‘He brought me back an exhibition catalogue. Nothing fancy, just a few sheets of paper folded in the middle and stapled. But it had the titles of my paintings, the dates of the exhibition, some biographical notes about me. I was so proud of it.’ Mary blinks away tears. ‘Aidan went back and forth to London—or I thought he did—to check on how things were going. Well; it was going well, that was what he said whenever he came back. He seemed genuinely pleased for me. My pictures were selling—I couldn’t believe it. One day Aidan came back and told me they were all sold. He even . . .’ Her face screws up in agony. ‘He had a sales list, so that I could see who’d bought what. There were nine names on it. I don’t need to tell you what they were.’

I have no idea what she’s talking about. How could I know who had bought her paintings?

‘The first was Abberton,’ she says softly. ‘Don’t say the others, please. I can’t bear to hear them.’

A shiver runs the length of my back.

‘Aidan took me out for dinner that night, to celebrate the sell-out. That’s when I betrayed Martha.’

‘You spent the night with Aidan.’ I’d prefer to say it myself rather than have her tell me.

‘No.’ Her face sets in a mask of displeasure. ‘Aidan and I have never had sex. Martha slept with him, and I knew what a failure that had been.’

‘How did you betray Martha?’ I ask.

‘I told Aidan that if I had to choose between a happy, fulfilling personal life and my work, I’d choose the work. My painting. He smiled at me when I said it, and we both knew what it meant: that we were the ones, that Martha had never been like us. We’d discussed it, you see—Aidan told me Martha had admitted to having lied to the journalist who interviewed them.’ Mary squints at me. ‘Did I tell you about that?’

I nod.

‘She pretended she’d choose her writing, when really she’d have given it up like a shot if she could have kept Aidan. He despised her for lying. He despised her shallow attitude to her work—he didn’t want to be with someone like that. Martha didn’t deserve Aidan, she never did.’ Mary presses her hand against her mouth.

‘Tell me about the exhibition,’ I say. Eighteen paintings. Eighteen empty frames on Aidan’s walls. But I don’t know there are eighteen of them. I never counted.