Leonie stands up straighter. She’s not that tall, but she seems it, and she knows how to take up space. She looks the barman in the eye, and says, ‘It seems that a prick’s a prick wherever you go.’

Vee hears her own intake of breath, and sees that Bea and someone-beginning-with-F have stopped talking and are getting to their feet, coming over to the bar. This could go either way. Vee has seen it before. She and Barry sometimes go for a bar meal at the King’s Arms on a Friday night. If an argument starts, it can either flare to fists or diffuse into laughter. She doesn’t think there’d be a fight here – men who won’t serve women in a bar aren’t going to hit them, not in public at least – but it’s not comfortable. So she catches the eye of the man who offered to buy their drinks, and smiles at him again. He laughs. The fine thin membrane of tension dissolves, and it’s an ordinary lunchtime once more. Ordinary if you go to the pub for lunch every day, anyway.

‘All right, then,’ says the barman. ‘Quick. What do you want?’

Leonie looks at Vee, a question. ‘Sweet martini and lemonade, please.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I like it.’ At least Barry and her dad don’t tell her what to drink.

‘Suit yourself.’ Leonie turns to the barman. ‘Sweet martini and lemonade, and three pints of cider. Please.’

The barman’s hand hesitates over the pint glasses, but he thinks better of saying whatever he might have said, and pulls the pints.

‘There you go, ladies.’

‘Thank you,’ Vee says.

At the same time, Leonie answers, ‘We’re not ladies, we’re women, but I really don’t have the time to go into that now.’

When they get to their table and sit, Vee is more relieved than she would think it was possible to be, perched on a wobbly stool in a dingy pub with three strident women she barely knows. Then a gaggle of men arrives and fills the place with smoke and swearing, and attention moves away from the women. Vee feels herself exhale, long and slow, as though she’s just got away with something, though she honestly couldn’t say what.

From the way that some of the men greet Leonie and the others, and from their not-from-round-here accents, Vee gathers that they must be journalists covering the strike. Covering the strike too, she tells herself. She is a professional photographer and she got a great shot back there. Come on, Vee.

The others drink without comment; this must be normal for them. Leonie turns to Vee, and says, ‘You shouldn’t flirt men into buying drinks for you. You shouldn’t appease them when they’re being pricks like that. It doesn’t help any of us, in the long run.’