‘That’s it, you walk away.’ Leonie’s sneering has become her default position. The friend Vee moved in with – nurturing, helpful, inspiring – is someone she rarely sees, these days. And she misses her.

‘I’m doing my job.’

‘You’re letting everyone down. And we trusted you. We let you in.’

‘For crying out loud, Leonie.’ Actually, she is not taking this, not this time. ‘You never used to be so . . . elitist. You made me feel like your equal. There were plenty of women who would have laughed me away because I didn’t know how to be a feminist, but you didn’t laugh. You knew what I needed.’ Vee rarely cries, and yet here are tears. ‘I know everything you did for me. And now it’s – it’s this? Just because I don’t do what you’re doing? Just because I’m not—’ the word is out before she can make it stop, ‘failing?’

There have even been times when Vee has wondered whether Leonie is trying to sabotage her. Yesterday was not the first time her darkroom door has been opened by accident. She almost missed the chance to photograph Judi Dench last month, because Leonie didn’t pass a message on. Sometimes her keys are in places where she knows she didn’t leave them. It is starting to look like sabotage, at worst; at best, a plea for the kind of help that Vee isn’t qualified to give and Leonie isn’t prepared to accept.

But Leonie says nothing. After a moment, she gets up, goes to the fridge, and takes out the cheese that Vee bought.

Vee doesn’t comment. She steps round Leonie, towards the door, and asks, ‘You’re definitely not coming?’

‘I’m not up to it,’ Leonie says, ‘whether you believe me or not.’

There’s a cue here for Vee, and she knows it. Sit, talk, reassure. Make Leonie feel better. It’s what a friend should do. What a sister should do. But this time she’s not going to do it. She has her camera bag to pack, rush-hour to negotiate. ‘Suit yourself,’ she says. And she locks the darkroom from the outside before she leaves.

15 May 1977

15 May 1977

‘LEAVE THEM, TREASURE,’ STANLEY SAYS, as Vee gets up and goes to the kitchen with the plates, ‘I’ll clear up when you’ve gone. You’ve got better things to do than washing up now, anyway.’

He doesn’t mean it to sound the way it does, Vee knows. He’s proud of her. ‘I can do it, Dad,’ she says.

‘I know you can,’ he replies, and then he picks up the magazine she brought to show him, with her latest shoot in it. ‘Mother Teresa. Who’d have thought. My girl going all the way to India to take a photo.’