The Art School Dance Page 15

  The bodies were brought home, though, whether I liked it or not, and laid out in the front room which had been especially prepared by Doreen. The curtains were drawn shut, of course, and there were plenty of flowers, swathes of white linen and lace and two candles burning in front of a picture of the Sacred Heart. The coffins took up much of the room, and even with the lids on they frightened me. It was not a pleasant feeling, and certainly not one to which I was accustomed, sharing a house with the dead. I got little sleep that night, never once stirred from the living room where I kept the lights burning and the fire roaring. It was not the moment of my own death, but nonetheless whole portions of my life passed before me that night, episodes from the eighteen years I had spent in that house; I had thought that it was an unhappy life, thought this was why I wanted to get away, but I saw that there had been many happy times and the memory of them brought a few smiles.

  But no tears, I noted. I didn’t regret the passing of the happy times, nor even the passing of Gran and my mother; time passes, there was no escaping the fact, and so do people. Why mourn? It was all very well to remember the past, but even more important to look forward to the future.

  *

  Uncle Jack is the first to arrive on the morning of the funeral, closely followed by Doreen. She fussed about me, said it was a pity I couldn’t have found time to visit a hairdresser, and she unearthed a dark skirt which I hadn’t worn for years, insisted that I should wear it along with my black Marks and Sparks overcoat. I couldn’t protest, I even agreed to wear a frothy white blouse that Doreen had bought just for the occasion. For a moment my aunt was pleased with the way I looked, with the transformation for which she took the credit, but then she remarked that it was a pity my mother couldn’t see me looking so smart, remembered why we were there in our best bib and tucker and started to cry.

  Many more tears followed, predictably, it seemed that every other person who arrived during the next forty-five minutes was crying. The mourners covered generations and there were many I hadn’t seen since the last funeral; some remarked on how I’d grown, others stared in embarrassment at the spiky blonde hair which they were seeing for the first time.

  At ten thirty the undertaker and his crew arrived. Uncle Jack did all the talking, they went through to the front room, then he came back to tell the assembled mourners that they could view the bodies if they liked.

  They took off the lids! I’d forgotten about that!

  ‘Ginny should go first,’ my uncle said. ‘Ginny?’

  And see Gran and my mother with their accusing glances, critical of me even in death? A little guiltily I shook my head. A few people frowned and muttered, some nodded as if they understood, most filed through to pay their last respects.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to?’ Uncle Jack asked me, when everyone else had seen the bodies.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  The undertaker shrugged and went to replace the lids. A few minutes later we followed the coffins out to the cars. There were people standing at every door along the street, clutching handkerchiefs and tea towels to their tearful faces, and I felt awkward at being the centre of attention. Their pity came at me in waves.

  Everyone agreed that it was a beautiful service, once we were at the ‘Bellingham’ and tucking into sausage rolls and ham sandwiches. I could see no beauty in it, though. The church was cold, the incense had a fragrance of must rather than mystery and the priest’s platitudes were ones I had heard before. The only thing that surprised me was when the priest asked the congregation to pray for me as well as for the deceased; he gave me a cold hard glance when he said this, as if any prayers should be offered to Saint Jude, the patron saint of my hopeless case. There was the surprise, then, but no beauty.

  There was no beauty when we moved on to the cemetery, either, which was perched on a hill a mile or two outside town. It was a bleak desolate place and the town seemed to creep up on all sides, as if the living were so tired of their existence on Sleepers Hill that they were eager to sidle in beside the dead. There were more platitudes from the priest, the altar boys looked appropriately solemn, all of the mourners shivered and some wept.

  At a distance I saw Ben, standing apart from the rest. When the graveside service was over and earth and holy water had been splattered on the coffins I was left alone for a while, as was customary. I looked prayerful for a moment or two, then turned to walk over the frozen rutted soil to the cars.

  Ben fell in step beside me.

  ‘Coping?’ he asked.

  ‘Just about,’ I answered. ‘It’ll be a bit easier when I get shut of all these people, though.’

  I nodded towards the waiting cars, to the relations who were gathered there.

  ‘I thought you might be in need of a bit of support.’

  ‘Thanks, I think I am,’ I said. ‘Do you fancy tagging along for the booze-up?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Drinks and butties at the ‘Bellingham’,’ I explained. ‘You know how they do things around here, give the dead a good send-off, say how wonderful the deceased was while they eat and drink at the expense of the unfortunate bugger.’

  ‘Even though they might have hated the poor sod.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve seen what it’s like, I’ve been to a few of those affairs.’

