‘She wrote him a few more letters, to which he didn’t reply,’ she resumes her toneless cataloguing of the facts. As she sees them. I wonder what Aidan would say if he could hear her telling the story. Would his version of it be different? ‘Everyone told her to forget him, which was disastrous for someone like Martha—the very worst thing to say.’

‘It supported her idea of them as doomed lovers, with the world against them,’ I say. When Mary smiles at me, I feel something that’s not easy to distinguish from pride, and it scares me. My desire to please others isn’t safe. I wanted so badly to please Aidan. And Stephen Elton. For a while, I thought I had, did, both of them.

‘What is it?’ Mary asks.

I don’t want to tell her what I’m thinking. I’ve surrendered too much of myself already.

‘Don’t you believe me?’

I nod.

‘You don’t, not entirely. You’re not sure. It doesn’t sound like the Aidan you know. That Aidan’s kind and loving. On the other hand, you can’t explain his recent behaviour, and you hope I can. You need me to be able to, so part of you wants me to be telling the truth. That part believes me.’

She’s right. ‘You make me sound schizophrenic,’ I say, to hide my discomfort.

‘There are divisions within every person. Especially those who are forced to bear unbearable pain. That’s what trauma does—it divides you against yourself: the need to survive versus the desire for oblivion.’

One half dies. The other half lives.

I think I’m starting to understand. ‘Did Martha hang herself because of Aidan?’ I ask. ‘Because he rejected her?’

‘Yes. But that was much later, after they’d had sex,’ Mary says. It seems not to occur to her that this might be hard for me to listen to. ‘They met again in 1999. Someone decided to round up young, promising artists and writers and the like, and parade them in the press like performing monkeys. Martha and Aidan were both chosen. You can imagine what she made of that.’

‘She thought fate had brought them together again.’

‘She was right. Martha was Aidan’s doom, and he was hers. Why do people assume fate has their best interests at heart?’

‘I don’t,’ I tell her.

‘You’ve got more sense than Martha, then. She tried to turn herself into the person she thought Aidan wanted her to be. She lost weight, changed the way she dressed . . .’

‘Had he said he didn’t like her appearance?’