I saw her into the cab. One man in a group loitering outside the restaurant noticed her and whistled. His friend shouted, ‘All right, darling!’ I held the door open for her in redundant chivalry (if any of those men had a spare four hundred pounds, they could call her what they liked), and walked slowly back to my front door. The night air was cold and sharp after the sleepy warmth of the flat. The rain had stopped, and the square was glazed with brilliant droplets. I looked back up at the lighted window, and saw Jessica waiting for me, leaning her shoulder against the wall, a drink in her hand, smiling down on me from behind a protective sheet of glass. I took the stairs slowly.

When I came in she did not speak immediately, but let her advantage simmer. We were alone in our world, boxed inside the four blue walls of my living room, a parcel of history like the ones from children’s birthday parties, unwrapped one layer at a time. I went to the table and refilled my glass, before reaching into the plastic ice bucket. It looked naked without the gaudy foil bulb of a champagne bottle leaning out of the top. The ice had sat for too long in the warmth, and I came up with a soaking handful of slivers. The biting cold of the water on my wrist felt right, like a little punishment, and chilled my blood.

‘I suppose all that money had to come bursting out somewhere,’ she said. ‘I like your flat but it hardly befits the two hundred and fifty pounds an hour, and you don’t seem to have any other hobbies.’

‘If you don’t like the flat you can leave.’

‘Did you know her name’s not really Alysha?’ she said. I had a sudden overpowering impulse to put my fingers in my ears and begin chanting.

‘I don’t want to know what her name is.’

‘Mary. I had an aunt called Mary.’

‘Stop it,’ I said, and I meant it as a command, but it came out as more of a plea.

She eyed me, deciding how far to push, and then relented with a magnanimous shrug. We sat in silence for a few moments, whilst I debated whether or not to tell her a story.

‘I tell you something else about that painting,’ I said at last, my mind made up. ‘I put in a lot of work. I could get the style, I mean I could copy the lines, but I couldn’t capture the essence, I couldn’t capture that lively, living quality that comes from the direct interpretation of the subject. I don’t know if it mattered to anybody else, I’m not even sure such a quality exists any more; reproduction can be exact, and the price people place on authenticity is obscene. But it mattered to me back then. Do you remember, in the first months of the summer, Francis and I used to disappear for whole weekends?’