It was an old building, grand at the front, pillars and a decorated arch above the door; far grander than the street it was in: a mini-supermarket at either end, a workman’s café, betting shop, dry cleaner’s, an old-fashioned ironmonger’s that doubled as a locksmith and shoe repairer. Inside the entrance to the building the paint was starting to flake away from the walls; a number of the tiles in the hallway were chipped and in need of being replaced. The lift wobbled and shook a little as it took Katherine up to the topmost floor.
‘It’ll be a doddle,’ Chrissy had said. ‘If you’re going to start somewhere, you can’t do better than this. A drawing class for old biddies and granddads. And the bloke who teaches it, he’s a sweetie.’
The sweetie met her at the door: moleskin trousers, Aran sweater, a mane of white hair.
‘You must be Katherine. It’s lovely to meet you. And every bit as beautiful as Chrissy said.’
Camp, Katherine thought, as Christmas.
She followed him along the corridor and into a wide room with windows on two sides; a dozen or more tables set out in a broad curve around a raised platform where she assumed she would pose. A few of the class had arrived already; a pair of grey-haired ladies chatting amiably, a tall man with a slightly hunched back taking off his coat and draping it carefully over his chair.
‘The changing room’s over here,’ the teacher said, pointing off along another short corridor. ‘Just pop back out when you’re ready. We usually try to start on time.’
Katherine let herself in and closed the door. There was a sink with a skimpy towel pegged alongside, a toilet in a separate cubicle. Table, chair, worn boards, a mirror on the wall. Her face looked pale, the colour bleached away. From outside, she could hear voices raised in greeting as more of the class arrived.
She could leave now, say it was all a mistake, there was still time.
Some kind of robe and something on your feet, Chrissy had said, that’s all you need. Katherine had brought along a silky dressing gown with a design of peacock feathers that had been her mother’s; a pair of scuffed pink trainers. After using the toilet – ‘You don’t want to be jumping up every five minutes to pee’ – she undressed quickly, hanging some of her clothes on the hooks behind the door, folding the rest over the chair.
One last glance in the mirror – she looked terrible, she thought, a waxwork of herself – she stepped out and closed the door.
‘Katherine,’ the teacher said, his voice deliberately louder to attract the class’s attention. ‘This is Katherine, everyone, she’s going to model for us today.’
Amongst murmured greetings, a few calls of ‘Hello, Katherine’, clutching her robe closed, she followed the teacher through the tables and on to the platform, on which there was now a chair.
‘What I like to do is give the students the chance to get their eye in, as it were, so we usually start off making two or three quick drawings and then move on to something more concentrated, detailed, forty minutes or so – a longer pose for you – after which we’ll all take a little break. Then, when we’re refreshed, we’ll finish by asking you to do a longer pose, standing. If that all sounds hunky-dory?’
He smiled, waiting for Katherine to nod agreement.
‘Lovely. Well, seated first then. Back quite straight and sort of half-turned away, the body at an interesting angle.’
Stepping back, he smiled again, encouragingly.
‘Whenever you’re ready.’
Katherine would say, telling her friends later, it was the longest moment of her life, but, in fact, it was a matter of seconds: an awareness, blurred, of faces looking up at her expectantly, and then, kicking off her shoes, she let the robe slide over her shoulders, down her back and to the floor.
After the first time it was easy. Well, no, but easier, certainly. Aside from those few occasions when one of the students directed a remark to her directly, Katherine contrived to keep herself apart; as if she’d been able to erect some kind of shield, invisible, between the class and herself. Compartmentalisation, she’d learned to be good at that. Had to be. Thinking her own thoughts, projecting herself back and forwards in time, anything and everything from the name of the girl who’d been mean to her in the first year of primary school to the mental shopping list to take with her to Tesco’s on the way home. Thoughts interrupted by the slight pain that was spreading from her hip down along her thigh, caused by being in the same position for too long; the desire to scratch that itch on the left side of her cheek; the need, despite adhering to Chrissy’s advice, to pee. When she glanced, almost accidentally, at the drawing tables as she passed, it was as if those nicely contoured lines in ink or charcoal, those limbs, belonged to someone else, not her.
