This time of night, Briony wanted to escape into the Aldridge mural with a good stout and maybe a steak, neither of which, of course, she was permitted during her shift.
Tyrants, she considered, serving up a glass of Dolcetto d’Alba with a smile to an elderly man. She noted his hands, brown and crumpled as a discarded paper bag. Wiping down the bar, she imagined what it would be like to sculpt hands like that. He was with someone, which meant she could probably sketch him surreptitiously, if she felt like it. The nice thing about the Tate Modern was that she was never alone in working in the open, or eyeballing the odd bar patron. She was just as likely to see the bar patrons ogling each other.
Briony didn't need the pad of paper in her apron for taking down drink orders. Those, she could memorize. Plucking a pencil from the loose bun at the crown of her head, she began to draft a few lines on the page, the beginnings of a bulbous red wine glass and the papery, delicate fingers that contained it.