“Of course not. But it can only be a matter of time before he finds out.”

“And the consequences?”

“He’ll be forced to leave. I’m certain of it.”

I walk back to the window. I decide to try one last appeal.

“Billy, will you write to Julian for me? Persuade him that no matter what happens he mustn’t go to Spain. I don’t think I could bear it if anything happened to him.”

I look straight into your eyes. To my relief, you nod.

I keep myself busy. Duncan persuades me to see the surrealist exhibition with him in London and I go, despite my dislike of their work. I realize as soon as I enter the room that coming was a mistake. I choose a canvas almost at random and spend several minutes examining it; I know that one cannot look at a painting quickly. There is a hand in close-up on the left, the huge thumbnail turned toward us. The fingers hold a bizarre contraption concocted from what appears to be a walnut shell and metal pins. Some of the pins pierce the finger through. There are two heads on the right of the picture. The eyes are bloodshot and appear to be human, though the shape of the heads suggests birds. One of the heads has a pair of horns to which a string is attached. At the top there is a balloon, a black dot in the sky.

I do not like this picture. All my painter’s instincts reject the obtrusive symbolism, the fragments of a narrative that thwart my desire to see. Despite my objections, my mind races with possible interpretations. Is this the hand of God in close-up on the left? Are the birds a pair? What am I to make of the cruel contraption? Or the balloon, floating apparently freely in the distance? This is not painting, I want to shout; this is pictorial inquisition. It forces us to think, not to look. It is the antithesis of all I have ever prized in art. I make my way to the exit.