I felt myself slipping, my hand moist on the wheel, my head lolling. Aidan caught me. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked. ‘Do I need to take you to a hospital?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, rousing myself. ‘Just tired, hungry, thirsty. I’ll go home and—’

‘No, you won’t. You’re in no state to drive. You’re coming with me.’

He helped me out of the car, supporting me with both his arms. I felt my skin fizz, like a sort of electrical charge, when he touched me. He turned me round, pointed me in the right direction, and I stumbled back to the workshop, leaning on him. ‘Have you got any flat Coke?’ I muttered into my hair, which was falling in front of my face. I started to laugh hysterically. ‘My interview technique’s even worse than yours,’ I said. ‘This is me applying for a job.’

‘I’ve already told you, the job’s yours.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Yeah, you do,’ he said mildly. He paused when we reached the door of the workshop, looked at me. ‘You want it and you need it. And I’m not only talking about money.’

‘I don’t—’

‘I’m the best at what I do. This is where you want to be working. I’m stubborn, too. See these shoes?’ I looked at his feet. ‘I waited two years for them. Someone recommended me a guy in Hamblesford, makes his own shoes. A proper craftsman. I went to the shop and he told me he had a two-year waiting list. I put my name down and I waited. I could have gone to another shoe shop and bought some mass-produced crap, but I didn’t. I waited the two years, because I knew what I’d be getting was the best. Rain and snow and mud were pouring into my old boots, but I still waited.’

Aidan looked embarrassed for a moment. Then he went on, ‘Hansard told me you were first-rate. He’s crap at framing pictures, but I trust him where people are concerned.’

I made the crassest, most idiotic comment: ‘Pity your shoemaker didn’t have any elves to help him.’

Aidan completely ignored it. Maybe he never read The Elves and the Shoemaker when he was little. ‘What were you going to say before?’ he asked. ‘About art?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You started to say, “There’s nothing more . . .” ’

‘It’ll sound stupid.’

‘So?’ he said impatiently. ‘I want to know.’

‘I’m . . . kind of obsessed with art,’ I told him, blushing. ‘That’s why . . . that’s how I came to be working for Saul.’

Aidan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You a painter yourself?’

‘No. Not at all. I’d be hopeless.’

He nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because it’s a framer I need.’ He led me through his messy workshop to an even messier room at the back. My eyes passed quickly over the unmade bed, the mounds of clothes, books, CDs, unwashed cups and plates. I forcibly silenced the voice in my head that was saying, ‘Okay for a bloke in his early twenties, not so okay for one in his forties.’ That was the sort of opinion my father might hold, and I didn’t want to share anything with him, not even an opinion about something trivial.