‘It weren’t long before I was going on protests with them. Anti-fascist marches. At first they’d just take me to be the photographer, because all of them was getting so swept up they kept forgetting to get pics for the magazine. But I got into it, heavy. Started my own group of the Anti-Fascist League at school; couldn’t get that many of the thick fucks I hung around with interested. SisterHood, and those women, and like just waking up, it changed me for the rest of the world, you know? I got my GCSEs, but school just didn’t seem that important. School looked at me and said, oh, people like you drop out at sixteen, end of, so I did that. My mum was shocked that I wasn’t going to take a job, that I was going to sign on and write full time for SisterHood. We had a row, and I went to live with Constance for a bit. It spoiled me for boys, too, yeah. All the boys my age, they’re just nothing, man. Just into tits, not ideas. That’s why I’ve started seeing older men. That’s why Mark and me work.’

‘Who’s Mark, then?’

‘You not met him? We moved in here together. He’s the posh guy with the blond hair. Mark’s my fella – not “mine” in the possessive sense, innit.’

‘Open relationship? I take it that was Mark’s idea?’ Clio looked amused, laughed two notes of smoke out.

‘Nah, I know what you’re thinking, but it was honestly a mutual decision. I’m not even sure I believe in monogamy. I fancy other blokes sometimes, and I can go off with them for fun if I want. It works for us, mate. Trust me.’

Clio smiled at her, and she didn’t think she was being mocked, or maybe only in a good way. ‘And where did you meet the lovely Mark?’

‘He came into my work. I wait tables and sometimes do the cooking at the café in the 121 Centre up the road – Constance got me it, she knows Antoine, who I guess is my boss? Mark kept on coming in every day for a week cos he was new to the area, didn’t know many folk, and we got talking, and then we got fucking, and we never really stopped. He’s all right, is Mark.’ Sammi thought again about that smile on his face today, that split second of unease, and brushed over it.