Erica’s hand goes to her face, and she traces the bridge of her straight, unassuming nose with her finger. ‘Absolutely,’ she says, making steady eye contact with Vee. There’s a smile in her voice, a glint in her eye, and Vee feels a grudge of admiration for Erica’s style, even if she doesn’t approve of her actions. ‘And you would have done too, if you had my aunt Leonie’s nose.’

Vee nods, stops her tongue.

It’s busier than she would have thought a gallery would be on a Tuesday afternoon. There’s a constant stream of people interrupting Vee’s view of the media wall. It’s showing a piece about the nipple, how we hide it and eroticise it.

She still always arrives everywhere early, even though it’s a long time since that mattered, much. She wished she’d waited somewhere else. She’s not really likely to be recognised, now, but, if she was, the Photographer’s Gallery would be the place it would happen. Strange, how she fears to be spotted, and at the same time burns for the recognition that should have been hers.

While Erica unwinds the long navy scarf from her neck, Vee takes a sideways look at her. She must be nearly forty. Though Vee finds it harder to tell how old people are, these days, because they all seem young. Erica is wearing boots with heels high enough to tip her off balance, jeans, and an emerald-green coat, new-looking, but with a crust of something spilled and dried near the hem.

‘I’m sorry you had to wait,’ Erica says.

‘You’re not late. We said two, and it’s two.’ This generation apologising for everything is something the sisterhood of Vee’s younger days wouldn’t have believed. Along with the heels. Women of 2018 still crippling themselves for the sake of a patriarchal notion of beauty? It beggars belief.