‘I thought about it. But I wasn’t at my best.’

Erica looks from one woman to the other. ‘What are you two talking about? How does your camera work?’

‘Nothing important,’ Leonie says.

At the same time, Vee offers, ‘I can show you, after I’ve taken Leonie’s photograph.’

Erica nods. ‘Are you going to take a picture right now?’

Vee drops to one knee, so her lens can be level with Erica’s face. ‘Yes, I am.’

So Erica – that precious only, that child whose every move is special, who must hardly spend a day unphotographed, judging by the studio portraits on the walls, the clusters of framed family images on shelves and tables – does what she knows to do. She poses. First there’s a grin, wide and fake, and then she turns to Leonie and kisses her on the cheek. Vee thinks she has caught the second before Leonie looks startled/horrified, pulls away. She definitely gets the next, where Leonie wipes her cheek and Erica laughs, and Leonie smiles too, though it’s directed towards Vee, not her daughter: a rueful, ‘what can you do’ smile, an expression Vee has never seen on Leonie before. Click.

‘Erica!’ Ursula’s voice makes them all jump. It’s followed by the tap of her shoes down the stairs, through the house, coming closer.

‘I’m in here, Mamma. They won’t tell me why they were laughing.’

Vee gets to her feet, waiting for Leonie to let go of Erica, and for Erica to run to her mother, whose footsteps are speeding up, the way they would to a forgotten pan left on the hob.

But Leonie pulls Erica closer, tickles her at her waist, and Erica squeals, laughs. ‘Vee and I were laughing because we were tickling,’ Leonie says to Erica in the kind of voice that she obviously imagines women use towards children they love, high-pitched and wheedling, ‘like this!’

Click, click, click. Vee can never resist unexpected movement smudged across a photograph, the way it plays across an image and gives it life and light.

Erica gets a hand free, and tickles Leonie at her neck. Leonie moves her head to the side and takes Erica’s fingers in her mouth, a play-snarl. She looks as though she is actually enjoying herself; Erica’s whole body shouts out its laughter, its unexpected pleasure from an aunt she obviously doesn’t know that well. Her legs are flailing and her baby-toothed mouth is wide, her eyes bright, a hairclip working loose. And then Leonie puts her hand on Erica’s face, cups it, and the two look into each other’s eyes with – with what? Vee can’t identify it; it’s more complicated than love, both more and less than affection. She can’t identify it, but she can capture it. Click.