‘I dunno, Shiv. I kind of feel like you and me, we didn’t pay attention when they were trying to beat us down. You watch women trying to go through their lives and there’s always some sort of fucking thing that chucks them off eventually, like, they’re bred without ambition, or they have it all knocked out of them? Internalized repression. You hear me? And, God knows, it wasn’t that I had a stable or even supportive childhood, fuck no, so I don’t know where I got it from. It strikes me that it’s a very male trait, this thing we have. Not saying, like, that the desire to push yourself forward is all to do with whichever chromosome you have. I think it’s there at the beginning in all of us, and most little girls are ground right down by it. I’ve seen brilliant women drop out of the race because there wasn’t enough security or because they faced too much misogyny and couldn’t get any higher, or they got pregnant, or they were worried about their biological clocks … they always give up, like it’s been pre-programmed inside them. Built-in obsolescence, making way for a younger model. But not us, babe.’

Siobhan had had many conversations like this with Clio over the years. Drunk, in bars, at the ends of nights. She was trying to remember if they’d ever actually spoken sober, but she’d concluded that this was probably how Clio conducted most of her conversations – after all, it had been how Siobhan herself had conversed for most of her adult life, long, rambling monologues where the other participant could nod along emphatically or shout against the flow, trying to change its direction. She prepared to wade in.

‘I don’t know. I feel it. I feel that little voice trying to whisper me down most days. A lot more now, since the kids. It’s been a constant fight against it, to do anything.’

‘No, you’re wrong. I don’t see that for you—’

‘And yeah, when you’re nineteen or twenty-one and the whole fucking world is telling you you’re great and sexy, of course you believe them, you take it as read. But all of those people had agendas. I mean, that skinny little body I used to have, those perky wee tits, they were other people’s currency. I might not have shagged anyone for work, but I changed hands a lot more than I’m comfortable admitting, and when there weren’t enough drugs to block it out, it took its toll. I mean, they sold that whole first album on a picture of my crotch, babe. Your single cover, the one with the tight T-shirt for “Rise Up”? And you’re telling me you’ve never faced it? Come on, Clio. Your whole career has been marked by blokes shouting you down.’