George’s Moving Portrait

Grandad agrees to sit for a portrait. George puts his paper on the kitchen table and studies Grandad’s face. He wants to draw the smile that appears when Grandad tells a funny story.

George begins with a careful line around the head. Then Grandad turns to watch a robin on the fence. His glasses slip down his nose. “Keep still!” George says. His pencil stops above the paper.

Grandad settles back, but his smile has gone. George rubs out a cheek and tries again. Now the face looks stiff. It does not remind him of the person sitting across the table.

“What do you notice when I laugh?” Grandad asks. George watches the corners of his eyes fold and his cheeks rise. He makes a few quick marks on a scrap instead of drawing every detail.

Grandad tells the story of a runaway wheelbarrow. George draws while he listens. This time, he follows the slant of the glasses and the curve of the smile. Some lines overlap, and he leaves them.

A dark smudge spreads beside the nose. George nearly reaches for the rubber, then looks at Grandad again. There really is a shadow there. He softens the smudge with the side of his pencil.

He puts the careful drawing beside the quick one. “This one looks tidier,” he says, pointing to the first. “But this one looks more like you.” Grandad laughs, and George adds one last little crease.

They pin the portrait near the kitchen door. Later, Grandma recognises the smile before George says who it is. Grandad tips his glasses down his nose. George grins. He knows exactly which line he would draw.