of what looked and smelt suspiciously like a joint clenched between his last remaining teeth.
‘Yo,’ he said, setting the basket down between them. ‘Y’okay?’
No changing room or false modesty about Electric Mickey: the second that the basket was down on the bench he started getting his kit off, which, despite appearances, although well worn was also well washed.
Naked as a jaybird, save for his sandals – broad-fitting with a therapeutic footbed – Mickey neatly folded everything – faded cotton dungarees and a spotless white tee shirt, not being a man who had embraced layering or underwear as a concept – in beside the carrots and said, ‘So where do you want me today then, ladies?’ without a trace of salaciousness.
Susie smiled up at him, wishing as always that she had stood up as soon as he came in: the view from the armchair was not one that she would have cared to share with many.
‘Well, we were thinking classic Roman today,’ said Nina, getting to her feet. ‘I’ve got you a nice pillar and a plinth set up over here by the gas heater.’
Electric Mickey was in his late fifties, former sailor, reformed alcoholic and ex-electrician with an exquisitely broken nose, skin the colour of good coffee, and with one of the most beautifully defined bone structure and musculatures that Susie had ever seen. His whole body was lean, wonderfully proportioned, with great definition and muscles as taut as knotted string from working dawn to dusk in the little market garden that he shared with his wife, Jolie. He was a mature masterpiece of the human form, which was why Susie booked him over and over again to pose for her classes to prove that you didn’t have to be eighteen to be beautiful.
His broad chest was covered with a sprinkling of white wiry hair, which travelled down in a fine line over his solar plexus and belly to regions further south, thickening as it did to a dense pelt framing his wedding tackle in a ruff as lush as the coat of a well-fed polar bear.
By contrast, the top of Mickey’s skull was completely bald and shiny, despite him having a thick beard and a great curtain of white hair sprouting from below the bulge of his not inconsiderable cranium, cut pudding-basin style, by Jolie, to shoulder length. Occasionally there were a couple of fine plaits in it, once in a while a bright twisted thread or piece of ribbon, which he seemed totally oblivious to – but today there was only hair. Electric Mickey was a great natural landscape of textures, surfaces, colours and shades for the students, and a joy to draw.
‘Fancy a coffee, do you?’ asked Nina, indicating her mug.
‘Not for me, thank you, Neen, don’t want to be dashing off to the loo every five minutes. Carrots if you want them,’ he said, nodding towards the basket. ‘Should be some Swiss chard next week. Now, what are we today? Toga on? Toga off?’
Susie smiled. ‘Off would be great. You’re a bit early though. The students won’t be back till two. Do you want to slip a robe on so’s you don’t get cold?’
‘Don’t mind if I do. I’ve just dropped my granddaughter off at nursery,’ he said, by way of explanation, taking the blue towelling bathrobe Nina offered him. ‘She wanted to get there early today; they’ve got their teddy bears’ picnic this afternoon. She’s got a new dress and we had to fill the van up with all her bears and then me and Jolie did little sandwiches and carrot cake.’ He smiled fondly. ‘She’s so excited.’
Susie sighed. Mickey, with his Father Christmas good looks, was the stuff of which proper grandparents were made.
Her own mum and dad had been perfect for the job too. Had they ever doubted they were ready? Susie’s mum had always seemed to know the right thing to do or say, although she had died when Alice and Jack were little, and Susie’s dad was forever patiently heading off to the shed to mend Jack’s punctures or his pedal car, chivvied on by Susie’s mum – they were made to be grandparents. Susie looked up and caught her reflection in a window and for a split second saw her mum’s features in her own. Surely Susie wasn’t quite there yet? Surely there had to have been some kind of mistake?
‘We were thinking Classic Roman – one of the senate staring out helplessly as the Carthaginians sack Rome,’ Nina was saying. ‘I had one of the girls in floristry whip you up a set of laurels.’ She rummaged around in one of the cupboards. ‘Here we are,’ she said, handing him a leafy crown which he cheerfully plonked on his head. As he took to the dais the first of the students started to trickle back in and set up their easels around him.
‘Actually, I think you’ll find it was the other way round, the Romans sacked Carthage,’ said Mickey, settling himself into position to get the feel of the pose. ‘It was the Barbarians who sacked Rome – the Vandals and the Visigoths and the Gauls, I think.’ He lifted one arm towards the pillar, eyes fixed into the middle distance; a vision in his faded Marks and Sparks dressing gown and matching laurels.
‘So, how did your weekend go?’ he asked Susie, getting himself comfy. ‘Neen was telling me all about it on Friday. Did he go down on one knee? Jolie’s been looking for a reason to get all dolled-up; she’s seen this really great frock in a shop in town – it’s cream and blue with all these tiny little pearl buttons down the front.’
Susie didn’t look but she guessed he was miming. Hopefully Jolie had got hers on lay away as well.
It was late afternoon when Susie finally arrived home. She banged the back door open with her hip and dropped a pile of shopping bags onto the kitchen table. From his basket by the Aga, Milo opened one rheumy eye, decided that on balance she was probably not a burglar, and settled back down to sleep.
‘Hi honey, I’m home,’ Susie called out in her best soap-opera Americana, before plugging in the kettle. ‘How’s it going, Jack? I’ve bought all your favourite comfort food.’
‘Mashed potato with onion gravy, a decent steak and a good bottle of Merlot?’
Susie swung round in surprise. Framed in the hall doorway was a tallish man with broad shoulders, short, dark greying hair, a deep tan and a broad grin. He most certainly wasn’t Jack. He was wearing an oversized black tee shirt with an abstract design across the front, faded jeans and trainers, and looked oddly at home in her house.
Susie stared at him. Maybe she’d missed something. ‘What the f—’ she began, as he stepped forward, hands up in a gesture of surrender.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, don’t panic – you must be Susie, Jack’s mum? I’m Matt, Matt Peters. I’ve been working with Jack. Actually, I’m still working with Jack.’ He laughed, waving a large suntanned hand across the front of the tee shirt before holding a hand out towards her. She realised with a start that the jazzy abstract on the front of his shirt was magnolia emulsion.
‘It’s all right, they’re clean, I just washed them,’ he said.
‘You’re painting my spare room,’ she replied, more statement than question.
His handshake was warm and firm and something inside her tingled as his fingers closed around hers.
‘Most certainly am, amongst other things, ma’am – me and your boy have been working our butts off all day. We’ve got quite a lot done actually. It’s looking good. And it’s a great room – I really enjoy DIY and I love those little casement dormers and the stripped doors and boards.’
‘And where exactly is Jack?’
‘We needed a few more bits and pieces – some screws,
