‘Bit of both maybe: Rob got back early from training last night. He said he was playing like a numpty.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t care, it was just nice to have him around for a bit. We had a barbie and then the three of us watched that new Marvel Avengers movie.’

‘Sounds great.’ Certainly better than her evening had turned out, anyway, dwelling on the past over a bottle of rosé. ‘And did you talk to him about how you’ve been feeling?’

Lucy looked across at her like she was mad. ‘No! Why’d I do that? We were having a nice time. Why spoil it with a downer?’

‘You don’t think it’s important he knows you’re feeling lonely?’

‘Not really,’ Lucy mumbled, looking sharply to the left and studying the Adoration of the Magi, her face turned away from Charlotte.

‘Lucy, do you think your feelings don’t matter?’

‘Well he’s the important one, let’s face it.’

‘He’s the breadwinner, that’s a different thing. And it certainly doesn’t make him any more important than you. Your role in the household is crucial too. Vital, in fact.’

‘Listen, you just caught me at a low ebb, that’s all. I’m fine.’ As if as proof, she held up her arms, the designer shopping bags swinging from her hands à la Julia Roberts, evidence of her productive morning before their meeting here.

Charlotte wasn’t at all convinced, but they left the room and walked down a long, vaulted, light-filled gallery. Black velvet ropes were looped along the run, keeping the hordes from getting too close, weary visitors slumping on benches, backpacks at their feet as they gazed up in cowed admiration at the epic depictions overhead. A troupe of schoolchildren were moving en masse to an audio tour, headphones on as they sloped from one painting to the next, talking too loudly whenever they wanted to ask a question or make a comment.

Charlotte tried a different tack. ‘So, back to painting – how are you going to set about getting into it again? Do a course?’

‘Oh nothing like that. I was just thinking I’d get some brushes and canvases and give it a go at home.’

‘I would strongly recommend doing a course.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s sociable, for one thing. You’d get to meet other, like-minded people.’

‘But then they’ll find out who I am—’

‘And who’s that? Lucy, a twenty-three- year-old English woman, married and mother to a little boy, relocated to Spain for her husband’s work. That’s all they need to know. This is an arena where you can be you in there and not Roberto Santos’s wife.’

Lucy wrinkled her nose. ‘It never works out that way though. People always find out.’

‘Not everyone is impressed by money or fame.’

‘Everyone we meet is.’

‘So then change your social landscape. You might be surprised to find that anyone you met on a drawing course would be far more interested in you as an artist than in your husband. To them, your marriage should be just a detail, incidental. You have to stop defining yourself through the prism of Rob’s career. At the moment, that is all you see yourself as: his wife. But it’s suffocating you and you need to see that is only one side to who you are. Who are you in your totality? Mother, wife – yes. But what else? You have so much more to offer.’ She saw the doubt in Lucy’s still-unlined face. ‘Do an art course, join a class. I really don’t think you’d regret it.’