She takes half a dozen frames to let him get it out of his system, and then she really gets to work. She asks him about the view and he explains what’s visible; every time he glances towards her, to see that she’s listening, she takes another photograph, catches his face both animated and relaxed. She thinks the finished shots will have him looking like the sort of person he probably was, once, before he found the persona he’s living. He’ll almost certainly complain when he sees the magazine cover.

She shoots a film, then they move into his living room, where she needs to stand on a dining chair so that she can tuck the dark velvet curtains up and out of the way. Under the pretence of steadying her – ‘Be careful, darling, you’ve got precious equipment there and I couldn’t stand for it to be damaged!’ – he holds her by the hips, hard, then, when she’s stepped down from the chair, puts one of his hands on her buttocks. She steps, forward, away, and asks him to sit down; stands on a chair above him, looking down, and shoots a few more frames. There’s nothing good about these photographs – he looks terrible, squat and leeringly foreshortened, but that’s precisely why she enjoys taking them. A couple of seated shots – he opens his shirt a little more, and she realises it’s because he has a nipple pierced, and wants it to be noticed, recorded. And suddenly she’s sick of him, of this whole stupid game, but still she thanks him and compliments him on being a good sitter, because she needs to keep the calls from the picture editors coming in.

She drops the films at the lab. And then she goes home, takes a good, hot shower, and thinks about calling Leonie. But she doesn’t have the energy, tonight; and if she tells her about the DJ, although Leonie will make no excuses for him, she’ll have no patience with Vee’s behaviour, either. Plus, Vee is totally out of her depth with the pregnancy and the adoption. She’s certain that she did the right thing. Being a parent feels like too important a job to take place on the fly, around the edges, although of course every parent had a life before. Vee is not a person who is capable of that.

She’ll leave it for another couple of days to call. Just until she’s got a little more to give. Just until she’s sure she’s thought everything through, and there’s nothing else she can suggest.

Just in case she changes her mind, and decides she does want Leonie’s baby, after all.

June 1979

June 1979

This Month magazine

Leonie Barratt: Letters from a Feminist

Our monthly column from the front line of the Battle of the Sexes

Dear John,

I know what you’re thinking.