• ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ by Band Aid was number one in the singles chart for five weeks

• The first episodes of Crimewatch and The Bill were shown on television

• Anita Brookner’s novel, Hotel du Lac, was published

• The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks was published

• Sisterhood is Global: The International Women’s Movement Anthology edited by Robin Morgan, was published

And it’s a big year for Leonie Barratt, who is finally getting the recognition she deserves.

July 1984

July 1984

Colchester

‘You’ll find, Miss Moon, that your father left everything in excellent order for you.’ Derek Davison is her father’s solicitor and the son of an old friend of his, and Vee hasn’t met him in person before now. It’s been easier to do all of the paperwork related to Stanley’s death by post. But she’s come back to Colchester to deal with the loose ends. (She doesn’t like to think of them as loose ends. She will never tidy her father away.)

She has made sure the house has been cleared properly. She’s taken all she wanted after the funeral and employed a house clearance company to do the rest. Once she’s finished here she’s going to meet Barry, who had come to the funeral and been more than decent afterwards, showing her photographs of his kids and joking that the photographs she took of him back in the day must be worth a fortune. He’s the manager of a branch of an estate agent now, and he’s going to sell the house for her. She knows she can trust him to do it properly, and to treat her like a human, rather than a woman. Though she still feels animal, really. Raw at being in a world without her steadfast father in it.

She doesn’t like Derek Davison very much. He didn’t thank his secretary, who brought in a tray with teapot, teacups, sugar in a bowl and milk in a jug, and left it on a table close to the end of his desk. If he’s waiting for Vee to pour it, he’ll wait a long time. He’s reading through the papers; Vee would have expected him to have done so already. She doesn’t turn up to a shoot and then start loading film into her camera.

‘It’s Ms, not Miss,’ Vee says. ‘We had discussed what would happen, when he died, and I was aware of what was in his will.’

The solicitor nods. ‘Of course, there is only you. As a beneficiary. Which makes things simple, from a legal point of view. Will you be selling the house?’

Vee notes how he’s sidestepped her correction to ‘Ms’. ‘Do you need to know that?’