‘Well, you don’t know what you don’t know,’ Vee says, her hand going to her head again, the same place as before, where the scar must be, ‘and it’s been a long time, so I’m used to it. But there are things that I just have absolutely no recollection of. My father’s death. I know he died, and when, because I’ve got the certificate. It was a few months before – before Leonie. And I miss him, the way I would if I remembered his dying. But there’s just . . . a space.’

‘That is—’ but there’s no word significant enough. Weird/awful/terrible are words that Erica probably uses most days, when talking about things that are nowhere near as bad as that.

‘Yes.’ Vee nods, slowly; it seems she’s treating her head with caution. ‘It is.’

‘You might not have been arrested,’ Erica says, ‘but you were definitely more of an activist than me.’ As soon as that ‘were’ is in the air she wants to snatch it, swallow it, turn it into ‘are’. ‘You are—’

‘I talked a good game,’ Vee says, showing no sign of caring about Erica mixing her tenses up and really, why should she? ‘. . . once Leonie had taught me the words. And I marched and shouted. Really, though, taking photographs was my activism, and then it became my career. Your aunt called me a pimp, once. Or it could have been a whore. Or both.’ She laughs, ‘I was furious at the time but she was right.’

‘Those are awful things to say, though.’

‘Leonie said a lot of awful things.’

‘That’s what my mother always said. She said Aunt Leonie never thought before she opened her mouth, and the things that came out were never kind.’

‘I don’t remember it being like that,’ Vee says. ‘They didn’t have a lot in common. And your mother didn’t buy into a lot of Leonie’s views.’

Erica laughs, ‘I can’t imagine Leonie let that go.’

‘No. and I think Ursula was pretty determined, too. Leonie walked all over me – she was always late, she cancelled things – but she did as Ursula told her.’ Vee puts her cup down, and half-misses; it sits awry in the saucer. The expression on her face changes, from sure to hesitant.

‘Vee? Are you OK?’

Vee looks straight at her – she has such wise eyes – ‘I’d forgotten. Ursula once came to give Leonie a lift somewhere. They might have been going to their mother’s. Leonie tried to get out of it. Ursula looked at her and said, “I spent yesterday afternoon getting twenty-one seven-year-olds to their swimming lesson and back. Do you really think you’re going to get out of this?” I thought Leonie was going to flip, but the two of them just started laughing. And Leonie did what she was told.’

Erica laughs, ‘That sound plausible. From my mother, I mean.’