This is the pattern I come back to. No matter how many times I shake the pieces, they always fall in the same places. Me, Thoby, you.

Charleston looks strangely desolate as the car drops me at the gate. I let myself in through the front door and glance at the letters Grace has left in a neat pile for me on the hall table. I make my way upstairs and stop outside the guest room. I go in and lie down on one of the beds. This is where Julian and Quentin slept when they were little. There is one of Angelica’s paintings on the back of the door, a terra-cotta bust by Quentin on the windowsill. I pull the cover over me and close my eyes. I do not know how long I remain here. I think of the hopelessness of Leonard’s expression as we buried your ashes under the elms. I become aware of people moving round me—Duncan, Quentin, Angelica, a stream of faces that intermingle and blur. Once, when I open my eyes, I see my own face in the dressing table mirror opposite the bed. My reflection in the silvered glass reminds me of another face, glimpsed what now seems a lifetime ago. I sit up slowly. It was in this mirror that I watched Mother die.

I begin with the vertical supports of my easel, solid parallel bars. Across them I work the horizontal struts, then finally the stand. Once I have the frame in place, I paint the reverse side of my canvas. I do nothing to disguise its blankness nor embellish its ugliness; what is important is that it covers the central space. To the right of the easel I paint myself, seated on my old chair, the one with the faded green cushion. Around me is the paraphernalia of painting: brushes and rags, my palette and mixing dishes, bottles of oil and turps. I tilt my head away from the easel, leaving the features of the face indistinct. I do not want the focus to be the artist but the act of painting itself. Above me, running right across the top of the picture, are the windows, with the pale sky and bare trees beyond. After I have been working for some time I pause to assess what I have done. There is the frame of the easel, the daunting emptiness of the canvas, the relative frailty of eye and brush and hand. I look again and discern a soft apricot, a flush of purple spilling through the lace curtain and onto the artist’s sleeve. Her posture has an energy and resolution that remind me of you. I examine her figure more closely. This time, I realize that what she holds in her hand is not a brush, but a pen.