Despite the broken night, I woke pre-dawn with the desperate urge to paint. Early morning had always been my most creative time and, now I had this purpose, that was all that mattered: the paint, the canvas, and the impressions that swirled in my mind. My fingers were buzzing, desperate to hold my brushes. In my head I was starting to see how the first portrait needed to look; it was as if a three-dimensional image hung in my mind’s eye. I lay still, feeling the shapes and the ideas that were still as thin as gossamer; feeling inside myself the movements that my hand would make with the brush to get those images onto the canvas. It was impossible to nail down these feelings – to conceptualize them – at this point. I knew I simply had to let them absorb into my being. I had to trust the process.

So, while the feeling was fresh – before any thoughts and practicalities, any discussions about what had happened in the night, could creep in and ruin it – I got up, threw a sweater over my nightshirt and went straight to my easel. I gently traced my finger over the tight fabric, picturing where on the canvas the head would fall, and the proportions and dimensions I might use. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply and examined the image in my mind, then I started to mark, very lightly, the key points. Without looking closely at what I’d done, I mixed some acrylics and began the first ghostly layer of the underpainting.

It was going to be a child, I realized as I worked. A pretty little thing – bright and luminous. I’d play with light to give her the glow of youth. It was hard to make her stand still in my head: she was dancing, happy, carefree, with her whole life arching ahead of her in a glittering path of opportunity. It was the essence of this promise I wanted to capture in her face and in the light of her eyes. I narrowed my own eyes, trying to project the image in my head onto the canvas as I worked. I don’t know how much time passed but it was fully light outside by the time Rohan appeared at the top of the stairs, fastening his cufflinks.

‘Morning,’ he said, planting a noisy kiss on my cheek. ‘How are you?’

‘Good.’ I didn’t move my eyes from the canvas.

‘Good. By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you: I think we need to get someone in to look at the oak. Did you hear it creaking in the wind last night? I don’t think it’s very healthy. I’m worried it might fall. Can you sort that out?’

‘Sure.’

‘Great. By the way, it’s quarter past. Isn’t it hospice day today? Tuesday, right?’