Kate’s neck was beginning to ache and her shoulders, too. She was standing facing the window in the room Howard called his ‘studio’ but she was not looking directly into the light. ‘That would make you squint,’ Howard had explained. The first time she came he had asked her to bring her creel and her basket but he had soon decided not to use them, thank goodness. It was bad enough simply having to stand still all this time without having to hold on to anything. Kate had worn her working clothes as the artist had requested and let her hair hang loose. When he had explained that the finished painting would show her standing on the cliff top she had laughed and told him it had better not be a windy day. ‘I don’t understand,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll be here in my studio.’ ‘I mean in the painting. Look – in that painting over there, you’ve got the wind whipping the waves up and tossing the gulls across the sky, haven’t you? Well, that’s just what would happen to my hair if I didn’t tie it back.’ Howard – as she had learned to call him – had smiled.
