“There you are! The post has just come. A card from Saxon. He’s found the perfect place, a hotel perched halfway up a Swiss Alp. He suggests we catch the first train. He says it’s truly inspirational. What do you think?”

I watch a stray leaf that has blown in through the open window circle the strut of my easel and then fall to rest. I do not want to go to Switzerland. I do not want Roger. He reins in his enthusiasm, sensing he has fallen wide of the mark. He waves the postcard at me and gives a conciliatory smile.

“Another time?” His voice struggles to maintain its cheeriness. I know I have hurt him.

“You could go on your own.” I venture the suggestion aware that this is not what he wishes.

“No, no, it was just a mad thought. You know how persuasively Saxon writes.” Roger is next to me now, his arm near enough to touch. His love is a cloister, suffocating and dull. I cannot help myself. I must break free.

The bowl of fruit sits in the center of the table, a white dish with green apples. Duncan has set his easel in front of mine, so that from where I am standing I can see the back of his head. I long to tuck the thick locks of hair that continually fall into his eyes behind his ears, run my fingers through his dark mane. I watch him looking at the shelves on the other side of the table and wonder if he will include them in his painting. I decide I will ignore them and concentrate on the dish of fruit. I start to block out my design. There is a bottle near the edge of the table and its shadow falls across the apples. I realize there is a relationship between it and the fruit and I keep it in. Duncan has already begun working. His brush dips in and out of his colors. I am slower in my movements. Each choice, each brush stroke is much more a matter of deliberation. We paint until late in the afternoon. I become absorbed in the cadence of the work and for a time forget the outside world. Only Duncan’s presence is real. It is as if the two of us have entered a different sphere. Our eyes travel the same raft of light, converge on the same objects.