‘Be my guest.’ She smiled.
‘Agatha!’ Reggie barked. ‘You wouldn’t mind getting me my cushion and bringing my canvas over here, would you? Eleanor and I are getting new perspectives.’
Eleanor gritted her teeth and tried to remain calm. She knew he was trying to provoke her. If she could block him out and focus on painting then everything would be fine.
‘Ohhhh, shaking things up, are we? I like that!’ Agatha beamed. ‘You sit right there, Reginald, and I’ll be over with your things in just a tick.’
‘Perfect.’ He sat back and folded his arms. ‘And I supposeyou’re too grumpy to get the tea and biscuits today then?’ he remarked.
‘I’m not grumpy,’ Eleanor replied.
‘OK. If you say so.’ He let out a long, slow sigh. ‘At least I’ll get some painting done, I suppose. What with you being all quiet and sulky.’
‘I’m not sulking.’ She grimaced.
‘OK,’ he mused. ‘I could really murder a chocolate digestive right about now.’
Eleanor whipped her head round to look at him. ‘If I get you a biscuit, will you be quiet?’
‘Get me five and I’ll think about it.’ He grinned cheekily.
‘Eurgh,’ Eleanor grunted, standing up and storming over to the refreshment table. When she returned, she found Reggie leaning forwards and inspecting her canvas.
‘Here you go.’ She thrust the plate of biscuits in front of him. ‘Now, do you mind?’
‘You’ve got a good eye, for someone who says they can’t do portraits,’ he commented.
‘I didn’t say Ican’tdo them. I just said I wasn’t very good,’ she corrected pedantically.
‘I see. My apologies, I must have misheard.’ He popped a digestive into his mouth gleefully.
She didn’t bother to reply. She knew it wasn’t fair that she was taking her frustration out on Reggie, but who could blame her when he was being so incredibly annoying? Eleanor forced the rest of the room to dissolve around her, and picked up her paintbrush. For a good twenty minutes she worked uninterrupted, her hands finding their way instinctively across the picture, her mind settling at last.
‘Cookie?’ A hand appeared next to her face, brandishing a crumbling biscuit.
‘No, thank you.’ She continued to paint.
‘Sure? It’s the last one,’ Reggie pressed.
Eleanor inhaled deeply. ‘What do you want, Reggie? Normally you’re begging me to be quiet, and now that I am you can’t seem to leave me alone.’
The old man popped the cookie into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. ‘The thing is,’ he mumbled, mouth half full, ‘it doesn’t work this way around.’
She looked at him, confused. ‘What doesn’t work?’
He swallowed and gesticulated back and forth between them. ‘This. Us. We don’t work this way around. I am the grumpy, silent old man and you are the bright, sunshiny young woman. That’s the way it goes, you see.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong so I can get back to being miserable or what?’
Eleanor couldn’t help but smile. ‘It’s nothing.’ She leant back in her chair.
‘Doesn’t feel like nothing.’
Eleanor paused for a moment. ‘You know that best friend I told you about? The one who recently came back into my life again?’ Reggie nodded. ‘Well, his mum died and it was her funeral on Saturday. He got pretty drunk and we had this big fight.’
‘And?’ The old man raised his eyebrows expectantly.
‘And what? I’m annoyed about it,’ she snapped.
‘People argue all the time. Heck, I don’t think there was a week that went by without me and the wife arguing.’
