Parasocial Pleasures.

His identical diamond-framed face was just inside the front door. Carved with edges, rather than curves. They shared long, prominent cheekbones, high and proud enough to drop shadows onto the jowls below. Matching angular eyebrows cemented a look of constant enquiry, while their lips shared distinctly sharp cupid bows. Thick dark hair topped their heads, his short and swept into a side-part, hers was long and swept into a ponytail that swayed and bounced ahead of me all the way up to the one-bedroom apartment, while I waddled behind her, probably commenting on the weather. As we plonked down my luggage by the welcome basket of wine, crackers and doce de abóbora, I must've puffed 'yum!', because she explained that the wine was local and that the doce de abóbora was a Portuguese orange and pumpkin jam.

She then showed me a broad map of Lisbon and drew her remarkably long fingers along the route to the nearest metro. While I showed cues I was listening, I snatched glances back at the man to compare their hands. His, which lay poised in his suited lap, were equally spindly. As she guided me through the apartment's warrens, I remarked on her similarity to the man in the framed picture. She said he was her great-grandfather and that it was a self-portrait. I must've exclaimed what an incredible painter he was, because she told me he was an artist and that her whole family was, is – her father, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers. Again, I was unsurprised; the walls were covered in artwork, some in frames, some hanging straight from the canvas, and others – sculptures and curiosities – lining the lengths of carefully curated shelves.

Before Mafalda-I-think left, she showed me how to maneuver the broad bifold barriers in front of the glass doors that led to the balcony. She bent down to release the pins that held them open and demonstrated how they needed to be shut if I were out during the day, explaining it was to protect all the artwork from the sun. I nodded like a diligent gallery intern and said I'd be out most of the day anyway, eating tarts. She stood up and said I should try to catch the Santo António Festival too, and to text with any questions. I bowed because a hug felt too soon, and cheered another obrigado as she closed the door. When quietening steps confirmed I was alone, I scooped the Vinho Verde under my arm and skipped the bottle past her great-grandpa to the fridge to chill, while I did the opposite – unpack and shower.

He must've seen me go past him at least four times, Mafalda-I-think's great-grandpa. Twice to wheel in my suitcases, once to go back and hang my head over the balcony to gawk at the pastel coloured houses across the street, and once more, at least, to check that the headphones hanging next to him were, in fact, made from shells (they were). Too tired to negotiate with clothes hangers, I left the 12 painted figures in my room – including faceless abstract dancers and a crayoned child holding what looked like either a money or pickle jar – to cringe at the creases on my mangled clothes as I got busy deciding where my treasured silk robe would hang for the next two weeks. I chose the bathroom door, next to the sly, naked, curly-haired woman. She was reclining with her hands behind her head on a pillow-covered chaise. And because by then I was naked too, I held her pose in the mirror opposite us, and we held our own gazes for a few seconds before I told her I was filthy and had to go. She was still splayed there in her gold frame when I emerged 10 minutes later, steaming, wrapped in a towel, asking if she wanted a wine.

The bottle still wasn't quite cold enough, so I gave it an extra two minutes while I tried to read aloud the French cursive on the framed piece of butcher's paper next to the fridge. The thick black crayon, occasionally broken with water, started a new line with each new word. Les abismes: la mathématique, la philosofie, la – couldn't make out that word – la musique, la poésie. The final bit at the bottom, scrawled out larger than the rest, I did get: TOI ET MOI, MOI ET TOI. I stood with my hands behind my back and repeated, YOU AND ME, ME AND YOU.

The wine glasses were exactly where I expected them to be, in the cupboard opposite Jesus, praying on a beach. He was framed and mounted on an azure card covered in lace. A colour-wheel contrast to the retro orange salt and pepper containers below and the nearby pigeon-hole, carved out for a useless faucet, and filled with a useful wedge of wood and a rock. It seemed every nook and sparse ledge in this home was touched with aesthetic intention (two perfect pine cones perched, almost out of sight, on a high shelf). I wondered: why only two when this home gave all the hints that it was furnished and decorated by the kind of people with rule-of-three sensibilities. Rebels, I concluded.

Given the place felt too considered for dust-collectors, I ran my stubby finger along them all to test my theory – clay figurines, cobbler shoe moulds, ornate matchboxes, ornate keys, antique coffee grinders, singled-out shells, tiny wire sculptures, tiny cars, hats, more rocks – all clean. After I passed the welcome basket and occupied my dust-free hand with a cracker dunked in jam, I zoomed in to a nose-length away from the framed letters, still-lifes, and portraits. So many portraits. Abstract portraits, single-toned portraits. A portrait of a sleeping baby wrapped in a pink blanket. A portrait of a man playing a small instrument (flute?). A portrait of a grandparent by a grandchild. I chewed and nodded. It was warming, all these affectionate silhouettes, outlines, and shades of people, strangers – family, I corrected myself out loud. All the same eyebrows.

By then, my wine glass had emptied, and I was back to great-grandpa, and his neighbouring shell-headphones, dangling on a singular nail. Beyond tempting fate, I placed my glass on the desk, dusted the cracker residue off my hands, and wiggled off the towel around my head to pluck them off the wall. I reasoned with great-grandpa that the gallery intern needed to really experience the art and lowered them onto my head. The shells fell below my ears. I humphed, a bit like Goldilocks, when I realised the artwork was probably designed for longer, more diamond-shaped heads. Still, I hoisted the conch shells to my ears and stood still, but probably swayed a little, to my audience of one, none, or many, and waited for the sound of the ocean. Tart, I imagined it whispered. Or was it sardines?