They said their goodbyes and Sylvia returned the phone to the cradle. She looked back down at the papers in front of her. Letters. From Deirdre and Mary and Donna and Christine and other women from Tunbridge Wells, Gloucester, Stoke-on-Trent, Southend-on-Sea. She’d been surprised when Roger had presented her with a bundle of them a few days after her article was published.

‘Most of them are about your feature, so I thought you may as well edit the damn things,’ he’d said, adding, unnecessarily she thought, ‘Valerie doesn’t have time.’

So now she was letters’ editor – well, only for those intended for the women’s pages, but it was something. She wasn’t being sent to interview Peter Hall, as Max was about to (because of course he who called actors ‘a bunch of egotistical toffs’ was best served to interview the director of the National Theatre and not she, a regular and enthusiastic theatregoer thanks to Maggie’s access to discount tickets), but it was a definite vote of confidence in her from Roger, however small.

She’d tried to keep her face calm when the paper landed on her desk without ceremony last Friday; there it was, her piece on Switzerland over nearly a full page in the women’s section with several photos she’d taken at the rally.

SWISS SISTERS FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: FIVE YEARS AFTER GAINING THE VOTE, THE BATTLE CONTINUES

Her byline in bold below the headline. Her byline! Not only attached to a golden oldies interview (that was in there as well, of course: Fran and Percy from Golder’s Green, whose best piece of advice on marriage had been ‘don’t argue when you’re hungry’), but a serious news feature on a subject she felt passionate about, a feature she’d pitched and persuaded Roger to run.

She’d read it start to finish, even though she already knew it almost by heart. She noted Sam’s subbing changes – true to Valerie’s word, there were few, though to her mind the ones there were seemed clumsy – and felt the piece anew, as she always did when her writing was published. Somehow, seeing it in print made it concrete and gave it a gravitas it didn’t have when it rolled out of her typewriter on office A4, multiples of ‘x’ obscuring unwanted words.

‘Strong stuff, darling,’ Valerie had said when she walked past her desk, and Sylvia didn’t even think she was being sarcastic.

Max’s enthusiasm was less ambiguous – ‘Dog’s bollocks, that, Syl’ – but the boost she felt on hearing her colleagues’ praise quickly faded when Clive, passing through the office with a coffee in hand, looked over her shoulder at a close-up shot of Hanna, the reform school girl, and let out a low whistle.

‘What a stunner. Can you get me her number?’

Max had laughed. ‘I doubt she’s that desperate, old man.’