‘Exactly. You’re not allowed a voice of your own, here. Not if you’re trying to be factual. You have to be poetic. So the powers that be, the MEN, can write it all off as . . .’ she twists her face into a simper, ‘feelings. Which they can then ignore. Some of the sisters are talking about setting up a magazine, but—’ She makes a gesture that encompasses despair and impatience.

‘I’m sorry, Leonie.’ Vee doesn’t know how hard it is to get a book published but she knows for a fact that Leonie is good enough.

‘I know you are.’ There’s a real smile, this time, and Vee feels her face light in return. Then Leonie remembers something else. ‘Or Australia. There’s a book you need to read by a sister called Germaine Greer. It’s interesting. She’s right about quite a lot of things. Maybe half of it.’

‘Is that good? That she’s getting some of it right?’ The thought of Leonie in America or Australia – how much would a plane ticket be? – gives Vee a sort of indigestion of the heart.

‘Yes and no,’ Leonie says, ‘good for consciousness raising. Bad because now the patriarchy can point at her and say, but we’ve published a book about woman and sexuality and how we men hold women back. Why do you need another one, darling? You keep writing your pretty words, by all means, but the position of the woman with unpalatable truths about female bodies is taken.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘The thing is, the establishment holding me back – I’m used to that, you know? But the sisters should be behind me.’ Leonie shakes her head. She looks as though she might cry. ‘They should be willing to try. The editor I talked to today – she’s a woman. She’s a friend of Jo, you know Jo?’

‘Yes.’ Vee probably does. She hasn’t spent enough time with the feminist crowd to be able to put all the names to all of the faces.

‘So I hoped, y’know? I thought, an editor, a woman, one of us. But it looks like she only got there by playing it safe. Not drawing attention to the fact that she’s a woman. Jeez! This is so not cool. If we only do what’s safe—’

Leonie is getting louder. People are looking round. Vee knows she shouldn’t feel as though there is anything wrong with making a noise. ‘What didn’t she like? This friend of Jo’s?’

Leonie glares. ‘That’s the question I asked. Not that I would change it. But she just said it “wasn’t right” and  “wasn’t for them”. Coward.’

‘Sounds like it,’ Vee says, and adds, ‘but you are the bravest person I know, you know, so . . .’

The glare is replaced by a smile, but not a nice one. ‘Well, that’s something. Braver than all the housewives in Essex.’