‘I think that the youths … I think that he was quite excited when he was painting them. They would do anything for a little money, for the drugs, you know, for the petrol, for a new leather jacket … anything. They were all in the studio. I never went there, I don’t know what happened, but I can imagine. I can imagine a lot of things.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I felt invention was starting to creep into her story.

She shrugged, sat forward slowly, hands clasped on her knee. ‘No need. Really no need. To be sorry, I mean. We had not been lovers for, oh, for some time. I cooked and washed and even posed for him sometimes. He had such terrible feelings of guilt and depression, he tried hard to come back, do you follow? But he could not … I did the garden, picked the fruit, I made the jam, I did all the things a good wife should do. Except sleep with him. We never did again, you know? I shared his bed – we had only one as you have seen, surely? But I never shared his body, and he never took mine, after the first two years.’

I remembered the sadness and bewilderment in the portraits which I had seen in the studio and compared them with the calm, almost casual woman now at my side, her back against a pillar.

‘But why on earth did you hang on, stay with him when you must have realized that everything was finished and done?’

‘Because, foolish as it may seem to you, I loved him with all my heart. He was my life, there was no other life without him. As long as he needed me, even as a servant, sharing a barren bed with him, I would stay. It was impossible for me to leave him. I am certain that you will find that difficult to understand?’

‘Not difficult, really. But foolish perhaps. However, finally you did go … so …’

She pushed her hand through her hair roughly, keeping the torn thumb clear of the fringe that fell about her forehead.

‘Yes. Finally I did go. When I found the letter on the table, saw the ashes in the stove, the smashed palette in his studio, the mess and confusion there … I realized that he had gone for good, escaped, and that I had to accept my fate. Life, anyway, had become as worn and threadbare as an old slipper, we hardly spoke to each other, except perhaps for simple things like “The supper is ready” or “Do you want salad?” Nothing else.’

‘But why! Why!’

She suddenly got to her feet, looked at her watch, straightened the belt of her cotton skirt. Briskly. ‘We must go. I shall be late. You know all that I can tell you now.’

I remained seated on the step.