‘When my mother died in 1683, I cried without tears. There was no longer any hope. Her heart was encased in a silver box in the chapel at Val de Grâce, her coffin laid out in state. The Court went into official mourning. When my time came, I was buried in a simple plot behind the convent chapel.

‘If only they had killed me at birth, because when I ascended the skies, there really was no St Peter waiting at the pearly gates, no everlasting happiness in paradise, as pure and virtuous as I had always been. Just this.’

Stanley’s instinct was to pull this woman through the mirror, into the twentieth century. To dress her in slacks and a modest blouse, to initiate her into a world where she would have choices.

‘Yes, just this,’ he echoed, raising his arms as if to reach out. ‘A half-life, neither here nor there –’

‘What the flaming heck are you doing talking to yourself, Stanley Whateveritis Williams? Leave you alone for a few minutes and you’ve gone off your trolley.’

Jessie had replaced Louise-Marie in the mirror.

‘I was talking to … the Black Nun of Moret …’ Stanley trailed off, disappointed. He had wanted to empathize with the odd little creature. To say she made him realize how grateful he was to have had parents who made sure he was given opportunities that their own immigrant selves were not. How it was only when his father was old and weak that he began to feel compassion, albeit one drenched in resentment. She had prompted the question he now thought to ask Jessie: What was it like to grow up without parental love?

‘You do have a sense of humour after all. Sorry for earlier, I’m an erratic bitch. Never said I was easy. Never said I was boring neither. Give us a hug, then.’

Jessie’s cheek rested against his back.

‘You’re real, flesh and blood,’ he said, as if he expected her to pass through him and end up hugging herself.

‘No, sawdust and plastic. Are you done now? I’ve had enough of this poncey place. Thank God for the French Revolution. Let’s drive to Paris tomorrow. I want to be among the living.’

No, he wasn’t going mad, he reassured himself. A black nun. If he didn’t tell Jessie now, it would be harder later. He began, tentatively, ‘I was talking to someone. You won’t believe this, but she’s called Louise-Marie, an adult but built like a twelve-year-old … She’s been wandering in this palace for over two hundred years, daughter of –’

Jessie flapped her arms. ‘Was she wearing a white sheet and going “Oooooh!”?’

It really did sound ridiculous, but he persisted. ‘She made me think of you. Raised in a convent without parents. What was it like, Jessie? Tell me?’