“Because that’s what mums do?” Beth raised an eyebrow. Why could everyone do that one-eyebrow thing but me?

The ghost of a thousand other dinner conversations lingered. Dad saying something stupid he didn’t really believe and Mum snapping back and setting him right. A specter of Mum could be sitting where Beth was sitting right now.

“It’s a joke,” Dad said.

“Jokes can be sexist too,” she said, simply like Dad’s comment was too stupid to be worth any more of a response. Which it was.

Dad waved his napkin in surrender.

“OK, OK. I only said it was nice. I didn’t say it was mandatory. I can see I’m outnumbered here. Don’t burn me at the stake, all right?”

“That’s sexist too,” Beth said lightly, like she was pointing out he had spinach in his teeth. “Implying you’re at some kind of physical risk because women are disagreeing with you, not to mention invoking a type of capital punishment historically used against women who didn’t conform to patriarchal standards.”

Ruby mouthed at me, She’s great.

A thought occurred to me, unwanted, but I knew it was true: in a parallel universe, Mum and Beth would be best friends. It felt like something was stuck in my throat.

“You’re right, I’m an arse,” Dad said, though I caught the glint in his eye that told me he enjoyed all of this. “I shall go prepare a peace offering. It comes with ice cream.” He kissed Beth on the forehead before he left and winked at me. She shook her head at his back.

“Men!” she said, exasperated. “It’s all a joke because there are no consequences for them.”

I got the impression that the consequences would be a serious talking-to from Beth later and it made me feel better.

“Yep. He’s basically a knob. But you’re the one choosing to go out with him. I’m stuck on account of the whole ‘being my dad’ card he keeps playing.”

She laughed and for a moment it felt like Beth was on my side. Or I was on hers.

“He isn’t perfect,” Beth said fairly. “But he cares and he’s open to changing his mind; that’s a great quality to have.”

I was going to argue that it would be better to not be an arse to begin with, but Ruby spoke first.

“What’s your job, then?” she asked.

“I’m an ethical advertising consultant,” she said. “Firms hire me to collaborate with them on creating ethical campaigns and to root out stereotyping in their work. There’s a whole team of us. We look at different issues according to our specialties.”