There was one painting that dominated: an impressionistic rendering of Rhosilli beach on the Gower Peninsula, fully six foot wide and three foot high. In the background was the beached wreck of the liner the Argentinian Queen, rusting away to inevitable collapse, the blue paint just visible beneath the encroaching rust. There were wispy mare’s tails in the sky, the headland merely a jagged profile in the distant haze. In the foreground, on the large and otherwise empty beach, was an orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour. Hidden beneath it were two bathers, partially obscured and sitting on a blue-and-white striped towel.

It was a remarkable painting, and I told her so.

‘It’s tolerable,’ she said with little emotion. ‘I call it: There will always be the Gower.’

‘I visited many times,’ I said, mesmerised by the painting, ‘when the wreck was about this intact.’

‘Collapsed into the sea now,’ she said, ‘the inevitable action of wind and tide. Did you ever stop off at Mumbles Pier for cockles, bacon and laver bread on toast?’

‘How could one not?’

There was a paint-spattered easel set up in the middle of the room, on which sat an unfinished portrait of a male nude facing the viewer. There was something special about the picture – a certain raw and very seasonal energy in a taut, well-filled physique. It wasn’t a coy rendering of a nude, either – every detail of his body had been meticulously represented. Every hair, every muscle. There was no part of him she hadn’t found worthy of meticulous attention – except his face. There were no features at all. The painting was all physicality, and no identity, except the shape of the jaw. It looked somehow familiar, as though I’d seen it before, and recently.

‘Friend of yours?’ I asked.

‘He was my husband.’

‘You’ll paint his face in last?’

‘The portrait’s finished,’ she replied. ‘He vanished one evening just before beginning an overwinter.’

‘What happened to him?’ I asked, and she flashed me an angry look.

I was, I admit, surprised by her reaction. People vanish all the time so it’s not considered an inappropriate subject. They found Billy DeFroid’s remains scattered across a car park come the thaw, and Sister Placentia was happy to tell anyone who asked – even down to which bits they never found.

‘I have my suspicions,’ she said, suddenly calming down, ‘and although I don’t know he’s dead, it’s been too long to assume anything other than the worst.’

She paused for thought and stared at the painting again.

‘Although his features begin to fade in my memory, his body I’ll remember always. The way it felt under my fingertips, the weight of it upon mine. He vanished the Spring before we were planning for a family. I’d bulked up especially for the confinement.’

‘O-kay,’ I said, embarrassed by her candour, ‘I’m sorry for your losses.’