You can't wake a person who is pretending to sleep

The artist turns the volume down on the TV in the corner of the room and walks deliberately slowly to where the children should be sleeping, only they are not sleeping because they are in our bed and think this all very funny. The artist continues however at a deliberately slow pace, trying as she approaches the bed to induce in their still budding minds a sense of 'sleepfulness'. As she stands by the door – I make it sound more grand than it is - she turns the light down, only slightly, and lies on the bed beside them, because they have asked her to. There are now one or two giggles rising like little eruptions from their mouths as they try to come to terms with the fact they've just won the How To Get Mummy Into The Bedroom With Us While We Pretend To Sleep game. The laughter continues and I take this opportunity to examine the artist's work done today. It is like reading a fresh newspaper. It is full of information. The artist has worked on the contrast. Even in the half-light it pops out at you and readily convinces. The medium assists greatly with this dimensionalisation - if one can use such a phrase. I also like the live and dead nature, as if the dead somehow is still living. Something I remember as a child when puffins would dive into the sea and break their necks when the wrong wave came along, and float on their backs dead but with these beautiful multi-coloured beaks screaming out, ‘I’m alive! I’m alive! Look at the colours of my beak! I’m alive!’ I place an ear towards the room where the children are still pretending. It is very quiet. Either they are deeply convincing or really are asleep. Hang on, I know. It’s happened before. I know what it is. The artist has fallen asleep. (Unfortunately I am wrong: fifteen minutes later, the artist is back drawing at the table and the daughter still awake.) The work on the table is different to the work on the wall. It is tiny. The need to get our dear daughter to sleep however grows vast.