Sylvia would insist on coming to the door and peering in as he worked. He didn’t turn, but he could feel her eyes boring into the canvas, analysing the brush strokes, quartering the painting for new details. The sureness of his touch would falter and slow until he laid the brush down and waited, teeth clenched, for her to go away. ‘Coffee, Sammy?’ She was aware instantly that he knew her to be there. ‘Thanks.’ He bit the end of his palette knife and grimaced at the bitter stickiness of the paint on it. ‘It’s nearly finished, isn’t it?’ Her voice was breezy, encouraging, even patronizing. ‘That’s right.’ Grudgingly he admitted it, stepping back to survey it himself. ‘It’s the best you’ve ever done.’ She always said that, silly bitch. If his paintings were so bloody good, why didn’t they sell? He’d asked her that once and she had looked at the ground and waved her hands apologetically, her cigarette shedding ash over the spare room floor. There was no carpet; a carpet would have been a concession to its spare-roomness; boards confirmed its status as his studio.
