‘I know you have. So have I. But things happen – or don’t happen – that aren’t always of your making and you just have to deal with them. I didn’t want to be a bank teller, but I dealt with it. And I’m sure there’ll be more things thrown at me in the future that I don’t necessarily want. But that’s what life is about. It happens to everyone.’ Maggie flopped down on her pillow. ‘Plenty of women would kill to be in your situation, you know.’ Her voice was soft. ‘It may not be where you imagined you’d be right now, but that doesn’t make it bad. You’ve just got to accept it and do your best to make it a success. And I know you can, because you’re you, and that’s what you do.’

Maybe she could. But that wasn’t the point. Her argument with Jim had wounded something deep inside her. It was the first time she had truly recognised that the man she loved, the man who had always supported her career ambitions as much as his own, didn’t really understand the gulf that existed between their respective experiences. Because the barriers she faced – barriers created and sustained by members of his own sex – weren’t real for him, they were only abstract. Of course he thought it unfair she was paid less than Max despite the existence of the Equal Pay Act; of course he applauded the progress when, last year, it was finally made illegal to discriminate against women. He would say these things and he would mean them. But he’d never had to actually fight those battles himself. He’d never had a tutor who marked him up or down depending on the length of his skirt. He’d never been told he shouldn’t be ambitious because it’s not attractive. He’d never had an editor refuse to sign off his expenses because he’d turned down his sexual advances, as she knew had happened to Marnie in her previous job. He’d never found out that a fellow journalist with the same level of experience earned more because they pissed standing up. She wanted him to know how it felt. She needed him to feel how she did, or she didn’t know where they could go from here.

‘When I’m back,’ she said to him now, over the phone. ‘We’ll talk when I’m back.’