Free The English Boys by Julia Thomas Page A

and reading Sartre or Hemingway and pretending they make sense.”
    â€œBut I’m not like that, of course.”
    â€œOh, you’re not like that at all. You’re a free spirit. You know: the sort to lean over the deck of a bateaux mouche to see if you can see your reflection in the Seine. Or eating melting ice cream on the Île Saint-Louis. Anything but ordinary.”
    â€œYou know, I thought you’d be a pompous arse. Actors generally are.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œI should know. I’m an actor, too.”
    He gave her a skeptical look while trying to keep a straight face.
    â€œOh, I’m not in the Jane Austen set like your lot,” she explained unselfconsciously. “I do the odd science fiction television program. You know, dinosaurs taking over the earth and mummies coming to life in the British Museum, that sort of thing.”
    â€œIs that what you meant to do when you were at school?”
    â€œI’ve changed my mind. You are a pompous arse.”
    â€œAt least we have that sorted. Would you like a drink?”
    Tamsyn pulled off her hat and rested it on the railing. “I’d love one.”
    He left her to purchase two lemonades from the mini café inside, pausing to exchange a smile with Hugh, who was observing his t ê te- à -t ê te with the girl. Hugh raised his glass in a mock toast, and Daniel shook his head. She wasn’t the sort of girl one chats up and takes to bed two hours later. He knew better than that. She was the sort you leave almost immediately after meeting and then wonder why the hell you can’t get her out of your mind.

Eight
    In spite of its location off Trafalgar Square, amidst the angry snarl of Charing Cross Road and St. Martin’s Lane, the National Portrait Gallery remains a haven for deep thinkers and scholars who come primarily to transport themselves to other places and times. The massive stone walls shelter their inhabitants from the strident London traffic, which shunts incalculable numbers of passengers to and from various means of employment, meals, and business dealings of every kind. The gallery provides a place to contemplate the faces contained therein, some of which were fashioned of paint, others in pen and ink, not to mention observe the stark contradiction be tween the grandness of bronze sculptures and the more modest plasticine medallions. All are capable of inspiring interest and giving the viewer the ability to recreate, at least in the mind’s eye, the exact mental picture he or she hopes to attain.
    It was shortly after agreeing to appear in Sir John’s film that Daniel found himself doing precisely that as he stood in front of the portrait of Thomas Hardy, oil on panel, by William Strang. The portrait was how he’d imagined it: entrancing. Hardy’s slightly balding head was captured bent in thought, eyes downcast, sad, almost, as if he were grieving or thinking of a love that he had once possessed but now lost. His full, bushy eyebrows dominated the upper half of his head, his even more voluminous mustache the lower, and the subtle play of hues behind his dark suit set the tone for an ominous mood. Certainly, if the author had been contemplating one of his characters, he was thinking not of Under the Greenwood Tree’ s resilient Fancy Day but more likely of his heroine Tess, for the miseries with which he endowed her poor character would indeed have the power to cause him tremendous pain.
    Daniel wasn’t overfond of portraits, or pictures of any kind. They were antithetical to the dramatic arts. He did, however, see the activity of searching out any and all relevant information as an important exercise in the preparation for a role, not unlike memorizing lines of dialogue or watching a previous version of a film in order to determine what, if anything, might be useful to him in his art. Hardy’s expressive face spoke volumes in the silent room. He had