  ‘Can you spare the time, then?’ I hoped.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the car, I’ll follow.’

  ‘I’ll come with you and show you the way.’

  ‘No, you need to go with the rest,’ he told me. ‘Go on,’ he urged, when I hesitated, ‘it’s expected of you. You’ve just got to remember your place for a little while longer.’

  ‘And after that? Can I get away from this bloody hole once it’s over?’

  *

  Ben was the first person I looked for when we were all gathered at the ‘Bellingham’, I almost ran to his side as if he was the father I’d lost; the further condolences which came my way, trying to distract me, I was easily able to shrug off.

  ‘Isn’t it a fucking crime?’ I said to him.

  ‘That they died?’

  ‘That people behave like this.’

  ‘That’s the way funerals are, Ginny, packed with people you don’t want to see. There’s never any escaping them, they follow you to your grave.’

  ‘But when this is over, then I can get away?’

  ‘Or when your affairs are settled. The affairs of the dead don’t end when they’re buried, they tend to drag on for a little longer than that.’

  ‘I don’t mind, that’ll do for me, the fact that I’ll be free to go.’

  Because Ben was such an imposing figure, and perhaps because no one quite knew who he was, the relations tend to avoid the two of us and we were left alone in a corner of the room. Uncle Jack, wanting to be seen as the host of the wake, made a little speech which was full of grandiose words and grammatical errors, saying how much everyone was going to miss Gran and my mother and how everyone’s thoughts would be with me in the weeks and months to come. They wouldn’t, though, no one’s thoughts would be with me, I would be away from that place so quickly that any good wishes would have to travel at the speed of light to catch up with me.

  The speech seemed to mark the end for many people, they seemed to think that their obligation had been fulfilled and they came across to shake my hand or kiss my cheek as they left; but then there were the obstinate ones, those who would stay until every drop had been drunk and every scrap eaten.

  ‘Ben,’ I whispered, ‘do you think we could creep downstairs and have a drink in the regular bar?’

  ‘You really should be the last one to leave,’ he told me.

  ‘But can you blame me if I don’t want to stay? I mean, just look at these people.’

  He didn’t bother to look, he’d seen their kind before. ‘Okay, come on.’

  We walked downstairs and I told him that the ‘Bellingham’ had an ordinary bar, that it wasn’t necessary to have a meal in order to drink there.
He probably knew this, but said nothing, just let me witter on.

  I started to laugh.

  ‘What is it?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Paula told me that very same thing, that you don’t have to have a meal to drink here. This is one of the first places we came together, see. I was a bit uneasy because I thought it was a posh place.’

  Downstairs we had pints of beer, more sensible drinks than the spirits and fortified wines there had been upstairs; on beer I could get drunk, the other stuff just made me sick.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Ben asked me.

  ‘Now that I’ve been kicked out of college, you mean? I’m not sure.’

  ‘You can still apply for a degree course, you know. Nothing has really changed. You’ve got plenty of good work, so just add to it in the time you’ve got left and stick your application in along with the others. Forget the fact that you won’t finish the foundation course. I’ll see to it that you get good references.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Ben,’ I said, for I knew that what he was proposing was not quite legitimate.

  ‘So? Will you give it a try?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  We finished our drinks and had another, I saw one or two mourners come down the stairs so hid in the toilets.

  Back with Ben again, he said, ‘Paula’s waiting, you know.’

  ‘Waiting?’

  ‘She wouldn’t come, she wouldn’t call around to see you, she thought you might prefer to be alone. She sent along the message, though, told me to tell you she’s waiting.’

  ‘She’s not been put off by all that’s happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t you know her better than that?’ he answered.

  I thought for a moment, then said, ‘Can you give me a lift into town, to her flat?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘I’d be grateful if you could.’

  ‘You really ought to go back upstairs.’

  ‘But you know I’m not going to, don’t you?’

  ‘Paula’s in college, she’s not at the flat.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  Ben looked at the people still leaving the wake, probably regarding them in much the same light that I did, said okay, he would give me a lift. We drank up and went out to his car, were in town in a matter of minutes. He dropped me off at the door to Paula’s flat, asked if he should give her the rest of the day off.

  ‘No, there’s no need for that,’ I told him.

  ‘Right, then. I’ll see you again?’

  ‘Or perhaps read about me in the papers,’ I grinned. ‘Bye, Ben. Thanks for everything.’

