The studio was enormous. Empty save for the easel and the stool, the scatter of brushes, some trembling scraps of discarded bubble-paper, a roll of sticky tape. On one wall, which I had not noticed before, a page torn from a magazine of a Cézanne Sainte-Victoire pinned to the plaster. And that was all there was left of James’s presence.

Aronovich was putting his pen away when he came up to the terrace, smoothed his hair, accepted his beer and we both sat on the little tin chairs looking down the garden to the gate and the truck, its bright orange paintwork glittering through the greening hedge, bumping down to the road.

‘I am surprised that Florence appeared hostile to you. She is a reserved girl but never, I thought, hostile,’ I said.

‘You were no threat to James.’

‘Were you? Surely not? With the help you gave him.’

‘I was associated with his “threats”. The Jacquet boy, with whom he was greatly infatuated for far too long, and against all advice, and the wretched Jojo, who excited him. They were from the Millar stable. Not attractive. Attractive in one way, naturally, but dangerous in others.’

‘And Madame Prideaux? The same dislike?’

Aronovich leant forward, his elbows on his knees, glass in one hand, a small smile on his lips.

‘She hated me deeply. I was part of the threat. I am a Jew. I helped James, and the family indeed, to survive by selling his pornographic drawings to rich Arabs and inverted Japanese. Being indebted to someone like me destroyed her.’

‘How would Madame Prideaux know about the drawings? Florence?’

He shrugged, shook his head wearily. ‘I imagine so, yes. Daniel Jacquet and Jojo were often at the house. This house. In the studio.’

‘To do what, do you suppose? Two louche young men?’ Aronovich wiped his lips carefully with his fingers. ‘To pose for him. You could say.’

‘I see.’

‘I wonder if you do? Sidonie Prideaux was often here also. After the child was born and they had … separated. She was here to help with the child. It needed, as it still must do, constant attention. I came here very little. To collect work.’

‘And she hated you? Because you were a Jew? Why?’

‘My dear fellow. A Jew in France? The French are anti-semitic. Always have been. I was pretty shocked when I arrived here: I was so certain that France was the haven for the displaced, the unwanted and reviled. You know? Perhaps it is, but a fine line is drawn against Jews. They only hate the “pied-noir” more, the people from Algeria. Prideaux, with her class, her age and profession, army, was particularly loathing of Jews. Dreyfuss. Remember?’

‘Isn’t that extreme?’

‘Yes. So was French behaviour towards us in 1940. Extreme! Oh yes. Extreme.’