'I'll do that. I haven't had any breakfast.' Roy was incredibly cavalier about his eating habits. He wasn't above making midnight raids on Sarah's refrigerator, which was well-stocked for just such an eventuality, when working late and smitten by a hunger that wouldn't be satisfied with beer and cold baked beans. 'I'll just go and empty a packet of sugar into this while you climb over.'
'I'm still in my nightie,' she called desperately as he disappeared inside his own sliding door.
'You're wearing more than me then,' came the answering call and Sarah sighed. He had finished the painting two weeks ago. She had to see it some time.
She finished her muesli first . . . she might need the blood sugar. She was just as reluctant now as she had been five months ago when Roy first asked her to pose for him. Not out of embarrassment, for having moved in artistic circles for three years she had acquired a very practical approach to life studies and she had posed many times for Simon. It was a measure of the almost schizophrenic nature of her husband's mind that although he painted nudes of her as an innocent young girl—Eve before she tasted the apple—and quite happily sold them on the open market, if a man so much as smiled at the real, fully clothed Sarah he was immediately suspicious. What did he say to you? What did you say to him? Did you like him? I don't want you to see him again. He seemed to think that because she was young she was easily led, malleable. That she had never been.
Embarrassment was the excuse she used on Roy, of course, but he knew her better than to believe it. His insistence and scoffing derision had at last worn her down. He had even gone as far as to reassure her that if she thought the finished portrait was too 'revealing' (a grin as he said it), he would arrange for a private sale through his brother, Anthony, who ran a New York art gallery and acted as his American agent.
'We shall make sure you aren't flooded with propositions from hordes of gumbooted philistines and smutty representatives of the gutter press,' Roy had boomed idiotically and won his case when Sarah had collapsed into helpless giggles. The posing had been easy, sandwiched in between various commissions Roy was working on, and now it was over the hard part had arrived. Confronting herself.
Slowly she clambered over the wall and walked diffidently into the twin of her own lounge, although this was still a working studio, strewn with canvases and paints, tins and bottles, stacks of junk and crates that doubled as furniture.
'Over here.' A shaggy red head rose from the rubble, knocking back the hot coffee with the confidence of a cast-iron constitution.
'The dramatic unveiling,' said Sarah nervously as she rounded on the covered easel. He hadn't even let her have a glimpse at the work in progress. 'Are you pleased with it?'
'It's good.' That could mean anything.
Prepared as she was, Sarah still experienced a shock of recognition, a split-second of envy eclipsed by mental rejection of the voluptuous creature in front of her. Then followed the awesome realisation that Roy was right. It was good. As good as she had feared it would be. A blending of technical skill and raw emotive
power so complete that it was impossible to view the painting objectively.
The size was disconcerting to start with. Sarah felt an urge to step back to a safe distance, outside the circle of its compelling, magic spell. It was so lovely . . . the dramatic chiaroscuro and glowing colours creating an aura of seductiveness reminiscent of Renaissance paintings.
The woman—not me, that's not who I see in the mirror every morning—was half sitting, half lying on a bed. The background was dark and indistinct, mere glints hinting at objects concealed in the velvet blackness surrounding the shadowy frame of the brass bedstead. Warm golden flesh on the rumpled sheets in the foreground was lit by the soft yellow light from an unseen lamp.
At first glance the nakedness was explicit, but it was an illusion. The glowing light stroked the subtle contours of the body, melting away into secret shadows in a subtle portrayal of the timeless allure of woman. There was allure, too, in her expression. Though the face was not classically beautiful it had a luminous warmth and vibrance that would outlive mere beauty. She was sensuous, provocative, passionate, and the curve of the full mouth showed unashamed awareness of the fact. But it was a natural, earthy sensuality that was not too far removed from innocence.
The soft lines and curves evoked physical reality, the weight of breast and thigh, the play of muscle where the body stretched and turned, the texture of the downy skin. The hair was touched with fire as it tumbled in a disordered mane over sloping shoulders, falling to a rippling pool on the sheets. Fire slumbered too, in the wide, darkened eyes . . . inviting eyes, proud and joyfully alive.
Roy, who had been watching her face with some satisfaction, distracted her attention but not her eyes.
'Well, what do you think?'
'I don't know,' she said shakily. 'Who's it supposed to be?'
'Don't you recognise her, at all?'
'You have the likeness . . .' she had assimilated that immediately. 'But for the rest. . .'
'Not bland, pretty-pretty chocolate-box enough for you?'
'From you?' That was laughable. 'She's very . . .' 'Sexy?'
Exactly. Sarah wrinkled her nose.
'Warm? Loving? Giving?' he continued, arms folded across his barrel chest, a short, almost stumpy man whose flaming hair made such an impact that people usually didn't notice his lack of inches. 'What did you expect?'
'I don't know,' she repeated and he snorted loudly.
'What kind of artist would I be if I only painted what people wanted to see? You know the kind of work I do. I've wanted to paint you for a long time, you knew that too. Ever since I saw those of Simon's and was so sure I could do better. I had to wait until he was dead, and until you decided you were mature enough to handle what I might do with you. I'm damned if, after five years of waiting, I should have to settle for half a woman!'
Sarah looked back at the painting, surprised by his vehemence. 'But she's only half a woman.' The half that operated on instinct, on feeling, that half that couldn't be trusted, the half that betrayed the self.
'Why do you say that? She knows what she's doing and why. Which is a damned sight more than you do, you're just too damned afraid to admit it!'
He grabbed her unexpectedly by the shoulders and said fiercely: 'Look at it, Sarah, and like it. It's the best thing I've ever done. You trusted me, enough to sit for me—put yourself in my hands—so trust me now. I wasn't inhibited by living inside your skin—I could see where you wouldn't look. Look now. Be honest. You always used to be.'