As I walked up to the house I twisted buds off with my fingertips.

The man who opened the door wore a jumper with a dribbled soup stain on the chest and corduroy trousers which had balded at the knee.

‘Miss Aitken?’

And when I nodded: ‘How do you do?’

‘How do you do,’ I answered. I love these little tests that the rich administer: How are you? they ask, waiting to see whether you’ll say good instead of well.

I presented the spiny bunch of native flowers I’d brought, and the man poured me a gin and tonic.

‘You look like an artist,’ he said. ‘Are you an artist? A painter?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘What do you paint?’

My old pudenda. ‘I’m mostly interested in the female form.’

‘Aren’t we all,’ he said, casting a sly glance and pulling on his drink until he made a sucking noise like an emptying bathtub.

He offered to give me a tour and show me the other paintings in their possession. ‘It’s not really a collection,’ he said. ‘More of an accumulation.’

His wife joined us, in from the garden and smelling of fresh earth. Her grey bob knew not to touch her shoulders. She padded along in her gardening clothes, saying very little.

‘Anyway,’ the husband said, ‘I suppose we should get down to business.’

We fetched the crates from my car, the wife watching from the verandah.

The paintings I would be taking were in the library. This was a high-ceilinged room, which could have been grand if they cared about grandeur. As it was, an elderly cat chewed determinedly at its claws on the rug, and the wife extended one foot, its cashmere sock drooping, to stroke the animal’s head with her toes.

‘Are those the paintings? On the desk?’ I asked.

‘Indeed. Our very own “contested treasures”.’

‘Mr Foster says it’s a miracle they’ve survived,’ I said.

Mr Foster was what I had to call Leonard in situations like this.

‘Oh yes,’ the man said. ‘I’m not too fond of them – I find them a little vulgar, to tell you the truth – but our relatives on the continent managed to smuggle them to an aunt in New York. She died, and her son brought them here, and the family has dwindled, so I suppose they’re ours now.

‘What about you?’ he said, and his smile showed the brown grout between his teeth. ‘You’re a painter. What do you make of them?’

It’s strange seeing valuable works outside a gallery. No context, no hush, no-one to say don’t touch, don’t stand too close. The pair of paintings were of an artist and his wife. The artist had done well: a series of commissions had left him ruddy-cheeked and bursting out of his silver waistcoat. The wife smiled wanly. She leaned her chin on her hand; the dog at her feet was silky and idiotic.