After just a month, the same teacher asked her if she would model for a class he taught over in Chelsea, beginners, a longer session but he could afford to pay a little more per hour.
Katherine agreed.
Soon, if things continued this way, she might be able to give up bar work altogether. Have a few more early nights. Spend more time in the gym. Start to think again seriously about what she wanted to do with her life, longer term. Take after Stelina and study: another degree, maybe. Something more useful this time.
Chrissy woke her at seven, sitting on the edge of the bed, pained, blotchy-faced, a hot-water bottle pressed against her tummy.
‘What? What is it?’
‘You’ve got to go in for me. The art school. I’ve got my period.’
‘That’s okay, surely. You can always …’
‘I feel like shit. This bastard hurts like hell and I can’t face four and a half hours of lying on my side with swollen tits, worrying if the string from my tampon’s showing.’
‘Then cancel.’
‘I can’t. It’s too late. And besides …’ The thought got lost in a gasp of pain. ‘Kate, please. Just this once. I won’t ask you again, I promise.’
Katherine was careful to arrive in plenty of time; Chrissy had messaged the tutor who took the class, explained, apologised, introduced. She was around her mother’s age, Katherine thought, the tutor, dark hair cut almost savagely short, a white shirt under paint-smirched dungarees, sitting cross-legged on the wall outside the studio, assiduously working on a roll-up as Katherine approached.
‘I’m Vida,’ she said, holding out a hand. ‘Stupid name. Call me V.’
The tips of her fingers were calloused and hard, the palms fleshy and soft.
‘Classic pose this morning. You on a nice length of purple velvet, arse cheeks outwards, hip raised. Rokeby Venus, that kind of thing. And let’s see’ – reaching round, she bunched Katherine’s hair in her hand and raised it higher – ‘if we can’t clip this up somehow, see what they can do with this neck of yours.’
Was it any more strange, twenty pairs of eyes fixed on your back view as opposed to your front? At least, Katherine thought, she still exercised enough that her rear didn’t sag; there was firm flesh and muscle in her thighs and running had left her with well-defined triceps.
‘How was that?’ Vida asked at the lunch break.
‘Okay, thanks. Fine.’
‘We’ve got a visitor this afternoon. Anthony Winter. Heard of him?’
Katherine nodded. ‘Yes, I think so.’ She didn’t say, he almost knocked me flying once, not looking where he was going.
‘Won’t affect you particularly. Just means there might be a bit more chat than usual. Students getting nervous. Oh, and we’ll do the thing with the mirror.’
‘The mirror?’
Vida slid a postcard from the pocket of her dungarees.
‘The lady herself.’
In the painting, the woman lay in the same position Katherine had adopted, but with the addition of some kind of winged cherub holding a mirror which reflected her face. ‘That’s what we’ve got for you this afternoon, a nice framed mirror. But only resting against the wall, I’m afraid, no cherub.’
Did she feel any more nervous that afternoon, knowing that Winter was there? Not at all, why should she? What was Winter to her? She couldn’t help but be aware of his presence, nonetheless. Sense him as he moved amongst the students, pausing to look at their work, pontificating, cajoling, occasionally laughing, his laugh a rough-edged kind of sound, akin to growling. The voice resonant and deep; the voice of a man well used to being listened to, expecting attention.
Staring, as she had to, at her own face in the mirror, she was less able to drift off into a world of her own, as she sometimes did when posing; consequently, time passed more slowly and she felt herself becoming increasingly conscious of the tiredness that came from being restricted to the same position, the dull ache in the arm on which she was leaning.
At last, she heard Vida thanking Winter on her students’ behalf for giving over so much of his time to look at their work and for all the encouragement he had given, the expertise he’d passed on.
‘Nothing, nothing. A pleasure, a pleasure.’
And she thought he had gone. Until, glancing back into the mirror, she saw him standing, perfectly still, his eyes staring into hers.