He insisted on ordering cognac for them both before he started. Only when it had arrived and he had taken a large sip did he finally begin. ‘Well, I was an art school whizz-kid. I went early, taught myself to draw and, at first, followed the party line. At that time anything representational was considered naff. Only abstract or conceptual work was thought worth anything. Do you know what I’m talking about?’

‘I am on an art appreciation course. I have heard of Tracy Emin.’

‘Sorry. I was forgetting. Where I come from people mostly think an unmade bed is an unmade bed.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, I did the conceptual stuff, the dustbins full of road kill, the giant aquarium with amputated limbs suspended in jelly. And I did the abstracts, great swirling balls of fuck-all, which I made out represented “anger” or “grief”. And I wrote statements about why I did what I did that would make you sick. Come the degree show, I did what I wanted. Paintings, drawings, of things you could recognise. I thought I’d be slated, but no, that came later.’

He took a sip of brandy and Thea sensed that there was a certain amount of pain in what he was about to tell her.

‘My degree show was a fantastic success. I was hailed as the next big thing and I met a beautiful woman who introduced me to the owner of a Cork Street gallery. So far, so fairy tale.’

He regarded Thea directly and she knew she had been right about the pain. ‘Go on,’ she said gently, her curiosity too much aroused to spare him.

‘To cut a very depressing story short, I got offered an exhibition, accompanied by as much hype as you like – far more than I liked – and I blew it. I got completely wrecked before the show even started and didn’t stop drinking until I passed out. In the morning it turned out I’d insulted every major critic in the business and vomited over a major gossip columnist.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘Yes. So the bastard critics trashed my work, and said I’d never come to anything and would end up painting greetings cards.’

Thea winced. ‘What did you do?’

‘Buggered off round the world. I travelled for a bit and then settled in Ireland. Now I make a bit of a living painting people’s dogs and horses. Sometimes their children. I like the dogs best. But I don’t do frigging greetings cards.’ He said this last so bitterly Thea could tell it all still hurt. She put her hand on his wrist; there was nothing she could say to make anything better.