Life class position

Eduarda was a truly lovely-looking Mexican girl, late twenties, married with a young daughter – what she was doing in Middlesbrough goodness only knows. However we were just glad she was our current life model since not only did she have a good body to draw she had an eagerness and a talent for theatrical poses, frequently bringing in shawls and cushions and other props. She was also totally uninhibited, wandering round to look at everyone’s work without bothering to put on a wrap of any sort.

This being England everyone who came to the evening Life Drawing class always sat in exactly the same place as they’d sat last week, and the week before that, for ever and ever amen. And there being considerably more women than men in the class, the men tended to sit together in one corner.
On the sixth week the men arrived early and deliberately positioned themselves one on each side of the room – north, south east and west – and when we asked why they said they’d noticed that when they sat together the tutor invariably posed Eduarda with her back to them: this way they’d get a turn at drawing her front, sooner or later.