Heads turned their way as they walked in. Sylvia unwound her scarf and shrugged off her coat as Evelyne greeted the woman behind the bar as though they knew each other well. She returned with two glasses of beer and slipped into a chair opposite Sylvia.

‘This place is where we come to plot,’ she said with a smile. ‘The drinking establishment of Lausanne’s young radical lefties. And don’t they know it!’

‘They?’ Sylvia said.

‘The fusty old conservatives, I mean. They succeeded in shutting it down a few years ago, complaining about drugs and homosexuals and “moral danger”.’ Evelyne shrugged. ‘It was only a bit of weed, for God’s sake. Sometimes it’s as though the sixties never happened. That’s part of the bloody problem in Switzerland – too many people stuck in the past.’

And she was off. Evelyne, Sylvia had realised already, wasn’t the sort of person to need alcohol to talk – but it clearly wasn’t going to slow her down, either. Sylvia’s shorthand was pushed to its limits as she listened to Evelyne tell her how she joined the Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises three years ago while she was still at university, inspired by the fellow students she met for whom traditional feminism wasn’t enough, who were pursuing something more radical.

‘We owe them a lot, those older feminists. They’ve fought for voting rights for years, but many of them still think a women’s place is at home keeping house and making babies.’

Sylvia heard how, last year, the MFL joined other militant groups to boycott a women’s congress led by those traditional Swiss feminists after they refused to put abortion on the debate agenda, and how they created an anti-congress of fierce debates, controversial films and pieces of feminist theatre that gained more press attention than the real congress. She heard how the local authorities tried to shut down the printing of the MFL newsletter, and how they teamed up with other campaigners from around the country to interrupt a session of parliament to demonstrate in favour of abortion rights. Sylvia couldn’t help but feel rather lucky. Britain wasn’t perfect, by a long way, but at least things were moving in the right direction. She had the right to request a termination – yes, she reminded herself, I do – and, as of just last year, legal recourse should she face discrimination at work or unequal pay. But then her thoughts flickered to Clive, his sneers and his putdowns, and she considered Evelyne to be right – legislation was necessary, but something more fundamental was still needed, and not just in Switzerland. The women’s lib movement may have made more progress in the UK, but it still hadn’t achieved all its aims – far from it.

‘I admire your determination, your passion, I really do.’