New short story from Rose Tremain—‘The price of art’

Esther Daniels, 65, twice divorced, childless, still beautiful in an English kind of way, makes a living from her art.

Her studio is a shed in her garden. It has one window, facing north. It’s not what people imagine an artist’s studio should be: a temple to light, with great squares of sky visible through an architect’s brutally clever arrangement of glass. When the wind is strong, Esther suspects that her shed actually moves on its shallow concrete foundations, but she doesn’t want to admit beyond all certainty that it does move. She would find this knowledge just too troubling. The badly built shed houses her great endeavour, without which her life would feel pointless. 

Flowers are Esther’s passion. She knows there are passions more significant than this, but she doesn’t care. She’s kept sane by her repeated attempts to sanctify common flowers in their living state,…