What a thing to be part of. What a night to remember. Who’d have thought that she, Veronica Moon from Colchester, daughter of a carpenter and a part-time shop assistant, could be here, her voice one of many crying out for a new world? Yet here she is. Time to get to work, properly.

But now the first excitement is over, Leonie – much more used to this kind of thing than Vee, of course – is on a real downer about her book being rejected. Once alcohol hits her system, her disappointment starts to show. She is telling the others around them about her book, about how she has been let down by her sisters, her words oppressed. She gets unsteady and goes to sit on a step.

‘You should take her home,’ Jo says to Vee, ‘she’s an ugly drunk.’ Vee looks across at Leonie, who is silent now, her head in her hands, probably not being hassled by the police because she looks like a tipsy old man in the half-hearted light from the street lamps. She’s tempted, for a moment, to photograph her. She tells herself not to – it wouldn’t be kind.

She scans the crowd for faces she knows, and faces that look like the faces she is thinking about: old faces, tired faces, faces with double chins. Leonie has given her a set of keys to the flat, in case they were separated at the demo, so why not just get absorbed into the crowd, seek out the people whose names she knows and start with them? Kiki’s here, Fen and Jo too; they could be the place to begin. Leonie can fend for herself. Vee will catch up with her back at the flat.

She glances back at Leonie, who hasn’t moved, her head still in her hands. She’ll be fine here. She has sisters all around her.

But then Leonie looks up and around; as soon as she sees Vee, she smiles with unguarded relief. Vee smiles back. Nothing is more important than her friend. Help a sister out, Vee says to herself. Leonie first, photographs tomorrow.