‘I didn’t know that. My mother never really talked about her much. Or you. Well, not in a . . .’ she looks sideways at Vee, measuring, decides it’s OK to say it, ‘. . . she wasn’t kind about you.’

‘That’s understandable.’ It all seems a long way away, now. Until Vee lets herself think about Leonie, properly, and then it’s as immediate as the ache of the stitched flesh around a two-day wound. ‘Truth be told, your mother and I never had a lot of time for each other. Even before.’ What Vee remembers most about Ursula Woodhouse is the way that she smelled of flowers, wore pastel colours, as though she was trying to be all of the feminine that she thought Leonie was not. Though she could fight her corner as well as Leonie. Ursula and Vee could never, ever find anything to talk about. Even before it all went to hell. Vee puts her hands to her head. Her temples feel tender to the touch.

‘I didn’t know that.’ Erica’s tone tells Vee nothing about whether she wants to hear more. The noise in the gallery is growing, or maybe being amplified by the headache. Vee has painkillers in her bag, but no water to take them with. It’s probably too late for them to stop it now. Though there hasn’t been a headache as bad as this one threatens to be in years.

‘Ursula had a low opinion of most of Leonie’s friends.’

Erica laughs, something sour running beneath it. ‘It was hard to square what my mother was like with what I knew about my aunt Leonie. It always seemed odd, that two sisters could be so different. I used to think of them as the feminist and the anti-feminist. But later’ – Erica runs her hand through her hair, her fingers tracking from her forehead to the top of her spine – ‘I realised my mother wasn’t really anti-feminist. She was . . . I think she was anti-uncertainty. She didn’t like anything that made life unclear.’

‘No wonder she was so uptight,’ Vee says – it’s out before she can stop it, but she puts her hand to her mouth all the same – stable door. ‘Erica, I’m sorry. To me, your mother is someone very . . .’ oh, where are the words? ‘Very abstract. We hardly saw each other. We didn’t have much in common. I forgot that’s not the same for you.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does. She was your mother.’

‘She couldn’t have done more for me,’ Erica says.

‘Neither could my mother.’ Vee feels Erica’s body tilt towards her, ever so slightly, and tilts her own away by the same degree.