‘I did.’ Vee only got around to it recently, and it made her laugh.

Oh. OH.

Erica Jong.

Zipless fuck.

‘How old are you, Erica?’ Leonie asks. Erica holds up a hand, fingers spread, thumb against palm, ‘I’m four. I’ll be five on the seventeenth of November.’

Leonie tilts an eyebrow at Vee, nods. ‘There you go. Straight from the horse’s mouth.’

Vee scrabbles back through her memory, to the conversations she had with Leonie at Greenham Common. ‘So, Ursula? Why didn’t you say?’

‘I did say.’

‘I’d have remembered.’ Erica is watching them, gaze tick-tocking from face to face. Leonie is waiting, watching Vee too. It’s uncanny, the two of them. ‘I asked and you told me to fuck off.’

‘Don’t swear in front of my niece,’ Leonie says, with a not-quite-smile, and Vee glances towards the child, who is standing there with three shocked rounds where her eyes and mouth were a moment ago.

Do you apologise to a child? Vee doesn’t remember anyone ever apologising to her, except to say they were sorry her mother had died.

‘And then I said?’ Leonie asks.

‘You said a sister helped you out.’

‘I said my sister helped me out.’

‘Oh.’ Vee looks at Erica, her fists on her hips, now, her shock at Vee’s swearing dissipated and her original curiosity, apparently, returned.

‘What were you laughing about?’ the child asks. ‘I could hear you from upstairs. You disturbed me when I was playing.’ And Vee can’t help it, but she starts laughing again, because Erica looks so outraged. And because her mind is trying to absorb this apparent living, breathing truth, in front of her: Ursula helped her sister out, by taking her baby. And Leonie helped her sister out. Ursula must have wanted a baby.

‘So, Ursula is your sister’s—’ how to phrase the question, ‘only child?’

‘Yes.’ Leonie nods. ‘There were problems, so—’

‘What problems?’ Erica asks.

‘The adults are talking,’ Leonie says. The sharpness in her tone would have most children running for cover, but Erica, it seems, really is her mother’s daughter.

‘Yes,’ she says, feet unmoving, hands on hips, ‘but you’re talking about me.’

Then, the most unexpected thing from Leonie, who holds out her arms in awkward invitation. There’s a second when birth-mother and birth-daughter are eye to eye, but Vee isn’t quite quick enough with her camera to catch it. Erica goes across to Leonie, and rather than climbing into her lap, turns and waits to be lifted. Leonie puts her hands under Erica’s armpits and hauls; Vee takes a photograph then. It’s not going to be a good shot – she really just does it to see if Leonie objects. Leonie doesn’t. Over Erica’s head, Leonie says, ‘I should have thought about putting a clause in the agreement. About pink. And all that goes with it.’

Click. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t.’