“Can’t you just see it?” he said, as I fought another sneeze. “The floors all polished up and glossy, and the walls painted? I was thinking white at first, but perhaps something dark would be classier, to make the portraits stand out. And we’d have to sort out the lighting and the frames, and we’d have to think about how to present the show: maybe starting with that sketch I did the first day we met, and working through chronologically? It could be a kind of story that people follow round. Or we could put all the drawings in one room, and all the paintings in the other? I’m not sure—what do you think? We could call it Portraits of Freya, or maybe . . .” he drew a curve in the air, as if to reveal my name in lights “. . . maybe just Freya. And for the opening we’d have Byrne Hall decked out in all its glory, with the chandeliers working, and flowers, and music, and a champagne fountain . . .”

I broke away and wandered on my own round the room, running my fingers over the fraying wallpaper as if its condition interested me in the least. Some small and furtive creature—a mouse?—scuttled behind the skirting board, and I comforted myself with the thought that Cory’s scheme would come to nothing. The house was too tired. Nobody would be interested.

“I caught a bus this morning, while you were still asleep,” I said. “I didn’t plan to. I walked into town and just . . . got on.”

Cory stood still at last.

“A bus?”

“To the hospital. I thought your mum might appreciate a visit. I bought her a bunch of flowers in the foyer shop.”

I turned to look at him and his eyes dropped to the ribbon of wallpaper in his hands. He frowned.

“If you mean the main hospital on the edge of town,” he said, “she isn’t there.”

“I know that now.”

“The place where she is . . . it’s more like a hospice . . .”

“Oh.”

I felt awful when he said that, and my suspicions seemed silly. I couldn’t even articulate them in my own head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be interfering. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing; I just thought she might enjoy having a visitor . . . Maybe we could go together some time?”

It was intended as an olive branch, but Cory snapped.

“She doesn’t want visitors. For God’s sake . . .”

I held my hands up. “I’m sorry.”

Cory made a vicious rip in the wallpaper and I didn’t know what to do. I approached him cautiously and put my arms around his waist. We stood nose to nose, for minutes on end, while I searched his eyes for some way in.

“Talk to me about this exhibition,” I ventured. “I love to see you all happy.”