As soon as I arrived at Elmfield House on Thursday afternoon Leonard
ushered me eagerly into the workroom like a new mother keen to introduce her newborn
baby and I found Luke slumped in a state of apparent boredom in the cream leather
armchair by the window. I am pleased to report that Leonard has been entirely accurate
in his descriptions of Luke as he is without doubt the most beautiful young man
that I have ever seen. And I by no means state that lightly. He was slimmer than
I had imagined, he appeared to be two or three years older than me at most and he
was dressed very smartly in a grey shirt, black skinny jeans and shiny,
square-toed leather boots. The second that I laid eyes on him I was captivated
by his delicate and feminine features; his piercing dark-brown eyes, his
pinched nose and feline brow, his wide mouth and perfectly ordered teeth, his pale
cheeks that were flushed with a rose-pink glow that made him look slightly child-like
and his loosely-curled dark hair that was almost jet black against his flawless,
porcelain skin. He looked every inch like a male model from a fashion magazine
and I could understand why Leonard had been keen to recruit him as a portrait
model because he possessed an effeminate beauty that, although not uncommon in a
man of his age, was particularly striking.
“At last, the two of you finally meet!” Leonard enthused with his hands
clasped excitedly together. Luke stood out of his chair and reached out his
hand to introduce himself. We shook and he broke into a shy smile. I had not
anticipated shyness. He was slightly taller than me, he had the warmest and
most infectious smile that I had ever seen and he was very well-spoken with a mature,
baritone voice that was entirely unexpected given his youthful appearance. “Now
I have a dancer and a musician,”
Leonard chuckled as he grinned at us from over the top of his glasses, to which
I laughed and asked if he was collecting us like a pack of cigarette cards.
I took off my coat and sat in
the green armchair across the room so as not to distract either of the two men
from their work. Watching, for once, rather than being watched. I was
interested to see how Leonard was going to capture the delicate hue of Luke’s complexion
and, on a more personal note, I was curious to discover whether Luke suffered from
the same frustrations that I experienced during my sessions with Leonard; what
did they talk about? Did Luke tire easily and require regular breaks? How did he
hold a position that had him staring at the same spot on the floor for hours on
end?
Leonard reached behind his
chair and took out his drawing board, then he tacked a blank sheet of paper to
it and began sorting through the pencils and pieces of charcoal in the biscuit
tin on the floor. I felt my cheeks instantly flush when Luke started to
unbutton his shirt and so I offered to fetch water for everyone and made a
welcome dash into the solace of the kitchen. Re-entering the workroom with the
water jug, I found Luke stripped to his waist with a white linen cloth wrapped
around his middle. His torso was toned but not excessively muscular and he was
standing motionless in the centre of the room and staring out of the front window,
looking for all the world like a marble statue. I placed the jug on the floor
and quickly returned to my seat, but I couldn’t stop myself from staring at Luke,
all in the interests of appreciating Leonard’s artistic vision of course!
Although our introductions had been painless and Luke was very charming
indeed, I felt uneasy throughout our afternoon together, not only due to Luke’s
half-naked state but because the informality between Leonard and I had been
noticeably disturbed by Luke’s presence and at times the workroom had the tense
atmosphere of a doctor’s waiting room. It was difficult to maintain a natural
conversation since Luke was facing towards the window and Leonard was concentrating
intensely and so after a while I started to question the purpose of my presence
at the sitting. The room had been silent for some time (aside from the scratching
sound of Leonard’s pencil on the drawing board and his occasional journey over
to Luke to take measurements) when, perhaps sensing my discomfort and
frustration, Leonard murmured without breaking concentration from his work “I
have some pictures for you”. Again without taking his eyes from the board, he
reached down beside his chair and retrieved his briefcase, then searched
through the contents of the briefcase and pulled out a yellow folder and
offered it out to me. He apologised for the quality of the pictures inside the
folder but said that he was interested to hear what I thought of them.
Underneath the picture Leonard had scrawled in black ink ‘Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, fresco, Catacomb of Callixtus, Rome, mid 3rd century’.
Beneath this second picture Leonard had written ‘The raising of Lazarus, fresco, Roman catacomb of Peter and Marcellinus, end of 3rd century to early 4th century’.
After a short while, impatience
got the better of Leonard and he asked for my thoughts on the pictures. It appeared
to me that, although the materials used and the locations of the artworks varied
greatly, there was a common theme running throughout each of them and so I
answered, matter-of-factly, that they were representations of Jesus raising Lazarus
from the dead. Leonard was dissatisfied with this answer and he insisted that I
take a second look at the pictures. The room fell silent again and I stared at
the pictures for some time, unsure of what exactly Leonard was expecting me to find
in them. Eventually his patience ran out once again and he enquired in a rather
exasperated manner: “Ok, let me ask this. Do you see the wand?”
I looked directly up at him with
a puzzled expression. “The wand?” I asked.
“Yes, the wand,” he replied,
“Jesus’ wand. The wand that he used to raise the dead...”
