Yesterday's Sun by Amanda Brooke Page B

winning so easily. “I will, then,” he said, his bottom lip turned out in boyish petulance.
    Feeling guilty at bringing Tom’s little game of words to a sudden end, Holly set about distracting him. “Well, if you want to size up Billy’s expertise, let’s go take a look at the studio. I’ll even let you visit half-naked. Let’s live dangerously.”
    The weather was warm and there was a damp, earthy smell in the air. June was blooming and in the garden the spring daffodils had made way for the summer flowers. “The dandelions are doing well,” Holly commented as they slipped out of the house barefoot toward the studio. She was only wearing a vest top and knickers and hid as best she could behind Tom.
    “Ooh, ouch, so are the nettles,” he said as he led the way carefully along a narrow and overgrown path that marked the boundary between the house and the studio.
    The entrance to the studio faced the road and was the only place where they risked being seen. “Morning, Mrs. Davis!” Tom shouted casually.
    Holly gasped and crouched further behind Tom. Then she peeped over his shoulder before thumping him. “You don’t know a Mrs. Davis,” she said. “Now open the door before someone really does see us.”
    Nowadays Holly spent most mornings in her studio, and the bright, airy space was a second home to her. Tom, on the other hand, had last seen the studio when it was still a building site. She looked at his face intently to savor the reaction. His eyes were wide in amazement as he took in the white walls and the sunlight that danced brightly across the walls and floor. Against the starkness of the white, Holly had hung a mixture of her own artwork and an eclectic selection of photos and other images to inspire her. Some pictures had been pinned to the walls and others hung on wires from the ceiling, creating small clusters of color scattered around the outer edges of the room.
    Tom walked around the studio as if stepping through an enchanted forest. “It’s amazing,” he said at last. “I never imagined it would be like this.” He touched a picture frame that seemed to be floating in midair. It was a photograph of Tom and Holly laughing. A neighboring photo was one of them on their wedding day; another was of Grandma Edith. “She would be so proud of you,” he told her.
    Tom’s attention was next drawn to Holly’s ongoing projects. Workbenches lined one full side of the room and a few pieces of work in progress were stacked up waiting for completion. The main work area, taking full advantage of the skylights, was the center of the studio and here a dust sheet hung over the sculpture Holly was working on. There was an easel next to it with some of Holly’s sketches taped to it.
    “So this must be the sculpture for the dreaded Mrs. Bronson,” Tom noted.
    “It’s a scaled-down version and I’m still not one hundred percent happy with it. I’ve got another month to get her to sign off on the final design, then up until Christmas to complete it. And then I’ll finally be free of her.”
    “Can I take a look?” Tom asked. He knew very well that Holly hated him looking over her shoulder while she worked and often refused to show him any of her works in progress, not until she was sure in her own mind what the finished article would look like. She didn’t want to risk being swayed by other people’s opinions, as she always seemed to lose her way if she did. Holly decided to take a chance and pulled off the dust sheet to reveal the sculpture. It was about three feet high and was standing on a wooden box to raise it up to eye level, where she could work on it more easily.
    The bottom section was made from plaster of Paris but painted black to represent the marble that would be part of the final piece. Above the swirling black figures that formed the base emerged the white figure of the mother, or at least that was what the current mess of twisted chicken wire would eventually become. Holly had made