Connie cannot remember being naked since 1965, but what a time that was. Indeed, Constance Benson - portraitist and lover of the eccentric visionary, Patrick Mount - has also kept her remarkable last painting of him under wraps for thirty years, since Mount's famous disappearance. Now the National Portrait Gallery has prised Connie and her portrait out of their windswept Norfolk hideaway for a full retrospective and for Connie, a full plunge into a luxurious London hotel bath.
In another part of London a striking and disturbed young man anticipates the retrospective with nervous excitement because he too has a fierce allegiance to Patrick Mount and his arcane philosophies about achieving bliss. Surely this reclusive woman who was once Mount's lover must hold the key to his future and can release him from the frightening problem he has with women.
