Vee winces. ‘True. But I’d rather think of it as an area of interest than a battleground.’ She glances to her left, just as Leonie looks towards her, and smiles; they spend a mile or two in silence, the happy kind that reminds her of Sunday mornings in the flat, reading the papers, drinking tea, listening to London’s church bells and, as Leonie always said, steadfastly ignoring the call to prayer.

‘You’d be happy enough to call it a battleground if you’d pushed a baby out of it,’ Leonie says.

‘How are you feeling now? About—’ Vee begins, even though she knows what will happen.

‘You don’t get to ask,’ Leonie says, ‘you know that.’

Vee nods, eyes on the road. ‘I know.’ She doesn’t blame Leonie for refusing to talk to her; she let her down. Leonie is punishing her by not telling her what happened to the baby. That hurts. And she feels an odd responsibility to the child that might have been given into her care, and to that fine, bright spark of Leonie that is out there in the world, now, somewhere.

10 April 2018

10 April 2018

Erica

This is not the Vee Erica first encountered, in the Photographers’ Gallery two months ago. She looked up glioblastoma and she knows personality changes are likely as the disease grips. She knows the survival rates, too. She’s amazed that Vee can walk through her life, day to day, with such hurt and care in her. But then again, she thought the same thing about herself, once. She didn’t believe she would live through losing her mother. And here she is. ‘It must have been amazing, to be here,’ she says. ‘When all that was happening.’

‘We were just getting on with things, Erica,’ Vee says, and then, indicating Tom, ‘like you are. We didn’t really know. We just—’ she pauses. ‘Everyone I met in the movement was there because she couldn’t not do anything. Your aunt too.’

‘And you.’ Tom grabs for her ear, rubs the lobe between his fingers. This is what he does when he’s tired, whether going to sleep or waking. Any ear will do. Erica cannot help but smile.

‘I was just – here,’ Vee says, and the way she says it, wistful and only half-believing, makes Erica wants to cry. Then Vee points downwards, towards one of the rocks that forms the base of the central sculpture. ‘Look.’