Chapter 1

David Squires was at his studio apartment sorting out paints and brushes. He was not a tidy person. His ‘Muse’, Lady Lucy Turner, was due to arrive in about an hour, and he was trying earnestly to make his studio look halfway presentable for her.

His studio was in one of the older buildings in Edinburgh, so it was cheaper to live here than in a better place that cost more money. However, the place had high ceilings and good north light, which is nearly perfect enough for being an artist’s studio.

He tried arranging things, but the place still looked like a car crash. Then he bundled half of his stuff into a tall wardrobe he used as a cupboard. Surprisingly, this seemed to work. Lees stuff, more free space and the studio looked nearly tidy and professional.

‘Thank god for big old secondhand cupboards.’ He said to himself.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

‘Ding Dong, ding dong.’ ‘Bloody hell, she’s early.’ He muttered under his breath.

David leaned out of the window and looked down at the pavement below.

‘Hello, is that you?’ He shouted down.

The figure of Lady Lucy Turner looked up and saw David at a third-floor window. She waved at him, unwilling to shout and make a fool of herself in the street. David dived to the buzzer and let Lady Lucy Turner in through the front door. He opened his front door, looked down the stairwell, and shouted down to the entrance hall.

‘Up here, third floor!’ He shouted down.

Lady Lucy looked up and waved to him in acknowledgement, then began to walk up the flights of stairs.

A few minutes later, she arrived at the top, a little breathless from the climb.

‘You don’t have a lift?’ She asked David sarcastically.

‘No, sorry. It’s an old building.’ He explained.

‘Those stairs fucking near damn gave me palpitations!’ She complained.

‘A nice cup of tea will sort you out.’ David offered.

‘Aye, it might at that,’ Lucy replied and entered the apartment.

Inside, she was taken aback by the untidyness she saw.

David saw the look on her face.

‘I tidied the place up, but you have come a wee bit earlier than I expected... ‘ David tried to make a poor excuse for the untidy state of his rooms.

‘I can see you have made an effort.’ Lucy Lied.

Lucy lied to try to limit the embarrassment that David was feeling.

‘That tea? Is it coming?’ She asked.

David ducked out of the room, switched on the electric kettle, and rattled various odd cups and saucers onto a tea tray.

Five minutes later, David served tea. The fact that none of the tea crockery matched and the tray was buckled did not detract from the warmth of the welcome or the refined taste of a good cup of tea.

‘Biscuits?’ Lucy asked.

‘Er. No, I didn’t have time.’ Lucy opened her handbag and took out two chocolate Tunnocks Carmel Wafer biscuits. She tossed one to David and kept one for herself.

‘I stopped at the corner shop.’ She told him.

‘Great chocolate biscuits, these are.’ David thanked her.

They sat eating the biscuits and drinking their tea in quiet silence.

Lucy looked around the room. It seemed to double as a bedroom and David’s artist studio. There was an unmade bed in one corner and a French-style chaise longue sofa near the window. In between were two tables with artists’ paints and brushes scattered about.

‘Is this your bedroom as well as your studio?’ She asked him.

‘No, I have another room to sleep in.’ He replied.

‘Then what is it with the bed and the chaise longue?’ ‘Props, staging, for people to sit or lounge about while I paint them.’ David explained.

‘That’s alright then. I thought for a moment you were sleeping down here like a vagrant.’ Lucy said with a chuckle.

‘I have something to show you.’ David said, changing the subject of his living conditions.

He then produced several paintings of Lucy, which he had painted at her house over the past few weeks. They were all nudes of her posing in the corner of the bedroom, all in slightly different ways, some more colourful than others. With her smiling, some were literal, and others painterly. Lucy was very impressed by the various paintings.