‘And so it’s—’ Vee takes another gulp of her drink. ‘Control. Yeah, control. I took photos at my little cousin’s wedding last year. Her mother was a cow to me when my mum died. I was only eight. She told me I needed to grow up. And so I cropped a little bit of her out of every photo I took. Top of her hat, end of her legs. She’d got these new shoes, went on and on about them beforehand, how pricey they were. Them shoes ain’t in one single photo of that wedding.’

Leonie laughs, a throaty half-bark, head thrown back, shoulders rising. ‘Woman, beware woman.’

‘It was nothing to do with her being a woman,’ Vee says. ‘It was because she was a cow.’

‘Well, good for you. So you like – control.’ Leonie takes a drink. ‘What else?’

‘Hiding,’ she says.

Leonie cocks an eyebrow.

‘Nobody sees the photographer. I mean, they see you, but they ain’t interested. They only really see the camera. So you’re not the centre of attention. Not if you don’t want to be.’

‘Why wouldn’t you want to be the centre of attention?’

She will never know what makes her say the next thing. Maybe it’s that she’s already mentioned her mother’s death. ‘I hated it when my mum died. There was just me and my dad. People came and they wanted to help but it was like – like the zoo. If you cried, they were all over you. If you were normal, they said you were in shock. If you made them a cup of tea you were brave and good. I couldn’t stand it.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ Leonie says. ‘When my father died and me and my sister were the same. A friend of our parents’ came to pick us up from boarding school. We barely knew him – he used to come to dinner parties, but we were always sent to bed – but he still told us that we had to pull ourselves together for our mother’s sake. We didn’t even know his name.’ And everything that’s intimidating about Leonie – the voice, the stride, the way she swears and doesn’t seem to care, the kiss, the armpit, the general lack of apology that seems stitched into her – drops away. It doesn’t matter. Vee isn’t out of her depth anymore. Because all she’s doing is sitting at a table with a woman who looks as though she might understand. Leonie sighs, smiles, drinks, and then the bravado’s back. ‘So, you have power, and you have invisibility. And you like it. And you want to use it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Welcome to feminism,’ Leonie says. ‘We need sisters like you.’