Mary peeked at her building from the edge of the hedge. The protestors appeared to be quite relaxed – some were even sun-worshipping. A man with a Muff Mafia placard lit the cigarette of a woman holding the lazy end of a No More Patriarchy banner, which may be what sparked the woman on the erect end to screech: ‘Abuse isn’t funny!’ One by one the women rediscovered their anger and joined in: ‘Abuse isn’t funny!’

The men fidgeted, not quite sure what it would mean if they joined the chant, and what it meant if they didn’t.

‘You’ve managed to make the feminists hate you too.’ It was Roddie’s unwell voice again, flat and not him. He leaned his arm against the hedge.

‘I’m not political,’ Mary said.

‘Afraid you are now.’

The f-word. The idea of being a bad one upset her beyond comprehension. But maybe it was true. She’d always had to lie (at least by omission) to come over as a good one. She said she was anti-marriage, then she got married. She said she’d buy her boy dolls, and she didn’t. She said she was happy to be the breadwinner but ruminated about it daily (home at fucking seven and have to fucking clean and there’s no food and I have to cook and the dishes, the dishes, how can you not see there are dishes?). She said she was delighted for Roddie to sleep in and spend his days with his pencils. She wasn’t. She was exhausted, and perhaps as a result she was letting the side down. She was doing everyone’s washing every second day, for example, and everyone’s dishes two times a day, and everyone’s meals three times a day, and watching ‘reluctant’ porn and having bad thoughts about fat people. Mary had received her grade and it was F.

‘I’m a social worker,’ she said to Roddie. ‘Everyone’s always hated me.’

‘The thing about you—’

‘What’s the thing about me?’

‘You are a liability, Mary.’

‘You do not think that.’ Occasionally the multiple-of-five thing seemed to take hold of Mary too.

If Roddie didn’t love her, he’d be violating her personal space now. ‘You’re such a fuck-up,’ he said.

‘I made a humour miscalculation. It’s stand-up comedy. I’m sorry. After thirty years in social work maybe I don’t understand what’s funny anymore.’

‘Here we go again.’

‘What?’ Mary didn’t feel like counting out that old argument – about how she moaned, twenty-three years’ moaning, making him feel guilty, but refusing to do anything about it, preferring to be a martyr instead – and reverted to defending her cutting-edge comedy. ‘Isn’t it like saying the n-word if you’re black? I’m allowed to tell jokes about child abuse amn’t I?’