She was cold. Not enough layers worn under her coat to keep the combination of sea and mountain air at bay. But the afternoon was bright. A sky-blue Sunday. A day when there was space to think about something other than Martin, her coming week of lectures and tutorials, and ‘the book’, the necessary book on which her future, academic or otherwise, would appear to depend. And what was there to think about in this space? The quality of light, the colour of the sea, her new and still to be broken in boots, Jennifer Williams . . .
     She had arrived one morning at the Department's excuse for an office to find her door open and a slight, red-haired young woman browsing her bookshelves.
    'Have you read these or are they just for show,’ the redhead said, not turning round in greeting but reaching up to pick Foucault's Histoire de la sexualité, III: le souci de soi off the shelf.
    'No, it's just there to impress my students.’
    'Well, I'm impressed,’ she said pirouetting like a dancer to look Anne straight in the face with those dark brown eyes, eyes like chocolate, eyes that were to become Anne’s undoing.
     'Does Michel Foucault interest you?'
      'No, but I like the colour of the cover and the quality of type.’
     Anne put down her bag, removed her laptop, her lunch, an embarrassing attempt at some knitting, her National Trust magazine, and the latest Granta. Evidence of some kind of life perhaps, a statement. Just what does the contents of a bag say about who you are, she wondered?
     The young woman remained still and silent as her eyes followed Anne's 'getting organised for the day' movements around the room.
     'Are you going to offer me coffee?’ said the girl.
     Yes, she was just a girl Anne thought. 'How did you get in?'
     'The cleaner was here, I just walked in out of curiosity.’
     'Really'
     'I've seen you about. On the pier. Walking. Looking sad. Sadly beautiful. I came to ask if I might paint you'.
     Later, when she was naked in Jennifer's studio and she had been touched in a way no one had ever touched her before, Anne said.
     'I hope you are not a student.'
     'No, just an artist who picks up interesting-looking people on piers.’
     'What makes me look interesting?'
      'The way you move, so sadly, as though you don't know what you want from life.’
      'Oh.’
      Jennifer put her red head, her golden red hair against Anne's thigh, and stroking her foot said.
      'I saw you last Sunday all alone, so alone. I've dreamt of you. Dreamed I'd paint you into my stupid life. Be your companion, a dog for you to walk with, a cat for you to come home to, a warm body to hold you in bed.’
     Anne said nothing. She dressed. She kissed Jennifer very gently on her brow and on her right ear. She left the little flat with its view of the pier, the estuary and the mountains beyond. She knew then she had lost control of her life. She could and would from now on be the fictional person she had sought and imagined for so long.