The Finishing Touch

The old man’s hands didn’t tremble anymore. That was the first thing people noticed, though they rarely lived long enough to mention it to anyone.

“Hold still, dear,” he murmured, tilting her chin upward with one weathered finger. The brush, so small, so impossibly fine, traced the curve of her lower lip. Vermillion. Always vermillion.

The girl in the red coat sat perfectly still. Not because she was obedient. Not because she was brave. Because she couldn’t move. Hadn’t been able to since she’d stepped through his door forty minutes ago, drawn by the smell of oil paint and something sweeter underneath, something like woodsmoke and old flowers.

His studio occupied the narrow space above the butcher’s shop on Saddleworth Road, and nobody in the village found that strange. Nobody found anything about Mr Hargreaves strange, which was itself the strangest thing of all. Seventy years he’d lived there. Longer, whispered some. The butcher’s shop had changed hands nine times beneath him.

“Nearly done,” he said softly. “You’ll be my finest yet.”

Behind him, the canvases watched. Dozens of them, leaning shoulder to shoulder against every wall. Portraits of children, boys and girls spanning what seemed like centuries of fashion. Each one luminous. Each one breathing with a vitality that made your chest ache.

Each one wearing that same expression the girl wore now. Eyes wide. Lips parted. That exquisite instant between wonder and terror. He finished the final stroke and stepped back. The brush dropped.

On the canvas beside him, a new portrait glistened, a girl in a red coat, alive in every brushstroke, mouth open as if trying to scream through layers of paint and varnish and years.

The chair before him was empty. Mr Hargreaves smiled, and began preparing a fresh canvas.