‘There was some stuff in the car with her. That’s gone, but the gallery sent the rest back to me for my decision. I haven’t made that yet.’

He stripped a curlicue of peel and let it fall onto his plate.

‘I was quite pleased that some of her work went with her. I liked the notion that she arrived wherever she was going with baggage, a passport. Just a passing thought. A late night, no sleeping thought. You understand that.’

‘I do indeed.’

‘People said she was good. I couldn’t say. They looked good to me – perhaps a bit obscure. She used to have to explain them to me. I have no background of looking at paintings, only the rubbish you get in churches here. Saints, holy-looking people. And of course the awful things that most people hang on their walls.’

Neatly he broke the orange into segments and made a pattern on his plate. He stared down at them.

‘Vitamin C,’ he said at last. ‘She always used to say that. She made me eat an orange every day. “Don’t forget your vitamin C,” she would say.’ Abruptly he pushed the plate towards Clara. ‘You eat it. I don’t want it.’

She picked up a piece and put it in her mouth.

‘Go on,’ she said.

He looked bewildered.

‘Tell me more about her.’

‘She is escaping. Little by little. I feel every time I mention her name or talk about her in any way that a little bit more of her slips away. Out of my mouth. I am losing her in my breath. Soon, I feel I won’t have anything of her left. I will have to look at photographs of her, and maybe I’ll even wonder, Is that really Caitlin? Who can that be? Did I know that woman once?’

Clara sighed. ‘Eat some orange.’

Obediently he put out a hand and took a segment. He put it into his mouth and chewed; a trickle of juice trailed from the corner of his lips.

‘I thought I could keep her locked in my mind. Bright. Quite unchanging.’

‘I don’t think anyone can do that. I really don’t think anyone should want to do such a thing. It’s a bit like imprisoning a spirit. ‘To the elements be free, and fare thou well …’ That’s what Prospero said to Ariel.’

‘Ariel was enslaved.’

‘I think you should say the same thing to Caitlin.’

He took another piece of orange and chewed at it angrily.

‘What do you know about it? What do you know what I should and shouldn’t do with my life? What do you know about love?’

She didn’t think there was much point in answering.