‘Bitch,’ the man says, jumping out of the way of the beer pouring onto the floor, then, as it hits his shoes, ‘Fat cow.’

‘You betcha,’ Leonie says. This is why Vee should never, ever put her camera away. The man’s face, outraged and, beneath, perplexed as to how he is powerless in this moment, is a picture, except it isn’t, because she’s missed it.

‘So, are you thinking of putting it up for adoption?’

Leonie rubs at her eyes, then yawns. Vee suspects she’s hiding tears, and makes sure not to look. If Leonie is going to talk to her about this, she needs to keep things cool, steady; if her friend suspects her of being emotional she’ll shut the conversation down as swiftly as she knocked over that pint.

Leonie concentrates on folding up the empty crisp packet. ‘I suppose. It’s a faff. I might leave it on a step somewhere.’ Oh, no. This can’t be happening. Leonie might be right about there being too many children in the world, but—

Leonie puts a hand over Vee’s. ‘Your face! Of course I wouldn’t leave it on a step. Just because I don’t want a baby doesn’t make me—’ she pauses, ‘subhuman.’

‘You might feel differently about it when it’s here,’ Vee offers. Even as she’s saying it, she knows these are the wrong words. But she doesn’t know how to be helpful. Leonie does everything differently.

‘Why would I?’

‘Well, people do.’ Any other conversation like this would be about maternal instinct, hormones, bonds, but Leonie wouldn’t accept that, and Vee is not sure that she does, either. She closes her mouth again but it’s too late. Leonie has read her thoughts, or seen the M for ‘motherhood’ her mouth had been beginning to make, and extrapolated from there. Photographers have to be ordinary, uninteresting, if they are to fade far enough from the subject’s notice to get them to be their true selves. But Vee would like to say one surprising thing, sometime.

‘Maternal instinct? Which makes women no longer want to leave the home or do anything except serve their families? Fuck that,’ Leonie says.

‘I didn’t say anything!’

‘You were going to.’ There really is no point in arguing with Leonie, because – well, because she is Leonie, but also, because she’s right. ‘There’s no such thing as maternal instinct. It’s just another bullshit construct designed to keep women down and I’m not buying it.’

Vee nods and takes a drink. She has no desire for a child, certainly, or for the relationship she would have assumed would go with it.

Leonie adds, ‘There are some primitive tribes where people don’t know who children belong to. They are born and then they’re fed by whichever tit is closest. Nobody can tell you who came out of who else.’