A/N: A short piece that I wrote a while back - it doesn't go anywhere, really, and was written quickly whilst trying to finish my other S&A story. Set just after Nancy and John's wedding, late summer 1938. Again, I had ratings issues - this is a T in my book, but others might disagree.

Life Model

'… and it's all tremendous fun, of course.'

'But it's not quite what you were expecting.'

Titty looked at Nancy, who was leaning forward on the garden chair and lighting a cigarette.

'No,' she said. Art school was fun. But it was tremendously hard work as well, and she was – or felt she was – simply miles behind everyone else. 'I've never done life drawing before, for one thing.'

'That's drawing someone with no clothes on?'

'Well… yes. In a way. You're drawing the body. You're looking. You're seeing.'

'All Greek to me.' Titty's new sister-in-law grinned. 'I can draw a schooner under sail but that's about it. Cigarette?'

'No, thank you,' said Titty, a little embarrassed. Smoking seemed so… grown up. Illicit.

'So. Do you want me to draw me, then?'

'You?'

Nancy laughed. 'Yes. You need to practice this life drawing. I'm here.'

'Well…' Titty hesitated only for a moment. 'Yes. Gosh. Thank you. That would be tremendous; if you're sure you wouldn't mind?'

'Why would I mind? I haven't got anything better to do.'

Titty saw – or thought she saw – a flicker of anger (was it anger? Could it be anger?) cross Nancy's face, and then it was gone, replaced by the familiar cheerful Blackett grin. Except it wasn't a Blackett grin anymore – it was a Walker grin. Strange.

'Won't… well, won't John mind?'

'Why would John mind? He sees me without clothes all the time.'

Titty tried not to blush. 'It's just that… well, some of the models at Ealing… well, they might not be very respectable. Some of them. I don't know.'

Nancy grinned at her. 'I'm not very respectable.'

Titty thought about some of the women she'd seen at Ealing. There didn't seem to be any point of comparison between them and Nancy Walker, but she held her tongue.

'Now?' asked Nancy. 'Here?'

Titty looked around. The Beckfoot lawn sloped down in its familiar way to the Amazon river. Tea things still lay on the wrought-iron table, little half-moons of sunlight cast on the lawn underneath. Cake-crumbs and daisies in the grass. The sound of Billy Lewthwaite digging in the vegetable garden behind them. A steamer, away across the lake, sounding its hooter. Bees humming in the purple pompoms of the last of the alliums.

'Perhaps not here,' she said. 'Maybe somewhere a little more private.'

Nancy giggled; a strange sound.

'Alright, Able-Seaman,' she said. 'We'll go up to my room.'

'I'll get my things,' said Titty.

'I'll be up in a minute,' said Nancy.

Upstairs, in what had once been the Beckfoot spare room, she saw John's dressing gown over a chair. A book – his old battered copy of Knight on Seamanship – on the bedside table. His razor on the dressing table next to Nancy's hair pins. His highly-polished uniform shoes, in a neat row next to the wardrobe. No sign of Nancy, yet. Titty drifted over to the window. A box of something called Volpar gel on the floor. She picked it up, curious.

'Terrible stuff, that.' Startled, Titty nearly dropped the box. She hadn't heard Nancy come in. Turning, she saw Nancy grinning at her. 'Take my advice, and use a French letter instead of a Dutch cap. John won't, though. He says… well. Never you mind what he says.' Nancy grinned at her again. Titty had no idea what she was talking about. She put the box down in a hurry.

Nancy giggled again, and walked over to the window. 'In fact,' she said, with her back turned, 'maybe you could even get away with avoiding the whole lot altogether.' She paused, and the silence stretched. Titty was starting to feel uncomfortable.

'Are you going to get married, then?' Nancy asked, still with her back turned. The question seemed asked out of the blue.

'I don't know,' Titty answered eventually. 'No-one's asked me, yet. And I'm only seventeen.'

Nancy laughed, and it was her proper laugh this time. 'Fair enough, AB,' she said. 'Now. Where do you want me?'

John, returning from his walk with Susan, found both Titty and his wife gone AWOL. 'Nancy?' he called, seeing two teacups on the tray on the Beckfoot lawn. 'Titty?'

'Up here, John.' That had come from his room, but it was Titty's voice who had answered. And then, in his wife's gloriously familiar cheerful voice: 'Come on up!'

'Come on, Su,' he said, and made his way upstairs. He opened the door to their room, and stood there, transfixed.

There was Titty, perched on a stool, hair tucked behind her ears, drawing block and charcoal in hand.

There was his wife, naked and perfectly still on the dressing-table chair: leaning forward, elbows on knees, chin resting on bent wrists.

He stood there, quite unable to move.

He'd never seen anything so perfect in all his life.

Susan had come up behind him, and he heard her gasp in shock. Poor old Susan, he thought. Not really her cup of tea at all.

Nancy's eyes flicked towards them, and she grinned her widest grin.

'Hey!' said Titty, 'No moving! Back towards the window, please.'

Nancy winked at them, and resumed her focus.

John smiled, and, quietly shutting the door behind him, left them to it. Titty was a damned good draughtswoman, he thought, but, then, she did have a simply splendid life model to work from…

Downstairs, he passed Susan in the hallway, and was surprised to see her still scarlet with embarrassment.

'Sorry about that,' he said. 'She never ceases to surprise me.' He grinned to himself.

'Oh, shut up, John,' Susan said, and pushed past him rather vigorously into the garden.

Poor old girl. Not her sort of thing, really. Not her sort of thing at all.