He had a home in Venice near the Piazza San Marco where the light, reflecting on the water, the age of the buildings and the colours of clothes hanging on lines in the jumble of the city, had inspired him. ‘He found decay strangely beautiful.’

I thought of the path Jack and I had made in our garden at home. We had wanted to make a circular walk from the house back to the jetty. The land dropped dramatically at the far west end to circle the swamp. Trees rose from the murky water like arms seeking the sun. The shapes of them were eerie, angular and broken, frozen in time and stripped of bark by the possums.

Lichen covered some of the branches in lacy patterns of the palest green and grey, like the faded, tattered clothes on a corpse. The brackish swamp with its rotting logs and grass did not have the easy movement of water; it was still, like the stillness of something thick with decay hidden and clotting underneath its surface.

Jack and I would stop working and stand there motionless, feeling something primitive and ageless. The silence pressed down like the heat, enveloping us, nudging us back to a time when this wilderness ruled, and we both knew that as fast as we hacked a path for some purpose, it would return faster than we could clear, to raze our time there.

‘Hundertwasser believes that within each of us is a compilation of memories, sensations, images, dreams and wishes, which he calls “Individualfilm”. In his opinion the role of art is to bring this material to a conscious level…’

I found him disturbing and closed the book and turned awkwardly on my side. I thought about Mohktar and Blythe wanting us to write what we remembered of that long-ago afternoon. Did Fleur and I have locked memories waiting to emerge after all these years? I did not think it was likely and somehow it made me uneasy.

I must have fallen asleep because Fleur woke me coming into the room and the sun had gone; it was almost dark. She had a cup of tea in her hand.

‘I’m glad you slept, darling.’

‘I didn’t want to,’ I said grumpily. ‘I’m not sleeping at night and I was going to try to stay awake in the afternoons. What’s funny?’

‘You. You always were a little grump when you first woke up. I’ll let you wake up properly.’

She went out of the room and I pulled myself upright. I drank my tea and went under the shower and washed my hair. I felt better. The worst aspect of pregnancy, I thought, was not being able to anticipate that wonderful first glass of wine.

Fleur had a glass at her elbow and was sitting at a corner of the table, writing. I didn’t disturb her or speak in case I broke her train of thought. I went to the fridge and got out a jug of fresh orange juice and then I walked out onto the balcony, which faced the sea. I didn’t want to churn up my memories of that dreadful afternoon; the exercise was pointless.