It took him a while to soften, but I think it was the right thing to say.

The pasta shells had gone past their use-by date, but they looked and smelled all right, so I clattered a few handfuls into the pan and covered them with boiling water. There wasn’t anything that would do for a sauce, except a tin of tomatoes at the back of a cupboard, and the date on that was illegible.

“We ought to go shopping.” I glanced round to see if Cory was listening, but he was absorbed by his laptop.

“What are you reading?”

I left the cupboard door ajar and leaned over the back of his chair. His hair tickled my nose and I breathed in its musky scent.

“I’m researching gallery walls,” he said. “A lot of them are dark red, aren’t they? Look . . .” He clicked through several tabs. “These are rooms in the Louvre . . . the National Gallery . . . the Fitzwilliam . . .”

I snorted.

“What?” His fingers froze over the keyboard.

“Nothing.” I burrowed into his hair. “I’m just admiring your ambition. National Gallery . . . Louvre . . . Byrne Hall . . . Why not?”

The pan boiled over, extinguishing the gas flame, so I kissed the crown of his head and returned to the hob. I stirred the pasta with a fork and opened the tin of tomatoes, aware of having created a silence. I told myself he was entitled to be touchy, because of his mother.

“Come to think of it,” I said, “the walls in the main room of the Wingate Gallery are a kind of dark, velvety red. They used to be, anyway. I think they still are.” I was trying so hard to sound serious that I came across—to my own ears, at least—as ironic.

“The Wingate.” Cory’s voice had a cold and peculiar emphasis. The pasta wasn’t ready, but I drained it and stirred in the tomatoes anyway.

“How will you . . .” I didn’t have a question at the ready, but I felt an urgent need to move the conversation along, one way or another. “I mean . . . Who were you thinking you’d invite to the opening?”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” He gave my “interested” face a hard stare as I brought the bowls to the table. “All I need is my mother’s address book. It might be a few years out of date, but it’ll be full of contacts: dealers and collectors and so on. She used to be quite a mover and shaker on the London art scene. I’ve told you that before, haven’t I?”

I nodded sheepishly at the mention of Diana and ground too much salt over my pasta. “And . . . so . . . what kind of timescale are you thinking? Opening night in the spring? Summer?”