That first day she had seen him. He and his mother were moving in. Connie had passed him on the stairs with an easel under his arm. She’d been intrigued by the easel, intrigued by him. Older than her, eighteen or nineteen. Tall and broad-shouldered with those brilliant blue eyes and dark, unruly hair. Like Heathcliff, or Rochester. Or any of those heroes (or anti-heroes) she loved so much in books.

For a while, Connie had tried her best to coincide their exits and their entrances, but Johnny left at dawn and returned at a mysterious hour when she was still at school. Then her mother had become ill and Connie had stopped looking for him.

One day, after her mother had died, and Connie had left school and started working in the bookshop, she was crossing the hall, shoulders heavy with grief, when she heard footsteps behind her and a voice. It was Johnny, saying he was sorry for her loss. She’d been touched by his words. It was a beginning and had grown into an exchange. The two of them had met regularly in a kind of rhythm, seeming to mirror each other’s movements in the house.

He had told her he worked at Smithfield, which he hated because he wanted to paint. She had asked if she could see his paintings and he’d invited her to the attic where he had set up his easel in a corner away from the crates. That first time she had emerged from the staircase into the attic, it was like bursting from mist into sunlight. The sunbeams piercing the rooftop windows; the light and shade and texture of his paintings; the slashes of colour, the peacock blue and sunflower yellow. The space smelled of oil and turpentine and something dark and musky which Connie would soon learn was Johnny’s scent.

She had looked about her in awe, admiring the beauty of his art, captivated by his talk. He had spoken endlessly about which painters he admired, how he wanted to live like them, study at the Slade like them. He would give anything to go to Paris. That was the place to be, or New York, but he had no chance of affording that. He had little chance of getting to Paris either, not with the amount he earned at the fucking meat market.

Connie had listened to him swear. No one had ever sworn like that in front of her: not her mother, nor her father, nor her friends. Nor even Kenneth or Vincent. No one else swore so easily and openly, no one talked about life so darkly. It didn’t occur to her that he had never asked her about herself, and it didn’t occur to her to tell him that she had a dream too, that she wanted to travel and to be an author.

She had stopped writing. She had stopped dreaming. She had stopped remembering how fervently her mother had told her not to stay still or to get caught out by a man. It had been enough to be with Johnny.