Damn! thought Thea. I’m going to be stuck in the kitchen with Petal when I want to be there when Ben sees Rory’s work! ‘I’m going to make more coffee,’ she said getting up. ‘Who wants some?’

There were enough requests for coffee and tea to justify Thea evacuating to the kitchen, taking as many dirty plates as possible with her. If they dawdle over their coffee and Rory has a cigarette, I’ll have this lot done and can go to the studio with them, she thought. Petal can dry up. ‘Molly, what are you going to do while Ben sees Rory’s pictures?’ she called, swooping and dunking her way through the washing up.

‘Oh, Molly,’ said Rory, reaching his hand across the table. ‘Are you not going to look at my work, then?’

‘To be honest, Rory, if pictures aren’t of anything I can recognise, I really don’t understand them. I think I’ll do some telephoning and find a hotel as there’s not room for us here. We’ve got the decorators in at home and Derek prefers me to keep out of the way.’ Molly smiled back at Rory in a way which told Thea that last night, when they were downing pints of porter, or chasers of Paddy, or Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, Molly and Rory had become friends.

‘Can I come?’ asked Petal, shyly eager.

‘Sure, come one, come all,’ said Rory gaily.

‘We can dry up later,’ said Thea.

Led by Rory, Ben, Toby, Petal and Thea trooped up the hill to Rory’s studio. He unlocked the shed, and he and Ben began dragging canvases out into the field. Thea didn’t comment, but she felt their power again. They were breathtaking, the colours so deep, made of pigments so pure that they could change from almost black to the most intense hue, depending on the light. They were so enormous that no ordinary house could fit one through the door, either. Rory had told her that one of the reasons he lived such a hand-to-mouth existence was the cost of the paint.

When they were all outside, leaning against bits of hill like huge, resting walkers admiring the view, Thea went back down the hill to look at them from a distance. She didn’t want to hear Ben’s opinion, or Petal’s, or Rory’s explanations. She just wanted to look at them while she could.

Later, Petal skidded down the hill to join her. ‘Ben’s very keen, but he says it’s going to be hard to find somewhere to exhibit for a couple of years. It’s because they’re so big. Rory says he’s already waited long enough, so he’ll take them off to America where they understand “large”.’

Thea felt instantly proprietorial. They were British pictures or, at least, Irish. They couldn’t go to America to be exhibited.