‘I’m sure people would love to see you,’ and she adds, hurriedly, ‘not to make a speech, or anything. Just to be there.’

Vee smiles. ‘I might come out in a while.’ She’s not sure that she will. But she does want to support Erica. She feels as though she should, as though she owes it to Leonie, in some odd way. And maybe, just maybe, she is ready to be proud of what she, Veronica Moon, has achieved, instead of angry at what she lost.

Knowing at last that she did try to save Leonie makes her genuinely happy. If happiness is possible, and if the tumour isn’t tricking her. Whatever she thinks she has now is uncertain.

Erica is waiting. ‘You should be out there. It’s your night.’

Erica sits down, and looks straight into Vee’s face. ‘I haven’t said thank you. I will – out there. But I wanted to say it, now. This exhibition – all you’ve done for it. It’s more than I could have thought possible. And – you’ve helped me to understand.’

‘Understand what?’

‘Well, more about the history, of course, but that’s – that’s’ – Erica puts her hand to her temples – ‘that’s the past.’ Would that it were, Vee thinks – the tumour seems to be aligning all of the parts of her life that she still holds, childhood and adulthood and this creeping exhausting death, as though it’s all laid out in two dimensions in front of her. Too much flash, no depth of field. ‘But talking to you has made me realise things about my own life.’

‘I’m glad I’ve been of some use, Erica.’

‘I feel as though I’ve woken up,’ Erica says, ‘and I feel as though I have choices, again. I haven’t felt like that for a long time.’

Vee reaches out a hand, and Erica leans forward and takes it. ‘You have choices,’ she says, ‘and you’re allowed to make mistakes. Just make them because you chose the wrong direction, not because you stayed asleep.’

‘Yes,’ Erica says. ‘Yes. Thank you. For everything.’

‘If you cry, you’ll smudge your mascara.’

Erica smiles, half-laughs. ‘Fuck my mascara,’ she says, ‘I’ve got better things to think about.’

And for all that there’s so little Vee can trust in her mind anymore, she trusts this feeling, the one that is filling her, now, of pride in knowing this woman, of certainty that she is looking at Leonie’s daughter. ‘Go,’ she gets out before she starts to cry, ‘go and make the most of this.’