Vee follows. She starts to form a question about how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other, but decides not to bother. To Ursula, she has always been one of Leonie’s feminist friends, a separate category, presumably, to merely ‘friends’, who must be the ones who don’t upset the status quo. Though all of Leonie’s friends are feminists, because Leonie wouldn’t waste her energy on anyone who wasn’t. Ursula steps aside so Vee can make her way in to the kitchen-diner at the back of the house. ‘Let me know if you need anything,’ she says, and then she makes for the stairs.

Her old friend is sitting in a chair by the window; she raises a hand, but doesn’t get up. Vee is filled by an undamed hot rush of love for the woman who put her on the path to where she is now. Leonie is all she has left.

‘Leonie.’ She bends and embraces her; the familiar warm eyes, bright and quick, have never changed, and neither has the smell of lavender, clean and a little antiseptic, which Vee associates not just with Leonie but with the years they spent together in that flat. It’s hard to remember how infuriating Leonie was, now; she remembers only her friend’s generosity, her need to make the world understand how urgently women must be freed, not only from the patriarchal structures they inhabited, but from the ones in their minds.

‘Hey, sister.’ Leonie puts a hand to Vee’s shoulder. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘It’s good to see you too.’ Vee straightens. It’s strange, to tower over Leonie. ‘And I’m so glad about – about how it’s all worked out.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Leonie says, but there’s a smile there. Vee’s glad. It seems that America has been good for her friend.

‘Yeah well nothing,’ Vee replies, ‘you deserve this.’ She’s looped the camera around her neck now – she’s never seen any reason to move on from her trusty OM-1 – and she’s going to take a few shots just to get Leonie relaxed. There’s a blotch of colour on the side of her neck which suggests she’s embarrassed; sweat on her lip, though it’s anything but warm in here. Vee’s assistant, Annabel, had scouted the location earlier in the week, and come back with a sketched plan of the kitchen-conservatory, and light readings. It looked good on paper and it looks good in person.

‘Does that chair swivel? If you can move so you’re facing the window, we should have everything we need.’

Leonie laughs, ‘From your mouth to God’s ear. Not that she exists.’ She shuffles her feet so the chair is facing towards the window. Spring light and enough cloud to soften the sun: Vee can work with this.

‘When’s publication?’

‘Fifteenth.’

‘How’s it going to go?’