When I was behaving like a useless arsehole of a husband and father, circa 2009–13, I would experience a temporary wave of guilt as, once again, I heard Abbie say something like, ‘I don’t want to be some whining bitch but . . .’ or ‘I don’t want to go on like some fucking harpy but . . .’ and I’d think to myself, ‘That’s unlucky, that. It’s really unfair that she has to negotiate the cliché as well as put up with me being next-to-shitfaced by 3 p.m. most weekdays.’1
