There were two women in the gallery to the left of the front door, conversing quietly with their backs to the pictures, and they didn’t acknowledge my entrance. I strolled from painting to painting, drinking quickly and allowing myself to seethe. It was as if I’d only ever peeped sideways at Cory’s work until the other week, when I found the Stellas in the attic. That had been my moment of revelation; the slap across the face that had shocked me into seeing straight. I’d made so many excuses for him over the months—he needs time; he needs practice; he needs to know me better—as if the problem with the way he painted was simply a question of skill.

I could admit it now, to myself; I could admit how much I hated Cory’s pictures. I stared hard at all the Freyas, with their drugged eyelids and puffed-up breasts; their milky whites and jaundiced yellows; their dead faces like masks with no one behind them. Freya Reading a Book . . . Freya Sleeping . . . Freya by the Window . . . Freya Sitting on the Stairs . . . Freya with Her Chin in Her Hand . . . Freya, Freya, Freya upon Freya, looming from the black-red walls.

The women were still murmuring as I left.

“That was my thinking precisely,” I overheard one of them say, “but apparently she’s ill.”

“Oh! So you mean she’s not going to put in any appearance at all?”

“Apparently she’s not well enough.”

The second woman tutted with annoyance and the first one said, “I know.”

There were no pockets on the red dress but the sleeves were capacious, and I’d worked out a way of tucking my phone inside the cuff where no one could see it. I went upstairs to the landing and leaned over the bannisters while I searched for Tom’s number. Everyone was standing about vacantly down in the hall, like people on a railway platform whose train is still some minutes off. A few were gravitating toward Dad; a few were still drawn to Lady Caroline’s lipless smile. I could only see the tops of their heads from here, and it struck me that nearly all Cory’s guests were white-haired, or greying, or bald. They were Diana’s generation—not his.

I turned my back on the party and carried on climbing. It wasn’t that I wanted to return upstairs. Going upstairs had been on the long list of never agains that I’d been ticking off all day—never again will I have to wake up on this mattress; never again will I have to get dressed in front of Cory; and, at long last, earlier this evening, never again will I have to climb these stairs. All the same, it was restful to leave the cold, glittery gathering behind and push my way into the darkness.