“Just what gives you the right to come back here and monopolize the high moral ground? You’ve got no right, no right at all to treat me like a piece of shit. If you were a bloody delegate at this conference, I might just listen to what you have to say. But you’re a nobody now. Do you hear? A nobody!” Jack shouted at the top of his powerful bass voice.

Taken aback by the force of his onslaught, Lindsay held her hands up, palms facing him. “Hey, Tom, cool it. I was just putting a point of view.”

“You’ve got no right to a point of view in this union any more. You don’t even live in this bloody country. Listen to me, Lindsay Gordon, and listen good. You’ve done your share of troublemaking in this union. You and your cronies wasted enough of the JU’s time and money with your daft feminist schemes and gay rights propaganda. Well, you’re not going to hijack the AMWU. So you can stop right there.”

Lindsay tried the deep-breathing techniques she’d learned at a seminar in Sausalito. They failed. She flushed a deep scarlet and took a step towards him. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you conniving turncoat bully,” she said in a low voice that attracted more attention in that crowded bar than shouting would have done. “And don’t try blowing smoke in everybody’s eyes. What you and that National Executive you’ve got tucked in your back pocket are doing to the head office staff is nothing to do with feminism, and you know it. It’s to do with good old-fashioned bad management and the broken promises between employer and employee. The only reason most of the people you’re getting rid of are women is the age-old reason. They’re cheap to pay off. How did you put it to me back in ’86, when the Daily Nation were making me redundant? Let me get it right . . .” Lindsay closed her eyes momentarily, as if deep in thought. “Oh yes, now I remember. Quote: ‘The reason why women get paid less than men is that they will keep taking these low-paid jobs.’ End quote.”

For a brief, terrifying moment, she thought Tom Jack was going to hit her. His eyes widened and his hands bunched into fists at his side. He staggered slightly, then, with perceptible effort, he regained control of himself. “If you’ve got the sense you were born with, you’ll stay out of my road,” he said quietly, his voice tight with suppressed anger. “There’s plenty of rules in the rulebook for getting rid of the likes of you.”

Lindsay shook her head theatrically, playing up her air of astonishment as she moved past Jack and made for the bar. “ ‘A working-class hero is something to be,’ right enough,” she said to no one in particular.