‘Who’s going to want to look at an old wrinkled thing like me?’ she said. Her trump card was the cold; she couldn’t sit in the freezing garage Elise used as a studio. She held up her blotchy hands and claimed poor circulation. In the end I filled in for her, positioning a chair in front of a space heater.

I’ve since read that painters, like boxers, see more than other people. Instead of relying on the brain to fill in visual gaps, they train themselves to see what is actually before them. I can believe this after watching Elise’s face as she painted. The gaze she turned on me was coolly appraising, a gaze of pure seeing, stripped of any judgement, and it made me realise why Sylvie stayed away. She had a secretive streak. She didn’t completely trust anyone. Skilled at deflection, she hid her private self from view.

The truth was she was embarrassed about Charles’s silence. She was mortified, dismayed. It was Elise who bore the brunt of her ever-worsening temper. When she broke one of the last of Erik’s cups, Sylvie snapped, ‘Stupid! You’re so stupid!’ She was rude to the building owner when he ordered a decaf. ‘It’s the worst for you, the worst,’ she said with surprising force. ‘Do you know the chemicals they use to strip the caffeine out?’ She always regretted her sharp comments afterwards, and wished she could take them back. She renewed her offer to sit for Elise, but now it was too late, the works were already being hung. All that was left to her was to go to the private viewing and discreetly buy one of the paintings. To Elise, she said, ‘Next show, I promise. Why am I such a wretch?’

In trying to get her to send a photo to Charles, what we didn’t know was that she had sent one already, in an email just before the Great Silence. It was a perfectly nice photo, showing her standing by the counter. Not too close, she had told the customer who took it for her. Her dark hair was pulled back and her lips had a coral shine.

This was why she was upset. The Silver Fox hadn’t written back. Sylvie had no option but to carry on regardless, as she had after their marriage, before finding happiness with Erik. He was older than her, forty-one when they met, and also separated. He owned a shop in Australia Square that sold souvenir ceramics. Sylvie, a new hire, noticed him hanging around. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said. ‘I see you here but you never buy. Are you a spy or what?’

It was ironic that she’d said this, because in fact Erik had once engaged in a little light espionage. As a young man in Czechoslovakia he had passed information on the communists to British Intelligence. That was until the day he walked into a restaurant and saw his face among others on a wanted poster. He got out of the country, leaving everything behind, and wound up in Sydney, where he had to start again.