Leonie is quiet in the taxi. They are back at her flat within ten minutes; almost as soon as they arrive, Leonie goes out again, saying she’ll be back soon. It’s almost eleven – not late, not really, but it’s been a long day, and all Vee really wants to do is go to bed. But she does the washing-up and puts some things in the bin. She did the same the last time she was here. Leonie accused her of being indoctrinated by patriarchal values of what a woman’s role should be, but it’s really not that: it’s just a desire for order. She had framed it to Leonie as a characteristic of a photographer, not a woman, and Leonie bought it, though she grumbled that her cleaner sorts it all on Mondays so it was a waste of Vee’s energy.

Leonie comes back half an hour later, with a bottle of wine and a pizza on a plate from the restaurant around the corner.

‘C’mon,’ she says, ignoring the cleaned-up kitchen table, ‘let’s eat on the sofa.’ Vee hasn’t eaten pizza before. She watches as Leonie folds a triangular slice over and eats it like a sort of hot sandwich, and does the same. Her fingertips sing at the heat, but she doesn’t mind – this doesn’t seem like a knife-and-fork meal. It’s delicious, tomato and cheese and slices of something black and round that is probably olive. Dad might like it. He likes cheese on toast.

‘I was hungry,’ Vee says, ‘I didn’t realise.’

Leonie grins, and puts the plate on the floor. ‘I’ll look after you.’ She wraps her arms around Vee, who feels herself brace before she relaxes. Leonie feels it too: ‘Be cool. I’m not going to kiss you.’

‘It’s not that, it’s just . . .’ Vee doesn’t have the vocabulary to tell Leonie about the way she thinks about her, sometimes, a feeling like she used to get with Barry. Though Barry had to work a lot harder than Leonie to give her that warmth in her belly. And how strange it is, because up until that local counsellor came out recently, Essex has always appeared to be a lesbian-free zone, and she had never ever thought of herself as someone who could love a woman. Not like that.

Before she can even begin, though, Leonie says, ‘I think I might like men best. There’ve been a few. I’m wondering. Not that I’ll give up women altogether.’

Just when Vee thinks she’s getting the hang of something, it changes. ‘That’s . . .’ she begins, but the only word that comes to her tongue is ‘good’, which she knows won’t do. So she switches to a question. ‘Do you have to choose?’