Trying desperately hard to hold it together and act nonchalant, we collected up an easel, board, paper and charcoal box and moved to join the group.
Every now and again my eyes would flick to Geoffrey, who looked like he wished his narrow wooden chair would be swallowed by the floor; Howard, who was doing a terrible job of pretending he wasn’t perpetually pissing himself, and my grandad, who seemed relaxed with the whole situation and kept nodding at me encouragingly.
The next hour was spent furiously charcoaling, trying to draw Arjun without actually looking at him, sort of like the sun on a hot day.
Aleksandra would appear behind us at intervals murmuring encouragements. ‘Ah very good around the groin region, you might want to make bigger the pubic hair.’ But there were moments when I forgot who Arjun was, and instead enjoyed shading the muscles in the legs and trying to make the sketch on the piece of paper resemble the person in front of me. Mostly, though, I loved watching Luke, fiercely competitive and creative, shading and sketching with precision. When he held up his pencil horizontally, tongue clamped between his teeth, I started to laugh.
‘Whatcha doing?’
His tongue disappeared. ‘I’m just working out the proportions.’
Satisfied, he returned to the page, and when I looked down I gasped. His picture was wonderful.
‘I didn’t know you could draw.’
‘Lottie, I’m a graphic designer.’
‘Well, yes, but . . . this is really artistic, you’ve totally captured the expression on his face, and he is all in proportion. My Arjun looks like a star in the next Hobbit franchise.’ I pointed to the stubby legs on my paper and then focused back on Luke’s. He looked bashful as I continued, ‘Honestly, that is brilliant, you should do more of this.’
Finally the hour and a half was up and Arjun was given a towel to wrap around himself as we all packed our materials away.
Grandad headed over, a tentative look on his face. ‘Have you enjoyed yourselves?’
Luke was flushed with pleasure as the men gathered round to compliment his art skills. Trying to detract from himself he encouraged them all to show us their sketches.
Geoffrey hadn’t brought his glasses. ‘A sort of relief really,’ he said cheerfully, holding up his picture, which looked like a Ken doll.
‘Where’s his . . . you know?’ Luke said.
Geoffrey shrugged. ‘Couldn’t see it.’
Howard had drawn a penguin. It was pretty good. He’d found the time to sketch a dramatic backdrop of ice and mountains too.
‘Why the penguin, Howard? Is that a surrealist take on the evening?’
Howard shook his head. ‘No, no, it’s just I can only really draw penguins so I gave up on Arjun early on. He was that penguin,’ he said, pointing to a small penguin near an iceberg.
Packing up to leave I rolled my picture into a tube container that Luke had been given by Aleksandra, who was now gushing and discussing chiaroscuro with him, her pencilled eyes animated as she touched him on the arm.
‘A talent, a talent,’ she cooed as she passed me, stopping to simply nod at my Hobbit-Arjun. ‘It will come,’ she said briskly.
I rolled my eyes at Luke, who seemed to have grown two inches taller in the last couple of hours. He threw an arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my hair.
‘Shall we head off? Thanks, Teddy, for organising it.’
Grandad gave me a hug. ‘Well done, Lottie darling. You survived.’
I laughed. ‘Just about, although a little warning might have been nice.’
‘Well, I hope you enjoyed it. We thought you should do more together. These days it’s all rushed TV dinners and Netflix and Chill.’
My eyes practically popped out of my skull. ‘Grandad, do you know what Netflix . . . actually, don’t answer that.’
‘We were thinking of things you and Luke could share, do together. Grandma brought me along once. It was watercolours. We painted the Seine.’
‘That might have been better, Grandad,’ I said, imagining sketching the Eiffel Tower rather than Arjun’s appendage.
‘All I remember from that class is sitting beside her creating something, and her laughing at my terrible attempts. And Arjun is always keen to get us to come along to one of these classes so we thought, why not?’
‘I can think of one good reason.’
‘Oh, Arjun loves to get naked. He is always stripping down in the golfing changing rooms. We’ve become very used to it.’