

Maybe they are right, because as well as helping Jess to escape rape, I once punched one of Sarah’s ex-boyfriends in the face because I saw him kissing another girl outside the college library. I went home and told her right away. She cried and accused me of lying, then went to his house where he opened the door with a black eye and a half-naked girl standing behind him. Sarah apologised to me and said that I could rely on her friendship forever. She’s kept this promise.

I am wearing a black velvet version of the usual dress this evening with extensive costume jewellery and a fantastic Saint Laurent shoulder bag. When I am this hairy I go full throttle on my accessories. They’re the ultimate distraction. I was supposed to be freshly waxed for this dinner. I wanted to cancel, but they always give me hell if I try to do that.

‘Ruby, you look so skinny,’ says Yvonne, as I walk into the tapas bar in Soho. My instinct is to snap at her. What a hideous way to greet a woman. ‘So skinny’ is a loaded ‘hello’. ‘So skinny’ is not a compliment. It’s oozing with, ‘What is the matter? Are you depressed? Do you eat? Are you ill?’