Brainstorming graphic-novel ideas, such as Menopause Woman (could melt a man with a single hot flush – Roddie’s idea), or Misogyny Man (could get fucked – Mary’s idea).

Massaging neglected body parts.

Dancing round the kitchen table.

Having the kind of sex they would both swear, on their lives, they’d never had before.

Alas, through no planning of their own, they had taken the wrong drug. That, and perhaps ned excrement, meant neither managed to locate the other’s neglected body part nor dance round the table with conviction for any length of time. Mary only managed to complete two of her recently discovered activities – the angry strip, and cooking with resentment. At some point things took an unfortunately serious turn, and Mary told Roddie about Christmas when she was twenty-one and her mum was throwing milk bottles against the kitchen wall, one after the other: smash, smash, glass all over the floor, and some milk, smash. ‘Fuck you. Fuck you all.’

Mary had not only said this out loud, she had also done it. There was glass everywhere, and some wine. ‘Holy Shit. I’m so sorry. My God, it is me. I am the arsehole.’

Roddie walked across the kitchen, glass crunching under the slippers Mary got him for Christmas, and took her hands. ‘Don’t be daft. It’s okay. We shouldn’t have taken that coke.’

‘I’ve hit you before.’ She was crying.

‘You’ve never scared me. You’re unwell sometimes. So am I. I get it.’

‘You know what you sound like, Roddie? My victim.’

He held her face and kissed her. ‘Mary, you’re tiny.’

He had melted her. ‘That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,’ she said, and burrowed in.

17

Her leg buzzed and a different husband slapped her face. This one’s eyes were closer together and had no love in them. ‘You told your boss?’

Mary scraped herself upright, taking in the blood on her foot, the piece of glass causing it, the yelling outside, and the time (2.00 p.m.; couldn’t be. Where were her glasses?).

There was yelling outside? Their second-floor town flat was in a quiet and leafy part of the inner-city ‘village’ of Pollokshields and boasted unrivalled views of Maxwell Park. The leg buzz was her phone. She’d fallen asleep on top of it as well as a few other items, including toothpaste and a spoon. ‘Told my boss what?’

‘That you fantasised about Liam Macdowall.’

Roddie’s eyes were on his laptop, thankfully, as she was scared to look at them again. Had her boss, Catherine, leaked this to the press? Surely not. Perhaps it was Retirement Cop.

‘Well?’

‘I told you about it. It’s not a secret. I told you first.’