‘Thanks,’ Tanya says when she comes back from wherever she’s been. She scoops the child up, sits, and puts him in the crook of her crossed legs. She’s been absent long enough for the feeling to return to Leonie’s pins-and-needles calf. Leonie has never wanted to conform to patriarchal notions of beauty and what a woman should be – in fact, she has set herself against them, on purpose, her body her field of action. But when she watches people move the way that Tanya or Vee do, with no thought for getting up or sitting down, no sense of hauling more than their bones can bear, she envies them their ease. She’s been reading Andrea Dworkin, admiring the way she is showing the patriarchy that it has no agency over her. Dworkin wouldn’t be sitting easily on the grass, either. It could be that she has found an intellectual ally at last.

‘So, what’s new with you?’ Tanya asks.

‘I’m busy with the shelters. And I’m always writing.’

‘Cool.’

‘Kind of.’ Leonie resents every hour she spends working with the women’s shelters. Not because she doesn’t want to help the sisters. She knows she’s in such a privileged position, and can’t imagine having nowhere to go, not a penny, not even the certainty that you are drawing a safe breath. But she wants to fix things from the other end. No one would need to help these women if the world was equal.

‘Haven’t found anyone to shackle yourself to?’

This is why you should never have kids. Your brain goes to shit. She shakes her head. ‘Why is that even a question? I’ve no desire to. I never have had, and I don’t think I ever will, now. I’m forty-three, for chrissakes. Fuck settling.’

‘I respect that,’ Tanya says, then, instantly disrespecting, ‘I never would have thought that I would find someone. Not really. But Trev is something special. Not all men are bastards. And the babies . . .’

Don’t do the smile, Leonie thinks, please don’t do the smile. But Tanya does. Leonie has seen it on Ursula’s face, ever since she took Erica. It’s one-third serenity, one-third sanctimoniousness, and one-third genuine happiness. Leonie doesn’t need to look at it. At least Vee has earned her happiness through her own efforts, instead of letting her hormones do it for her.