For her, in middle age, politics had been liberation: from housewifery, from suburban life, from the endless train of laundry and perfectly frosted cakes.
She was the lady in the yellow dress, simple, bespectacled, plain not just in her housewifery but also in her demeanour, a contrast in every way to the stylish Imelda, who was still stuffing the boudoirs of the presidential palace with frocks and furs and shoes, shoes, shoes.