‘Not before lunchtime!’ she laughed, as if I were joking, so I turned and she followed me up the stairs. On the landing, I stopped. I’d arranged the paintings as I wanted them to be seen in the gallery: the young girl first, followed by the others. ‘You go ahead,’ I said, and I watched as she made her way up the steep attic stairs, then paused on the threshold with an audible gasp.

‘Oh my!’ Her hand covered her mouth. She moved deeper into the attic, her figure silhouetted in the light from the window, and I followed.

‘Oh my,’ she said again.

She backed across the attic to take in all the paintings at once, tilting her head and nodding as she looked. Then she scrutinized each one in detail, taking in the way the light rose and fell on each canvas.

‘A lifetime on canvas. Incredible,’ she murmured, lost in her own world while my nails made marks on my palms. ‘What happened? What happened to her?’ she murmured as she examined the later paintings. Eventually she stood up and turned to me.

‘Abigail, I wasn’t sure how you would translate from those… terrifying, almost post-apocalyptic landscapes to portraits, but these are… phenomenal. Really phenomenal.’ She chose her words carefully. I bowed my head.

‘But what’s happening? I see both love and hate. Love in the beauty of her features, and the care you’ve taken with the brushwork, but then – goodness me… I wouldn’t want to be her,’ Francesca said. ‘There’s a lot of negative emotion, too. As if you want to wipe this face from existence. And then this one.’ She looked at the baby. ‘Again, so completely different. So warm.’

‘This is my favourite,’ I said, not knowing that the words were going to come. I touched the baby’s face; stroked her cheeks, her rosebud lips. The face was bathed in such golden light I expected the canvas to be warm from the sun. ‘So much hope,’ I said. ‘So much promise. The world unfolding at her feet. Everything there for her to take. Who knows when we’re born how it’s going to end?’ I took another swig from my glass. ‘Who knows in life? If only we had the choice to be born, or not…’ I broke off because suddenly I was crying. I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose. ‘Sorry.’

Francesca touched my arm, her face creased with concern.

I steadied myself, sniffed and swallowed. ‘I’m fine.’

Francesca nodded and smoothed her trousers from where she’d been squatting down. ‘It must be emotional. I get that.’ Another squeeze of my arm. Thankfully not the bandaged one. ‘With work of this calibre,’ she continued, ‘I think we can do a launch specifically for your exhibition – invite the big guns. The media, buyers, some celebrities. I’m seeing champagne, canapés.’

‘Really?’ My voice was a squeak.