They all watched her as she paused for breath, no one jumping in. Clio never spoke about her family, so this flood of words, the silty Scottish accent she usually toned down around them – it was something else.

‘What my mother taught me was that you always looked your best. It was a matter of honour with her – you let it all go you might as well shout to the world that things are sliding, that you’re not coping; it lets the rest of the team down, when they’re dealing with things just as hard and worse. She never let anyone outside of me and my stepdad see her in her housecoat; I hardly ever saw her without her make-up the whole time I was growing up with her.

‘It’s a working-class thing, this. Youse don’t get to tell a working-class woman that her lipstick isny feminist, because it’s a signal of solidarity. This is a great big slash of solidarity I’m wearing across my face right now. And you can leave Sammi alone about her hair, too. I bet your mum was something like this, am I right, darlin?’

Sammi grinned shyly, embarrassed to have the spotlight back on her, and not sure how she felt about siding with Clio at the moment anyway. ‘Yeah, my mum never let us leave the house looking less than perfect. They put this in you when you’re young. I mean, it leaves you judging other women who ain’t made the effort pretty heavy, you know—’

‘Well, that’s what I’m saying,’ Xanthe said. ‘It’s another example of conditioning used to divide and conquer. Another tool for the patriarchy to use to have us tear each other apart, enforce a code which we use to contain each other.’

‘Nah, you’re not hearing me,’ Clio said, no trace of the patient voice they were supposed to use when conflict occurred, like Fran’s book had suggested. ‘You ask a working-class woman who was brought up in a certain way at a certain time to ditch her make-up in order to raise her consciousness, you’re asking her to break a bond she’s made with her working-class sisters. No offence, doll, but going make-up free is a luxury for bougie women because they can always afford to buy more; it can be just a temporary state, a bit of play-acting between times. You don’t need it to convince the world you’re more than it thinks you are. You’re asking them to take away the one wee bit of sparkle, of glamour, in what are, let me assure you, some fucking appalling lives. Black women, poor white women – we need to look good when we face out into the world, because the odds in life are already stacked so hard against us and people are already prejudging us on sight.’