A Ribbon in the Frame

Clara had painted three versions of Max's hands before she admitted she was avoiding his face.

Hands could be occupied. They could hold a cup, fold a newspaper, or rest on the arm of a chair. A face eventually asked what you were looking at. Max's had been asking that all morning, though he had the decency to do it quietly. He sat near the cottage window in a blue shirt, sunlight moving across his sleeve, while she made unnecessary adjustments to a perfectly adequate brush.

“I can put a bag over my head,” he offered.

“Then I'd have to paint the bag.”

“You might find it less intimidating.”

The previous evening, a client had sent Clara a list of changes to a painting of a vase. The vase was the wrong shade, the shadow too definite, the surface insufficiently inviting. Although the painting had already been delivered, she had read the message twice before finally turning off her work phone. Max had asked whether she wanted to talk about it. She had said there was nothing to say, then spent most of dinner looking towards the phone.

This morning she had proposed the portrait partly as an apology. She wanted to give him her full attention and had discovered that attention was much harder to hide behind when the subject could look back. An orange never wondered whether you were disappointed in it. A perfume bottle did not notice when you changed the subject.

Max had been sitting for forty minutes without asking whether she had finished. That kindness made her feel clumsier with the brush. She wished, briefly, that he would complain about his shoulder or demand another cup of tea. Then there would have been something familiar to fix.

At thirty-nine, Clara had made a living painting objects for advertising: oranges, perfume bottles, a remarkably profitable series of expensive taps. She could make chrome look like a promise. People were harder. Max was forty-three, an exhibition carpenter, and had first appeared in her studio carrying a damaged display plinth. He had repaired it without asking her to admire the repair. Six months later, she was still discovering things she liked about him at inconvenient moments.

The cottage belonged to his sister, who was travelling overseas. It stood above a small harbour where fishing boats leaned against their ropes. They had come for a long weekend and brought enough books for a month. Clara had also brought paints because she was incapable of believing that three unplanned days would not require equipment.

Max had agreed to sit for her after breakfast. Now the toast was cold, the light was changing, and she had painted his hands with so much attention that she could have reconstructed them from memory.

“You can tell me to stop,” he said.

“Sitting?”

“Being helpful.”

She put down the brush. Their relationship had survived several small disagreements because he sometimes recognised the argument she was having before she did. She found that attractive and occasionally infuriating. Today she wanted him to remain completely still while also saying something that would make painting him easy.

“I don't know how to paint someone I care about,” she admitted.

He looked at the canvas, which was angled away from him. “Perhaps you don't have to prove it.”

They went down to the harbour for lunch. On the way she bought a length of deep blue ribbon from a shop that sold sewing supplies beside fishing gloves. She wanted something to tie around the narrow neck of a vase in the painting. Max carried the paper parcel while she chose bread and cheese. At the cottage he arranged lunch on the doorstep, and they ate with their knees touching while gulls made theatrical complaints above the roof.

Afterwards she leaned against him. His shirt was warm from the sun. He put an arm around her without drawing her out of the place she had chosen. Below them, a boat engine started and stopped. Clara watched his thumb move over the paper parcel and thought of the small private games they had begun discussing: the pleasure of an offered instruction, the relief of being able to ask for something without turning it into a joke.

“I had another idea for the ribbon,” she said.

He waited for her to finish. She explained it in a low voice. Something simple, agreed between them, with no expectation that agreeing now meant agreeing forever. His expression changed, not dramatically, but enough that she felt heat rise into her face. He took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist.

“I'd like that,” he said. “When you want it.”

She had expected the words to make her bolder. Instead they made her strangely shy. She pressed her forehead to his shoulder and laughed once, quietly, at the gap between imagining an invitation and actually offering it.

Back inside, Max suggested she sit in the chair while he tried drawing her. He had packed a pencil and a notebook used mostly for measurements. She demanded to see his qualifications. He showed her a very accurate sketch of a cupboard. She told him she hoped he would be kinder to her proportions.

He looked at her for a long time before touching the pencil to the page. She understood, almost immediately, why she had avoided his face. Being watched with affection left her nowhere to put the performance she usually wore when someone studied her work. She folded her hands, unfolded them, then accused him of taking too long.

“The cupboard was less impatient,” he said.

She smiled despite herself. He drew that, or tried to. The result was uneven and unmistakably her: one eyebrow higher, the mouth poised between tenderness and an argument. She studied it while he stood behind the chair. His fingers brushed her shoulder, and she turned her head into his hand.

“You noticed the eyebrow.”

“It's usually directed at me.”

Their kiss was slower than the ones exchanged while leaving for work. She stood, put the notebook aside, and drew him close enough that his laugh disappeared against her cheek. The afternoon had become quiet around them. No one was expecting either of them anywhere. For once, Clara did not begin calculating how much time that left.

Later, when she chose the ribbon again, Max waited for her answer before touching it. The moment stayed private and unhurried. There was room to change her mind, and she knew he would hear her if she did. When she wanted the ribbon set aside, he set it aside. She caught his hand before he could move away and led him towards the bedroom. The easel remained where it was, the unfinished painting turned towards the window.

By evening the wind had risen. A loose shutter began knocking against the wall, and Max went outside to secure it. Clara found the paints still open and sat down with them. She looked at the chair he had occupied, then at the sketch of herself. Instead of trying to improve his drawing, she propped it beside the canvas and began painting his face.

He returned with cold hands and stood behind her, careful not to block the light.

“Should I sit again?”

“In a minute.”

She put down the brush and took his fingers between both her palms. He bent to kiss her, smiling before their mouths met. The ribbon lay on the table near the vase. She left it there, its blue reflected faintly in the wet paint, while the shutter outside finally fell silent.