And then, last year, Fat is a Feminist Issue came out, and the putative interest that there had been from a publisher in Leonie’s work on the body disappeared. Vee had argued that it was only a question of time and finding someone who wasn’t afraid of her words. Leonie had, grudgingly, agreed to keep trying. And now, here they are. Vee really couldn’t be more pleased. She wants the world to have access to Leonie’s mind. And, more than that, she wants Leonie to be happy. ‘You’re going to be published! That’s such good news, Leonie.’

‘I’m not going to be published,’ Leonie says. ‘They said no.’

‘Why?’

Leonie shrugs, chins wobbling and shoulders sagging. ‘I’m a polemicist. Not an apologist.’

Vee nods. She’s just about to try to point out that there might be another way, an in-between, when Leonie adds, ‘Or I might not be good enough.’

‘Leonie! No! You know you deserve this. It’s like you said. They publish a few women and then they think they’ve done. But—’

Leonie cuts across her with a shrug, ‘I even tried Virago. They don’t want me.’

‘What? Why?’

‘They don’t like me. I’m not their kind of feminist.’

Vee has a shelf of Virago books. She hasn’t read all of them, admittedly, but what Leonie says seems unlikely. There seems to be room for all voices. Surely that’s the point.

‘Did they say that?’

Leonie gives another shrug, one that Vee recognises as meaning ‘I decline to answer’, then says, ‘Anyway. I’m pregnant.’

Vee feels her face struggle to hide her shock, mask it with something closer to surprise. ‘You’re having a baby?’ Oh, Christ. ‘I mean – are you going to keep it?’

‘I am,’ Leonie says.

‘That’s—’ Vee cannot stop her gaze from landing on the empty glasses. ‘That’s surprising.’

‘I found out too late to do anything else,’ Leonie says, ‘which means there’s no point in stopping now.’ Vee notices the cigarette ends in the ashtray. She hopes they aren’t Leonie’s, but they probably are. Still, women need to respect women in their choices. And the pack on the table are menthol cigarettes, at least.

‘I suppose you don’t want to commit to a book until you know how it all works out.’

Leonie shakes her head. ‘When I said I was keeping it,’ she says, ‘I just meant, I was too late to get rid of it. I would have done, but I realised too late. My periods are, like, crazy.’

A man who has just sat down at the next table double-takes as he overhears this, and raises a disapproving/amused eyebrow at his friend. Leonie tips back her chair, flicks his pint over and says in a voice that’s a growl, ‘Women bleed. Be grateful.’