Angela is alone in the house. Her three house mates have gone home for the weekend. She should have gone to see her gran today. She ought to have known Edward wouldn’t turn up. She had waited in the studio for two hours, doodling, listening for his footsteps, the tap of his stick coming down the corridor. What is she going to do now? Scour the streets for an Edward look-a-like? What made him think he was so special? She could find someone else.
Gran would be sitting there now in her chair beside the fire, watching TV. She could try ringing but she knows she won’t answer, not at this time of night. Last time she rang and her gran didn’t answer, Angela had gone over just to check she was still alive. She looks at her watch. She could still catch the last train. But no, she feels too fed up. She can still see the doubtful expression on Gran’s face in the late evening light.
‘Gran? I tried phoning to say I was coming. Where were you?’
‘Come in, child.’
Gran had not hugged her in her usual way, but had shaken her head from side to side, tut-tutting under her breath.
‘Child, child, what are you doing to an old woman?’
‘What, Gran?’
‘For one awful minute there, I thought you were your mother.’
‘Has she been pestering you again?’ Angela asked anxiously.
‘Every so often the phone rings in the middle of the night,’ she shrugs, ‘but nothing else. She doesn’t even know her father’s dead.’
She sits down on her bed and wonders what to do. She could give Dan a ring, he hasn’t been around for ages, see if he’ll take her for a pint and a cheap curry but no, she doesn’t want to go back to his place afterwards. Grey sheets. She wrinkles her nose. She’d thought sex with him would have been good, him being that bit older. She’d been flattered that he was interested; he mostly ignored the others in her year. She knew that he’d got a girlfriend somewhere down south but that hadn’t bothered her. She thought she’d just use him for sex, but it had left her cold. She’s not even sure she’s that bothered about him anymore, and she doesn’t like the way he always snipes about her work either, saying that she is Alex’s pet.
Angela opens the sketchpad that earlier she’d thrown on the bed and casually flicks through it. Edward’s face stares back at her from the page; drawings she’d done from memory after the first sitting. She is pleased at how she has captured the intelligence and humour in his eyes. She thinks back to the portrait of Richard Appleyard. The eyes are not the same but she has captured a similarity in their character, a family likeness. The next page is a simple quick sketch of Edward. Again, she is impressed by how she has portrayed him. What is she going to do? She must persuade him somehow to continue. She flicks through the pages and, like an omen, his face stares up at her again. She has never felt this much excitement about her work. She has to continue. Shivering, she imagines herself naked, seated there on the orange plastic chair. She could never do it. Or could she? Does he think that she would be embarrassed? Why should she be? She could give the silly old bugger a run for his money, call his bluff, see if he had the guts to go through with it.
Unable to stand the emptiness of her room, she lets it drive her out into the fading light. She walks aimlessly along the quiet pavements, peering into lighted windows; the same television program repeated in nearly every house. Outside the pub a few people are seated around wooden tables, drinking and laughing. She hesitates and then enters. Inside there are fewer people still. With relief, she sees Alex_standing at the bar, one eye shut against the smoke of his cigarette.
‘Evening’ he says, looking up. ‘Like a drink?’
She hesitates, ‘I’ll have a pint of Guinness, please.’
‘Sure you don’t want a packet of crisps as well?’ He empties his loose change out on to the bar. ‘Bankrupt me, why don’t you?’
‘Okay then, salt and vinegar please.’
He laughs.
‘Well,’ she shrugs. ‘You did ask, and I’m starving.’
‘How’s the work going?’
‘Okay, I suppose. I was just going through my folder earlier.’
‘And?’ He hands the barman the correct change.
‘Well, I really like what I’ve done so far, but my model has decided to throw a wobbler so I might be back to square one.’
‘Is she experienced?’
‘No, unfortunately.’
He shakes his head, ‘Not easy you know if they’re not experienced. You have to know how to put them at ease.’
‘I tried but,’ she pauses, ‘she got annoyed because I only drew her feet.’
He places her pint in front of her. ‘You don’t fancy doing a spot of modelling do you? Me and Felicity, you know her don’t you, we’re looking for a model.’
She takes a sip of her froth, ‘How do you mean?’
‘It’s a commission from a gallery in London. I’ve got an idea for a series of drawings and you would be just perfect. I want to use oils and pastels and maybe a combination of other media. I’m really excited.’
‘Well, congratulations.’
‘Thanks. I’d pay of course.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t. I’ve got too much on.’
‘Surely you could fit in a couple of hours, here and there?’
She shakes her head.
‘Twenty pounds an hour?’
‘Listen,’ she says, raising her voice. ‘I don’t want to. Okay?’
He grins sheepishly, ‘There’s no need to get aerated.’
She wishes she had the courage to strut out of the pub and leave her nearly full pint of Guinness untouched. He is so out of order. For God’s sake, he’s her tutor. She picks up her pint and her packet of crisps and without another word goes to sit over by the empty fire grate where he can’t see her. Her heart is pounding. Why couldn’t she have just said ‘no’ and left it at that? He had to push the matter, the creep. Although, she thinks, it would give me the perfect opportunity to experience modelling, the chance to practise so that I could beard the lion in his den, so to speak. Edward would never think in a million years that she would agree to his stupid demands.
And another thing, she thinks, taking a sip of her Guinness, Alex has the cheek to go on about me not being adventurous with my work, and there he is getting his knickers wet about life drawing.
She finishes her drink, gets up and goes over to the table where Alex is sitting,
‘I’m sorry I got huffy with you. It’s just, well, obviously I felt a bit awkward about it.’
He is sitting at a table with a pale woman; skin, hair, clothes, melting into one as if all the colour has washed out of her. The woman looks up, knowing, not knowing, sizing her up. Angela notices pale blue milky eyes.
Alex stubs out a cigarette, blowing the smoke upwards in rings. ‘Never had you down as the shy type.’
‘I’m not,’ She grits her teeth. ‘But don’t you think it’s a bit inappropriate.’
‘Your model’s thrown a wobbler. Isn’t that what you said?’
Angela nods, wondering where this is leading.
‘Which is why I suggested you model for me, or for anyone for that matter. You’d be much more in control of the situation if you understood how your model felt.’
She grimaces, ‘I don’t see why.’
‘Then,’ he shrugs. ‘I suggest that you find yourself an experienced model.’
She stands, arms folded, not sure what to say. I can’t change models, she thinks to herself. I have to get Edward back.
‘So,’ He taps the end of a new cigarette on the table. ‘Will you model for me?’
‘Why?’
‘Because you are perfect. You have exactly the look I need.’
Angela shakes her head. She wants to wipe that smug look off his face. ‘No, but thanks,’ she adds.
The look of smugness changes to irritation, ‘Never mind, some other time maybe. When you’ve grown up.’
She screws up her face. ‘Go to hell!’
She stops on her way home to buy a bag of chips, forgetting the crisps still unopened in her pocket. In her anger, the chips stick in her throat. She throws them into a privet hedge. How dare he talk to her like that? And why had she told him to go to hell when she meant to take him up on his offer? And why had she forgotten to bring up about it being alright for him to do life drawing and not her.