The words hit Sylvia like a punch in the stomach. The wine, the fondue, the music, the sights and sounds of a new country… It had been all too easy to put aside what she knew, with increasing certainty, was happening to her. Seeing the signs here, she knew she was lucky to at least have some choice in the matter. But she wished someone could just tell her which choice was the right one.

Evelyne and her friends were greeted by another group of women and a round of three-kisses began, a ritual that could take some time, Sylvia felt. She found herself standing alone with Daniel.

‘Evelyne must be pleased to have a brother who supports her in this.’

He looked at the ground when she spoke. ‘It’s no big deal.’

She stared at him, willing him to meet her eyes. Was he shy? Or just naturally surly?

‘Oh, it is,’ she said. She looked out over the crowds gathering in the square. ‘It’s a huge deal to have men supporting women because we’ll never get true equality unless men agree it’s important too.’

He didn’t respond, and they stood in silence for a minute, Daniel scuffing his feet on the floor. She thought of Maggie’s father, who never wanted her to go to art school and instead pulled strings with an acquaintance to get her a job as a bank clerk so she could make some pocket money and hopefully meet a respectable moneyed man to marry. But Maggie had only endured three months at the bank before quitting and spending her last month’s salary on a ticket to Thailand where she passed another three months backpacking, drawing by day and partying by night. Sylvia remembered her friend arriving home with her hair in corn rows, a suitcase full of tie-dyed skirts and a portfolio of sketches and paintings that got her into art school later that year. But Sylvia knew how much it pained Maggie that her father still hadn’t forgiven her.

‘I just think everyone should be free to do whatever the hell they want in life,’ Daniel said.

Sylvia turned, cocked her head. ‘Are you free?’ She said it as a reflex, and then immediately regretted saying it out loud. ‘Forget it, it’s none of my business.’

He finally turned to look at her and she saw something soften in his eyes, the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. ‘Evelyne never was any good at keeping her mouth shut,’ he said.