When she died, finally, I wanted to keep her ring. They sawed it off for me, her knuckles having become monstrous with arthritis. I never had it repaired. I tied the broken thing to a length of fine chain, and still wear it around my neck, where the rough edges graze the skin of my breasts.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ I say out loud sometimes, though I’m not sure what I’ve done.

Mum had wanted me to marry Leonard.

‘He’ll be good for you,’ she said, when she realised I was never going to stop painting and become a bank teller or a florist. ‘You could have a nice life.’

Leonard has a nice life, I thought, imagining his housekeeper’s hands picking over his freshly laundered Y-fronts, finding the ones that were old, bagging, losing elasticity, and throwing them in the bin.

Could I have woken up every morning smelling Leonard’s sour breath, advising him about his hair, choosing his shirts, pretending to care about his little rivalries with other curators, other galleries? Maybe. Maybe that’s what happiness looks like: balding, greying, stroking a cat with a foot clad in cashmere, dribbling soup down your chest.

The hitchhiker asked me for a cigarette.

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘No worries.’

He started drumming his fingers on his legs, whistling tunelessly. The car in front of us was a huge black SUV with tinted windows, driving below the speed limit. I tapped the brakes.

‘Sunday driver,’ I said, stretching my fingers. It wasn’t something I’d usually say. It was something my mother would say.

‘Yeah. Fucken cunt,’ the man said. He turned and looked at me. ‘Sorry for the language.’

I shrugged. I told him it was all right.

He flipped down the sun visor and peered at his face in the mirror, then turned to look at the back seat.

‘What’re those?’ he said.

‘Oh nothing,’ I said. ‘Some paintings.’

‘Paintings?’ he said. ‘Like… art?’ He fluttered his hands in the air.

‘Yep.’

‘Are they yours?’

‘You mean – did I paint them?’

He hesitated for a moment. ‘Yeah. Did you?’

‘No. The guy who painted them died a long time ago.’

‘Is he famous?’

‘Not famous. Well known, maybe.’

‘Huh.’

‘I paint too, though,’ I said after a moment. ‘I’m an artist.’

‘Oh. That’s cool,’ he said. ‘Are you famous? I mean, “well known”?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Maybe once you’re dead.’

I gave an awkward laugh.

‘Maybe.’ I glanced at him.

The SUV turned off the highway. I could accelerate again.

‘I paint portraits,’ I said. ‘Studies of people.’

He was looking at his filthy fingernails. I felt a surge of boldness.

‘I’d like to paint you.’

‘Me?’

He looked up.

‘Yeah. I think you’d make a great subject, actually. You’ve got good bones.’

He laughed his wheezy laugh, then balled his hands into fists and ran them up and down his thighs.