‘I’m just not angry any more, Clio. I cut it all off, walked away. I know, I know, I have the luxury of being able to do that, of finding a place where that behaviour makes sense and a partner who’ll help me to do it. I honestly don’t feel much connection with that time of my life, I really don’t. My whole time in London was misery. Things only started to make sense again when Dido and I landed here. All of it – the squat, all the activism we were doing, that whole communal-living thing. Then afterwards – the women’s groups, local politics, the anger. All that anger, all the time, Clio. I wasn’t meant to be there, in that scrubby, furious little country. Nor was my girl. It’s easier to be peaceful here.’

‘Peaceful! Your country is on the verge of socialist revolution. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the people I’ve been working with in Athens. A nationwide movement. They’re overthrowing capitalism from the ground up. It’s charged, here – like, like in Genoa in 2001. It’s an inspiring place, this, no? How can you exist here and not want to be a part of it?’

‘It doesn’t really touch us. We live on the side of a cliff, for heaven’s sake. The very point of this place is to provide people with an alternative to all of that.’

‘All of – of politics? The life of the world? It’s an escape, then. For people who can afford to look away? Living off the tourist dollar.’

‘That’s what’s usually meant by the word retreat, yes.’

‘I just don’t see how it’s possible. When you’ve experienced what I’ve experienced – what you have. How do you stop being angry?’

‘Maybe you need to go home. That’s what I did. A place can help, the right environment. Find yourself.’

‘I don’t really know what home is, Xanthe, I’m not like you. I don’t have an identity like that.’

‘Scottish, aren’t you? So go there. They have good scenery, I hear. Go and sit in a misty glen or take the high road or something like that. Go and find yourself a big silent lumberjack in a kilt – someone your own age, someone who’s had their own share of it, to warm your bed. It doesn’t need to be the place you grew up in. I mean, there’s not much inner peace to be found in gated fucking communities full of millionaires in Athens!’

Mistake, she realized as soon as she’d said it. Mistake to remind a comrade, any of them, what you came from. Clio had taken it in, she saw.