‘Would you?’ she says. ‘That would be so kind.’

She leads the way through the house, shifting chairs unnecessarily as we go, to clear my path.

As she unlocks the door to the workshop, she turns and says, ‘I made a sale yesterday, a significant sale.’ She leads the way in and pulls the door wide open so that I can fit through with the boxes. ‘On the second table, if you wouldn’t mind.’

The first is busy with pieces of timber, the frame in progress for the sold item, no doubt. The room is more of a mess than yesterday, with piles of folders and clustered objects on the floor. The near half of the wrapping table is clear. As I drop my armful of cardboard on it, Ellen turns the light on and lifts a plastic sleeve from the shelves near the door.

‘Are you aware of incunable leaves?’ she says, holding the sleeve by its corners. There’s a document in it, a book page with two columns of writing on it.

‘I know deciduous leaves, but I’m guessing that’s not the same.’

She laughs. ‘Correct. It’s a Latin word, used to mean a connection with infancy, the beginning of something. In this case, the beginning of printing.’

She holds the sleeve out for me to take. The page it’s protecting is a creamy colour, with dense black writing – chiselled downstrokes and curly letter tails – and a title that reads The Lyf of Saynt Luke.

‘It’s English.’ I point to the title. The rest is smaller and harder to read. ‘An old version of English. I was expecting Latin.’

‘And you would be right to.’ She stabs enthusiastically at the air between us with an index finger. It’s a classroom gesture. ‘Very sound thinking. A full seventy per cent of incunabula are in Latin and fewer than one per cent English. An incunable work is one printed before January first, 1501. An incunable leaf is a page from a book printed by that time. And that’s what this is. Some I buy individually, like this one. Others I pick up at auctions, where I might get, say, a section of a broken Bible, leaves but no binding. That’s the most common. Not by Gutenberg, you understand, but others. You’ve heard of Gutenberg?’ She stops herself, and holds up both hands as if the stop needs to be signalled as well, to remove all doubt. ‘I’m sorry. All this history . . .’

‘No, tell me more.’ She has broken the seal on something, and I need the rest of it. ‘If I’m holding a piece of paper that’s more than five hundred years old, you’ve got to tell me about it. I have heard of Gutenberg, and his Bible. Him and Caxton. That’s about it.’