Laure sat down, and her face was now almost on the same level as Madame Raoul’s. ‘Restez tranquille, madame. If we agree it has a place in the museum I can see exactly where it would go. Tell me about it.’

Madame Raoul’s chest heaved. Laure put her bag on the floor and folded her hands in her lap. If this exchange was to be peaceful, she knew she must remain still and watchful.

The indrawn breath was laboured. ‘Being a woman is to be God’s beast of burden.’

Laure sat up. She had been expecting pieties, not iconoclasm.

‘You’re a professional woman and you will know. I was a farm girl who had no choice. Aren’t you ever forced to the conclusion that, in creating woman, He played the biggest joke?’ She was visibly struggling to breathe and Laure laid her hand gently on her shoulder. ‘The work of a God who’s a sadist.’

‘Does that mean that you do not believe?’ Laure glanced at the paraphernalia of faith arranged on the chest of drawers.

There was a long sigh. ‘It keeps them happy. My hatred of God is too much for them. I understand. It’s hard for them.’ Her eyelids drooped wearily. ‘We were raised with faith, hung like a key around our necks. I believed it. God was the Father and I was taught that my purpose was to obey Him and my husband.’

Laure waited.

‘Faith is a lie, madame.’

Madame Raoul’s faith? Or all faiths that came in many forms, including political ones?

‘God took two of my babies. Not content with Lucie, he had Jean as well. God wanted everything that was precious to me and made sure that He got it.’

‘Your husband?’

Madame Raoul fingered the pillowcase. ‘If you could look… if you could see, beneath my skin are bruises and scars given to me by the man who promised to love and honour me.’

The effort to make sense was enormous and she fell into a doze. Laure looked up to the window and the darkening sky outside. It went without saying that the dying must be allowed to vent doubt and distress. They must be given licence to ask the questions that, perhaps, they were not permitted, or did not have the strength, to express during their lives.

Madame Raoul woke as suddenly as she had slept and fixed on Laure’s face. ‘Nothing in life was as promised,’ she said. ‘I ask you to take the pillowcase as an example of how women are betrayed.’

‘Not all, surely?’ Laure said gently. ‘But some.’ Madame Raoul frowned and Laure continued. ‘Madame Raoul, we’ve only just met each other but I don’t like to think of you so bitter. Is there nothing I can say to help?’