‘I hate to say this,’ Thea eased off her shoes and eased her hot feet on the cold marble. ‘But I think I’m galleried out. How many have we seen?’

‘Only half a dozen and I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you to do the last couple on your own. I’ve got a hair appointment.’

‘Lucky you. Can’t I come with you? I’ve seen so much art, so many galleries and not a sniff of Rory.’ Thea was very tired and on the verge of becoming deeply depressed. ‘It might be best just to forget about him and carry on with the degree show.’

‘You can’t give up now! I’m really into this guy now you’ve told me so much about him. And even though I only had time to glance at his slides, they seemed great.’

‘Mm. Imagine them twenty times the size, or whatever. But I’m shattered.’

‘I know. We’ll pop into the Wallace Collection for a bit of therapy.’

After so much contemporary work–some of which Thea found intensely stimulating and exciting and some about which she just wondered what the point was – the Wallace Collection was a haven. Time seemed to have stood still there for centuries and Thea was quite happy to stand still with it. ‘I’d forgotten there were so many old masters here,’ she whispered to Magenta.

‘I know, and while the National and the Tate have them too, they’re not so easy just to step into and wander.’

Thea stood in front of each painting for ages, staring at fur you could almost run your fingers through, at velvet so soft and dense you wanted to drape yourself in it, and pearls more real than anything she had ever actually worn in her own life. ‘Can people still paint like that?’ she murmured to Magenta. ‘Nothing we’ve seen today implies that they can. Perhaps it’s a skill that’s been lost.’

‘I got the impression from the slides that your Rory could.’

Thea turned to her friend. ‘You’re right. I thought it was just the subject matter, landscapes so bright and vivid they’re like winter sunshine after months of fog and rain. But it must have been the quality of the painting that made them like that.’

She cast her mind back to when she first dragged his paintings out on to the Irish hillside and saw them properly. The same prickles of excitement she had then stirred the hairs at the back of her neck. No, it had to be she who brought his work to the eyes of the world. She’d earned the privilege.

‘Let’s go and find him.’

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen