‘Why didn’t Martha’s parents give up the cottage after Martha died?’ I ask. ‘Why do they carry on paying the rent so that you can use it—someone who’s not even related to them?’

‘I’m a leftover from Martha’s life.’ Mary smiles. ‘Cecily doesn’t think much of me, but she wants me around even so—a dog-eared souvenir of her precious daughter.’

My eyes return to the mound in front of me. ‘How many paintings did you cut up to make . . . this?’

‘I didn’t count. Hundreds.’

‘Whose were they?’

‘Mine. I painted them and I owned them. Though for a while I thought I’d sold some of them to other people.’

I wait for her to say more.

‘Aidan used to tell me when my paintings weren’t good enough. He was always right, which made it worse. Eventually, with his help, it happened less and less often. He doesn’t find it easy to give praise, but the criticisms stopped. One day he asked me if I felt ready for my first exhibition. He mentioned a gallery I’d never heard of, said he knew the owner. If I didn’t mind, he said, he’d take my pictures to London for this guy to look at.’ Mary barks out a laugh. ‘Of course I didn’t mind. I was thrilled. Aidan took the pictures—eighteen of them, there were. Came back the next day with the best news—the gallery wanted me. They wanted to give me a show.’

I watch the happiness and excitement drain from her face as she remembers what happened next. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t ask to go to London with Aidan, see the gallery for myself—I did none of that, asked for nothing. Aidan kept saying, “Leave it to me,” and I did. When I asked him when the private view would be, he told me there wasn’t going to be one. This gallery never did them, he said. Now I know there’s no such thing as an art gallery that doesn’t do previews—they’re crucial for sales, and publicity. At the time, though, I was new to the art world. Aidan was the experienced one, the one who’d had a sell-out exhibition and residencies at Trinity College, Cambridge and the National Portrait Gallery. I believed what he told me. I said I wanted to meet the gallery owner who’d liked my work, but Aidan advised against it. “They hate it when artists hang around,” he told me. “Better to stay away, use me as a middle-man to communicate any messages.” He said the gallery owner was intrigued by the idea of me, and we needed to keep it that way by making sure I kept my distance. Like a fool, I fell for it.