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he’s an Open University B.A.’
    Sometimes the instinctive reaction worked better than all the elaborate planning, Christine Lambert decided. Showing your disappointment always had more effect on men than women. Her daughters had always been able to sway this iron man of crime when they were cast down by some teenage setback. Perhaps men, even experienced men like John Lambert, were suckers after all.
    Ros Barker looked at her subject critically, her head a little on one side, her eyes narrowing a little as she gazed intently at the naked woman who half-sat and half-lay on the chaise longue she had set up in her studio for this painting. ‘You need to look more relaxed. The last thing I want is someone who looks as if she’s struggling to hold a pose.’
    â€˜Perhaps that’s because I’m struggling so hard to hold this pose,’ said Kate Merrick testily. ‘And if you don’t allow us to have a coffee soon the struggle might fail.’
    For a few seconds, Ros appeared to ignore her completely, whilst she applied a few key brush strokes. It was the artist’s supreme moment of concentration, the instant of utter selfishness when nothing and no one else matters save the need to secure some effect that might otherwise escape forever. Then, with a relaxation of tension that she felt even in herself, she glanced at the little clock on the table to her right and said, ‘Is it really eleven o’clock? High time we had a coffee, I’d say.’
    Kate eased herself gingerly into a sitting position, then stretched her legs gratefully. She stood up and moved with exaggerated stiffness to the kettle in the corner of the studio and extracted two beakers from the battered little cupboard on which it stood. She heard a delighted giggle at her robotic movements from behind her and was immediately pleased, despite her supposed resentment.
    â€˜It’s getting warm in here now the sun’s climbing,’ said Ros, standing and looking at the world outside through the long window on the south wall of her studio.
    â€˜Not if you’re a poor exploited model required to keep still for hours without a stitch on, it isn’t! Don’t you dream of putting that electric fire off, Madam Scrooge.’
    Kate brought the two beakers of instant coffee across to the old sofa on the opposite side of the room from the chaise longue. Ros, after studying her painting keenly with her head tilted elaborately for a last moment, came and sat beside Kate, who had thrown her usual blanket around herself before she sat. Though they had moved only to the other side of the studio, work had been switched off for the moment, just as effectively as if they had moved from factory floor to works canteen.
    â€˜Sometimes I think we should splash out on a professional model for you,’ Kate said presently. ‘You could then move her around as much as you liked, and I might escape pneumonia in the present and rheumatoid arthritis in later life.’
    â€˜It’s the fate of the partner throughout the centuries. And the blessing too, of course. Rembrandt’s wife was immortalized because he couldn’t afford a professional model.’ Ros’s voice softened a little. ‘Or perhaps because he could convey his tenderness towards her in a way he could never have achieved with a professional model.’ She ran her hand lightly and affectionately down the slim thigh beneath the shabby blanket.
    â€˜They weren’t called partners then, though. Wives or mistresses. I don’t know which ones were the luckier. Or the more exploited.’ Kate nibbled her ginger biscuit and took an appreciative sip of the hot coffee.
    â€˜Yes. Exciting prospect for you, that. When I’m famous all over the planet, you could be one of the first partners to be immortalized in oils.’
    â€˜I can hardly wait.’ A pause, during which Ros thought fondly of the curves beneath the blanket and