Me too! Me too (her lip was quivering). Sorry (she blew her nose), it’s the abuse flaring up again. (She paused for an awkward two seconds.) What a buzzkill that fucking me-too thing is though, no? Last night I had a party for my fifty-second – thank you, thank you very much, I am now officially off the market, no longer your competition, ladies, what a relief that is. If I seem interested in your man, it‘s cause he’s a plumber. Lovely evening at mine, seven of us. Hubby’s cooked chicken cacciatora, there’s polenta, wine, music, anecdotes, some of which were not related to the slow process of dying. It was perfect. That is till Sally pings her glass cos she has an announcement to make. Do you know what it is?

(Another two-second pause.)

Me too! (She put on a whiny voice.) Me too says Sally, and she’s crying and she needs a hug from every one of us, including the men, I’m just sayin’ – poor guys, they looked nervous. Everyone left after that.

(She paused, and looked at her notes.) Apparently if you send a note to school with your kid just saying ‘hashtag me too’ your kid’ll get away with pretty much anything. My friend Rhona’s kid killed a dog in the lane behind the school at lunchtime – he does that a bit – and he got away with it cos his mum wrote a note saying ‘hashtag me too’. There were no hashtags in my day. In my day, if you wound up naked on the floor of an old man’s bathroom, you kept it to yourself for the rest of your life out of courtesy to absolutely everyone.

(One final pause.)

I’m not saying child abuse is funny! Honey, my second abuser was a very successful comedian, and I still didn’t laugh.

Mary opened the car window, tossed her phone in a hedge, then spent five minutes looking for it. She rang K, who didn’t answer. She texted Lil, who didn’t reply.

They’d probably seen it already. They might hate her. If only they’d pick up. She could totally explain what she meant. She meant good feminist things, she had meant to say – what had she meant to say?