The Sea House by Esther Freud

there was nothing to be added but the flimsy flat-roofed porch. He attached it, just as incongruously as it had been built on in real life, and, aware suddenly of the thinning light, he carried his picture, the roll still attached, into the house and up the stairs, and laid it on the floor beside his bed.
This is too much like the task of a tired and weary man . He had Henry’s letters off by heart. You say you had four hours? It would have been better to have done four smaller drawings, and not to have taxed yourself so much . But there was nothing weary about the front of Gertrude’s house. He lay down on the bed from where he could see it perfectly, spread out on the floor, still glittering with light, and, amazed by his own stamina, he fell into a dreamless sleep.
    Gertrude was preparing supper when the clouds broke over the sea. She moved to shut the windows, and then she noticed Max’s easel still set up, the canvas optimistically turned to face the house. ‘Max!’ she called, knowing he wouldn’t hear, and so instead she ran out into the sleeting rain to bring the picture in.
Yawning, Max came downstairs, just as lightning cracked across the sky, lighting up the garden, the high branch of the tree, and the sight of Gertrude, fighting through the rain. ‘Let me, please.’ Max rushed out through the French windows, and together they released the canvas. There was a roll of thunder, and then more lightning came forking down. Gertrude gasped and for a moment they looked into the eerie whiteness of each other’s eyes.
‘Go in!’ Gertrude shouted and Max turned the canvas against him and stumbled with it into the house. Gertrude was struggling with the doors, wrenching them out of the storm, bolting them fast. Max took a quick look at his sketch, embarrassed by the smudges and soft lines for which they’d risked their lives. Quickly he set its face against the wall.
‘It’s quite a storm, and right above us.’ Gertrude moved to the window as another wave of thunder rolled. And sensing how disappointed she was in him, he moved with her, and they stood there, looking out at the waving branches, starting each time the lightning cracked. But the storm was moving away now, the seconds lengthening between each lightning flash and, as they watched, the black clouds were blown out to sea. Gertrude turned from the window with a sigh, and when she suggested supper, Max nodded, ravenous, taking the tea towel from her, insisting on helping so that they knocked against each other in the galley of the room.
There were flowers on the table in a little local vase. Max stretched his hand out to them, cradling the ceramic belly of the pot.
‘Mrs Lehmann’ – Gertrude nodded towards them – ‘she brought them over this afternoon.’
Max drew away his hand. How could he have failed to see her? He’d been sitting by the front door all day. To hide his confusion he examined the flowers. A bright red poppy, its petals trembling, its stalk sinewy and thin. It was resting among a spray of corn. Max thought how he used to pull off the unripened ears, peel back the pale green husks and suck the kernels, the juice inside like beech nut, sweet as milk.
‘Yes, I was reading about the power of soiling, how some children use it as a tool,’ Gertrude was saying, ‘and then I looked up and there was Elsa Lehmann gliding through the hedge. She’d been walking in the salt marsh, she said, and thought she’d just come by.’
‘I didn’t think you could pick poppies without breaking them.’ Max put out a finger to touch the soft fur of the stalk, and just then, as if in obedience, one damp papery petal fluttered off into his hand.
They ate in silence. From time to time Max glanced at Gertrude, wondering if, like him, she was worrying that Elsa might have been caught out in that storm. She might even now be stranded, shivering, too stung by rain to get back to her home.
But Gertrude was thinking about Alf. Would it be more beneficial,