Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

Not Near London

chin in her palm, elbow on the armrest. In the seat immediately in front of her there’s a girl posing in the same way. The seat-back hides everything but the edge of the girl’s profile. The coastlineof her profile, to use Malcolm’s term. Suzie hears her drawing tutor’s soft Cornish voice again in class: ‘See that profile as the coastline of somewhere foreign,’ he would say. ‘All you’re doing is mapping it. No Rembrandts, please. No interior life. Just shape and gravity .’ Interior life. Malcolm Harmer’s hand on her thigh, creeping up like a heavy spider. Still life. Life class. The occasional crab or fox skull or resident jug to draw… in exactly, let’s see, guys, two minutes! Ten seconds! A legendary tutor, aren’t we lucky?

Smash and grab. ‘All I want to know is whether your muff down there is also pre-Raphaelite red, Lady Lilith.’ Oh, it is, Sir Malcolm. Sketched, she was, then thrown away. The girl in front has not yet noticed her. It would make a good image if she’d had her Canon. Two girls on a train, complete strangers, posed a few inches from each other like copycats, like twins, one pasty-skinned, one dark, different chins on their different palms, separated by a grey seat- back edged by the hot red of the padding, the train whirling on through the snowy fields. She can’t get Jasper to look without breaking her pose. She can nudge him, but he wouldn’t know

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