would laugh it off. Gretel would know maybe it’s not the time or place. And Gretel could handle this conversation anyway, without it setting off a thousand tiny landmines in her perfect trauma-free body. But April is too full from her class to back down. I can’t let this slide, not when I feel totally able to take him on.
Neil turns so he’s fully facing me while the rest watch our stand-off. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He may as well be holding his hands up and stepping away from his weapon. ‘I’m just saying, there is a spectrum to these things. You can’t lump in something like pinching an arse with something more damaging. That’s all he was trying to say, and I don’t think that’s an unfair argument.’ He sits back, puffing his chest, spraying his alpha scent over me like a skunk that’s been stamped on.
‘And you get to decide what’s damaging and what isn’t?’ I ask. ‘You don’t see a problem with a man who probably hasn’t ever been violated getting to decide what counts as a violation? You don’t see the problem with even measuring a violation in the first place?’ I shake my head, like he’s being stupid, because he is. ‘It’s the violation that’s the violence, don’t you see? It’s knowing your boundaries mean bugger-all that’s the trauma – that anyone can touch you, that how you feel about it doesn’t count. That’s the trauma. That’s the violence. Anything else that happens on top of that is additional.’ I’m darting my finger at him. The table looks utterly horrified. Neil’s doing his best not to snarl. ‘It’s not a spectrum,’ I continue. ‘It’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Ever. In any way. It’s all violence and it’s all traumatic. And, for someone who clearly has no experience of it, why do you feel like you’re the one who gets to decide?’
Neil’s wife has got the alert. Husband under attack! Husband under attack! Must protect, must do my duty. Julia jumps in while I’m pausing for angry breath. She must defend her husband. ‘I don’t think that’s what he was saying …’
‘What are you saying then?’ I ask Neil, but now Joshua’s bumbling in.
‘Let’s change the subject,’ he says brightly, lifting his beer to his mouth. ‘No politics on a Friday night, eh?’
I twist to him and shake my head, stupefied. ‘This isn’t politics, Joshua, it’s women’s fucking lives.’
There’s a collective flinch at the table. A Mexican wave of friction to my inappropriate swearing.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Lucy’s saying, trying to keep the peace.
‘If we could all take a minute maybe, to calm down,’ Luke suggests.
Nobody’s having fun all of a sudden and it’s all April’s fault. I’m breaking the rules. I don’t even care. I’m so bored of this sort of bullshit and I’ve finally got the confidence to say as much.
Joshua is po-faced. His voice soft. ‘Gretel, I didn’t mean it like that. I just—’
‘I’m really sorry, but I have to go.’ I don’t care that I’ve made it awkward, and I don’t care that they’re all going to bitch about me, and right now I don’t even care that I’ve messed up my weird social experiment with Joshua. This is the time to end it, like this. With April’s energy soaring through my veins, finally having her say, revealing that even Gretel has some fucking limits. All I care about is leaving this table. Leaving this debate about something that is too painful to be debated.
‘Gretel!’
‘Sorry, it’s just, I’ve got this thing, early tomorrow.’
I’m still making a polite escape considering everything. I’m letting the side down by not just storming out. My urge to be likeable, even when storming out of a curry house, still wins. ‘It was lovely to meet you all,’ I pretend.
We even all kiss each other on the cheek before leaving. They tell me it was nice to meet me too. Joshua’s eyes are wide with drunken confusion. I kiss him on the cheek the same way I’d kiss my grandma. ‘Bye babes,’ I say, then I walk out of his life.
I practically run up the stairs. If I don’t get out of this stuffy air, I will suffocate. I push past waiters and around tables of people eating. The concierge wishes me a good evening but I hardly hear him. I’m through the doors and outside, and yes yes yes, it’s raining! It’s finally raining! Sheets of it plummet from the sky, drenching me within