‘We need to start training now, like marathon runners,’ said Aidan. ‘That’s the only way we’ll be able to get round the whole show. Don’t wear high heels or we’ll never make it.’

I laughed. Aidan gave me the look, the one that made my heart twist. I knew he wanted to grab me and kiss me but didn’t dare. I didn’t either. We spent a lot of time looking at each other in those days, as if we were both trapped behind glass. ‘I love you so much,’ he said. I said it back to him. It was what we did instead of touching. To us it seemed normal. I knew that most couples kissed or held hands before declaring love for one another, but I didn’t care. Aidan and I were all that mattered. We were perfect, just right. It was other people who were conducting their relationships the wrong way round.

Aidan turned back to his gold-leafing. ‘Shall we stay in a hotel in London?’ he asked, his voice giving nothing away. I knew what he was asking me. I said yes.

Every day after that, I thought about the art fair. Aidan and I talked about it endlessly. We’d looked on the website at the list of artists who were going to be exhibiting. Some Aidan had already heard of; quite a few had been his customers at one time or another. One or two still were. He wanted to show me some of the individual artists’ websites, but I didn’t want to look at them. I wanted to see everything for the first time on 13 December, the opening day. As the date approached, I started to worry about how I would feel when I didn’t have any of it to look forward to any more—Access 2 Art, our night in the hotel. I couldn’t bear to think that the two things I was awaiting so avidly would soon be in the past.

On the Thursday morning, we got up at 4 a.m., packed our overnight things in my black hold-all, drove to Rawndesley and caught the six o’clock train to London in order to be there in good time for the fair’s opening. We ate cooked breakfasts in a bar at King’s Cross station that was full of groups of loud men gulping down pints of lager and burping. ‘I can’t believe they can do that first thing in the morning,’ I said to Aidan, which prompted him to order a bottle of champagne.

‘There’s drinking and then there’s drinking,’ he said. ‘This is the first time we’ve been away together—we should celebrate.’

‘And it’s the art fair,’ I reminded him.

His smile vanished.

‘Aidan?’ I asked. ‘What’s wrong?’