‘Who’s the topless bunny with the blade?’

I jumped with fright and spun round.

Standing in the middle of the room was a woman wearing paint-streaked dungarees and a large and very baggy man’s shirt. Her raven-black hair was knotted high in an untidy bun that was secured with a pencil, and she was drying some paintbrushes with a rag. She was looking, not at me, but at the painting of Clytemnestra.

‘I’ve got a better question,’ I said. ‘What are you doing in my apartment?’

She turned to look at me and I was suddenly struck by her dark and brooding good looks. She had piercing violet eyes, a faintly Ottoman appearance and high, expressive eyebrows. She was about ten years older than me, and was, without any question, an extraordinary-looking woman. But her appeal was more than simple beauty; there was a bearing, a spirit, a strength.

‘The door was open and I was intrigued,’ she said, ‘and anyway, it’s not your apartment,’ she said. ‘It’s Suzy’s.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said somewhat awkwardly, ‘right.’

It was not a winning response, but I was transfixed not just by her looks, but by her manner, a heady mix of allure and confidence. I knew then that I would never see a more striking individual as long as I lived.

‘Still awake?’ I asked.

‘I like to stay up,’ she said. ‘I live four doors down. Never came in here, though. So: who’s the bunny?’

‘It’s Clytemnestra,’ I said, walking closer.

‘Ah,’ she said, suddenly understanding, ‘the premeditated viewpoint.’

We both stared at the painting for a moment.

‘And,’ I added, trying to sound intelligent, ‘a cautionary lesson in co-hibernating.’

‘We never hibernated together, my husband and I,’ she replied absently, ‘not after watching Zeffirelli’s Winter Crossed Lovers.’

She was referring to the scene where Romeo wakes to find Juliet next to him, expecting his bride but instead finding little but taut skin stretched across her bones, and the dark stain of putrefaction upon the bedsheets. I saw the film when I was nine, and that image never leaves you. Years later, Baz Luhrmann played the scene entirely on DiCaprio’s face. He didn’t need to show us Juliet’s remains; Zeffirelli had already planted the horror in our minds.

‘Did it work out for her?’ asked the dark-haired woman. ‘Clytemnestra murdering her husband, I mean?’

‘She and her lover got to rule Mycenae for seven years.’

She nodded approvingly, still staring at the painting, but I was more interested in her. The nape of her neck, her unpierced ears, and her jet-black hair that seemed to have a soft luxuriance about it. She turned and caught me looking at her, so I looked away, then realised that was too obvious so looked back – and felt myself fall into her gaze, as one might fall into the charms of an exceptional painting.

‘You’re a Winter Consul,’ she announced.