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Katherine returns and the door clicks closed behind her.

Without a word, she flings things into her bag.

‘Sorry to have abandoned you. I’ve been chatting to Marlene Dietrich.

We attended the London premiere of her latest film, The Scarlet Empress , earlier this month.

I didn’t have the chance to meet her then, so it was good to make her acquaintance properly.

’ She turns her back to me and puts her notebook in another bag, then sends me a smile over her shoulder.

Her glance falls on my sketchbook. ‘I hope you’ve been productive. ’

I fight the urge to hide it. Page after page is filled with drawings of her as I try to work her out.

She appears to be a shallow socialite, but I’m not certain.

Nothing about her adds up, which intrigues me even more.

On the surface, she is a beautiful model wearing the latest designs and jewellery.

But what is behind the mannequin? Nothing?

Or does the costume hide something deeper, richer?

‘That’s done.’ She closes the bag. ‘I’ll meet you for lunch in the dining car in five minutes.’

Before I can reply, she has left, and I’m staring at the closed door.

I pick up my mother’s journal and place it safely in my satchel. This whole journey is a chance to change, to become normal. Yet I feel far from it, and glancing in the mirror, my eyes appear large and overbright.

‘Who are you?’ I ask the reflection staring back at me from the glass. With more force than needed, I close the door to the wash cupboard and leave the compartment.

Katherine is already at the table as I enter the dining car, and her face lights up. My steps falter, but the ma?tre d’ captures my arm and leads me to the table for two.

‘I haven’t ordered, as I didn’t know what you wanted, but I couldn’t resist ordering you this delicious concoction.’ She points to a glass on the table.

I nearly collapse into my seat. Katherine is different yet again. Will the other diners notice the change? Energy radiates from her like heat from the sun. Although she is sitting, nothing about her is still. I’m fascinated.

The ma?tre d’ hands me a menu, saying, ‘Today the chef is recommending the sea bass, as it arrived straight from the Mediterranean this morning.’

Katherine wrinkles her nose. ‘I would like the foie gras to start, followed by the filet of beef.’ She looks up at me. A quick glance at the menu and I’m overwhelmed. She sees my discomfort but doesn’t intervene.

‘I’ll have the sardines to start, followed by the sea bass,’ I say eventually, putting the menu down.

‘Very well.’ The ma?tre d’ turns to Katherine. ‘Wine?’

‘Of course,’ she says, and points to one on the list.

‘Excellent choice.’ He bows.

‘You’ll join me, of course,’ she says, then grins at me. ‘This will be fun.’

I take a sip of the cocktail and nearly cough. It is strong. I can’t make out what alcohols are in it.

‘Have you been to Venice before?’ Katherine asks.

‘Before April I’d only been as far as London.’

She tilts her head in the way she does frequently. I’m not sure what it means. ‘For an artist, that is a small world.’

‘There is plenty of life and landscape in Cornwall.’

‘I won’t deny that, but the world,’ she spreads her hands wide, ‘offers many wonders, and such varied people and views.’

I take another sip, thinking. ‘The people frequenting the pubs in St Ives or Penzance or Newlyn are little different to the ones I watched in Paris.’

‘Characters like that I imagine are the same the world over. Do you intend to spend your time in Venice lurking in the dark and watching the less fortunate?’

I nod.

‘That would be a waste. Did you not go to the Louvre while in Paris?’

‘Of course I did, and I will visit the Accademia and other museums in Venice, as well as the opera.’ I want to follow every footstep my mother recorded. This trip is my chance to change.

‘Good. You are too talented to stay in the dark.’

‘Thank you.’ I play with a fork. For the moment, I don’t want to be in the light.

‘You can of course pick your time to shine forth.’ She glances out of the window.

Tall cypress trees stand like sentinels along the track.

‘I will be staying with Lady Mary Bosworth, who has been living in Venice since her divorce. Simon doesn’t really approve, but she is well connected, and through her he has been invited to the poetry competition. ’

‘Is the competition part of the Biennale?’ I ask.

‘Connected somehow.’ She smiles as the wine is brought to the table.

‘Will mademoiselle have a glass of wine now?’ The waiter clears my empty cocktail glass. I nod, feeling the power of the drink running through my head. I don’t need more alcohol.

‘Venice will be marvellous,’ Katherine says.

‘It will be,’ I agree, but I doubt my reasons for thinking that are the same as hers.

‘Where will you be staying?’

‘A pensione in San Cassiano.’

