Page 17 of A Very Happy Easter

Me

What a dick. Will you give it to him?

Heath

Probably. He quit his job so he could go volunteer at a gorilla conservation project in Uganda. I’d feel like an arse if I kept it.

Me

Will you be okay?

Heath

I’ll have to play Scrabble against myself in the evenings, but I’m sure I’ll survive.

Me

I meant financially.

Suddenly, I felt guilty about the coffee card. I should have sent cash. But would that have seemed weird, just stuffing twenty-pound notes into an envelope? I could hardly ask for his bank details to do a wire transfer.

Heath

I don’t have to sell myself on a street corner yet. You’ve taken care of my coffee habit, and I can skip the avocado toast for a while.

Salma meandered in, checking her phone. “The car is outside. I already put a restart pack for Jazzi in the boot.”

So many women left with nothing but the clothes on their backs, or if they were lucky, whatever they could stuff into a bag. When someone moved into a shelter, we made sure they received the basics—toiletries, sanitary products, bed linen and blankets, a phone, nappies and toys if they had children. Each shelter also kept a supply of underwear and clothing for them to choose from. The more support a woman got at the beginning, the easier it was for her to start a new life away from her abuser. And the likelihood of her returning to him decreased.

Of course, many women had tangled, complex relationships with the men who hurt them. There were more than a few relapses. And if a woman fell again, we were always there to catch her.

I grabbed my handbag, locked the front door behind me, and followed Salma to the car. She was my Girl Friday. My right-hand woman. All but my most private communications went through her in the first instance, plus she helped me at work, ran errands, co-organised events, and generally acted as a companion Monday through Friday, eight thirty till five. If there was an event in the evening, she usually volunteered to come, and I’d often wished out loud that I could just send her in my place because she thrived in those environments while I wanted to crawl under the buffet table and rock.

While Salma organised my life, I focused on another important matter.

Me

Glad you haven’t hit guac bottom.

Heath

That’s terrible.

Me

I can do better—which bird likes to eat avocado toast?

Heath

A seagull?

Me

The millennial falcon.

Heath

Stawp.