I thought people might like to read a character I'm working on for a new book....

Julia stared at the large sheet of stretched cream paper taped to a board, propped on her travelling easel.  Her gaze shifted to a stand of silver birches scattered through the native trees on the other side of the river. 

She’d been waiting, perched on a tiny canvas stool, wrapped in a fleece blanket since five am and now it was here, the ephemeral window of perfect light.   Exhaling her relief she dipped a sable brush into a jam jar half filled with water.  She slashed the sodden tip through the well furrowed blocks of colours and catching her tongue gently between her teeth she lifted the brush to start the painting.  

Her phone yelped.  She jumped, jerked her brush sideways and sent a slash of slate grey with an edge of purple across paper.  ‘Bollocks!’  She snatched the phone out of her pocket.  ‘Julia speaking—’

 ‘I forgot my wallet.’ Luther barked at her.  ‘Bring it into the office.’

 ‘I’m not home; I’m miles away, at the river, painting—’

‘I need it now.’

 ‘I’ve waited two months to get the right light—’

‘How soon can you get it here?’

 ‘If I have to have to leave now it will take me twenty minutes to get home then I have to—’

‘Good. Leave it with the guard downstairs.’

 ‘I am trying to work.’

‘Why the hell do you have to go to the middle of nowhere to paint?  Get a bowl of fruit or something.’  He hung up. 

Closing her eyes she counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty; then she gave up and clenched her jaw until it was stiff and her ears ached.  Forcing herself to take long deep breaths she threw her cell back into the pocket of her smock, stood and began to pack up.