She holds her glass in mid-air. ‘Is that safe? Isn’t that where the prostitutes used to display their wares, so to speak, on the bridge . . . the Ponte delle Tette?’

‘Safe?’ I lean back in my chair. She hasn’t seen the places I visited in Paris. Venice can’t be any worse. ‘I’ll be fine.’ My mother managed to live there without problems, so I will do the same, I’m certain.

She sighs. ‘How long do you plan to stay?’

‘I’m hoping for at least six months, but I will see how things go.’

‘What things?’ She pauses while the first course is delivered. ‘You seem to be on . . . something of a pilgrimage.’

‘I suppose I am.’ I taste my wine, which is dry and makes my tongue roll.

‘A painting pilgrimage, or one of faith?’

‘Painting and learning.’

She spreads her bread thinly with butter. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’

This is true. I haven’t revealed the purpose of my journey to anyone.

‘Ah, your silence says I’m right.’

I shrug and focus on my food. The reasons for my pilgrimage are mine alone; no one else needs to know them.

‘As you aren’t answering, I shall run through a list of possible reasons for you to have left Cornwall, which you clearly love from all you have said about it.’

I will not rise to her provocation.

‘You have been scorned by a lover.’

I look her directly in the eyes. I have been kissed a total of five times in my life. There have been no lovers. But I do not say a word.

She turns her wine glass in her elegant fingers. ‘You caught your parents in affairs with other people.’

My father with his current wife comes to mind. She was a model for both of my parents, and I know my father had an affair with her. Yet my mother was untroubled by it. After my mother’s death, it was my father’s indecent haste in inviting that woman into our home that angered me, and still does.

‘There is something in that,’ she says before finishing her foie gras. ‘But something else is firing your furnace for this journey.’

I try the Gallic shrug I witnessed so often in Paris, but it doesn’t work.

‘I know.’ She grins.

She can’t know.

‘You are on a journey to find yourself.’

My glass nearly falls out of my hand, for although that is not the reason, it is a little too close. I must become better at concealing my thoughts.

‘It should have been obvious. You are twenty, and I was much the same at that age.’ She holds her empty glass out and a waiter comes rushing to fill it.

‘How were you the same?’

‘My mother had died. I was angry with life, with my father, and all the men were broken, especially the one I loved.’ She gazes out of the window.

‘I lived, God did I live fully. Nothing was off the agenda.’ She looks back at me.

‘I’m the daughter of a Swedish aristocrat and an English academic.

My behaviour was beyond the pale. I left Sweden and wouldn’t speak to my father, but alas, he had control of my money, my mother’s money, and in the end that won. ’

‘Won?’ I ask. Surely she could have found employment of some sort. The world had changed after the war.

She laughs bitterly. ‘I was pregnant, and my father insisted I marry.’

‘You’re a mother?’ I can’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

‘You don’t think I’m fit to be one.’ She takes a large gulp of wine. ‘That says it all.’

‘That’s not what I said. It’s just that most mothers talk of their children.’

‘Ah.’ She smiles sadly. ‘Mine was born dead.’

The waiter appears with our main courses and the bottle of red wine Katherine ordered. As he pours the wine for her to taste, so much makes sense to me, particularly the drinking.

Once the waiter has departed, I say, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Not as sorry as I am. In a way, my daughter abandoned me, and I couldn’t blame her. I was unfit, and I was stuck married to the man you have met because of her.’

I open my eyes wide. ‘He was not her father?’

‘No, he was the husband of my father’s choosing.’ She stares directly at me. ‘By the time I knew I was pregnant, the man I loved was dead of an overdose because of what he had seen on some field in France.’

I swallow. ‘I . . . I’m sorry . . . which is a hopeless and useless thing to say.’

‘But you have acknowledged the loss, which is more than many do.’ She cuts into her filet. ‘I was a social pariah for having lost a man and then a child.’ She stops cutting. ‘I received what I deserved.’

‘No!’ The word is out before I can stop it. Even in the few short hours I have known this woman, I know she has not received what she deserved.

‘Oh, but I did. You see I didn’t know I was pregnant, and when he died, I did anything I could to help me forget.’ She looks down. ‘I’m sure that what I took harmed my child.’ Her words are whispered, and I only just catch them.

‘Many things can cause a stillbirth,’ I say. I knew of some that happened in St Ives, in the artist community and among the local working folk. The babies weren’t viable for many reasons. I never saw it as the mother’s fault.