  *

  Less than an hour later I was walking down the hill, turning to the right, away from college and towards the station. I didn’t care where I might be going, the next train would do, that would be the one I’d catch. I had paused in each room in Paula’s flat, had seen the flat, not for the first time, as the place I would like to live and thought that some day I might return to such a place, to share it with Paula or with a person very much like her. For the moment, though, I needed to be elsewhere, away, some place other than Sleepers Hill. I had left my funeral outfit and smart black coat on Paula’s bed -imagining how she might laugh, to think of me wearing such things- and I walked down the hill in my favourite leather jacket, the one with my name on the back to say that I didn’t give a toss about anyone else. Ginny da Vinci, that was me, and I could see people knew it by the way they stared after me, annoyed by my jaunty step.

  BOOK TWO

  VIRGINIA PLAIN

  a portrait of the young woman as an artist

  Prologue

  ‘Mister Teacher-?’

  Over the intercom the voice seemed to crackle with age, like that of some wizened old harridan, and this was the one reason Teacher had to be grateful to the infernal squawking machine, that it could rob that bitch of a secretary of some of her beauty and youth.

  But Mister Teacher? And spoken with such a clipped lack of respect? Where was the regard he was due? Where was his title: Principal?

  ‘-I have some letters waiting for your signature,’ he was told.

  ‘Then forge it,’ he said. ‘Before you do, though, just nip out and get me a bottle of whisky, there’s a love.’

  ‘Go get it yourself,’ his secretary answered, sniffing audibly, disguising her disdain for him with a snooty appreciation of her expensive perfume. ‘And I am not your love.’

  ‘You should be so lucky,’ he grumbled. ‘Now just cut out the insubordination and shift your lazy arse across to the supermarket.’

  ‘How dare you talk to me like that!’

  How dare he? Quite easily. It was one of the perks of the job, to speak down to people; he had suffered the acid tongue often enough in his younger years, and now it was his turn to dole it out. But still, if she didn’t like it…

  ‘If you don’t like it you can always leave,’ he countered, with a curtness which hinted at an executive decision, and as quickly as the idea came to him so he warmed to it. ‘Yes! Leave, why don’t you? You were never cut out for this job in the first place.’

  ‘Ha! I’ll be at my desk longer than you’ll be at yours!’

  ‘You bitch!’ Teacher cursed her, as the intercom went dead.

  *

  Getting on for fifty years of age, single, and earning sufficient thousands per annum to live quite comfortably, Principal Teacher would have been justified in feeling proud of his achievements; after all, not quite fifty was a good age to be head of an established college of art, a few years younger than was customary. He had positively leapt up the ladder of promotions, climbing rungs at a time. His mother would have been pleased for him, many another man would have been content with such success, but for some reason he felt unfulfilled.

  Slouched behind the desk in his cork-tiled, shag-piled office, the curtained double glazing filling the wall behind him, he felt drained of all sensation, swamped by the muteness of the materials. The softness of the office numbed him, no sound intruded to shake him from his torpor, neither from the streets outside nor from the five floors of art school which towered above; the steel and concrete block was packed with workshops and studios, there would be students hammering and chipping and blasting, nailing wood to wood or slapping wedges of clay into shape, attacking stone with chisels or scorching metal with welding torches, but not a sound crept into the padded cell of his office. He felt that the room had been expressly designed to dull him; if he had a wife he would have confided as much to her at the end of each tedious day, complained that he was plotted against, told her that there was a subtle conspiracy afoot to sap him of all drive and ensure that he remained no more than the titular head of that college of art.

  And a wife, if there had been one, would have laughed.

  He stabbed at the intercom, but there was no response; he bellowed for attention, but was ignored.

  The bitch!

  Bitches all!

  Teacher was a large man, too large for the desk behind which he sat so impotently. His belly bulged against its sharp mahogany edge and his knees nudged its underside; as his thighs twitched impatiently he was able to bounce it up and down, as solid and heavy as it was, and his hands like slabs of raw meat pounded it back down again; his complexion was a fierce red, even when his temper was not roused, and his hair a shock of ginger, blazing about his skull and covering his cheeks and chin. He was altogether too large and vibrant a man to be shackled by such boredom.

  With a heave of his body he sent his chair crashing back against the wall and stood, searched the office like a wild beast prowling for fresh meat. There were bottles in the filing cabinets, and in the drawers of his desk, but the dregs they held did not amount to so much as a single tot. He would have to roam, then, venture out of his cell. The ‘Campbell’ might have opened by now; if not, then he would hammer on the door until it did.

  The outer office was empty, the lazy cow of a secretary having deserted her post. Still, this saved any arguments, there c
ould be no complaints from her about him deserting his, and he marched purposefully along the corridor by the senior common room, meaning to bowl over anyone who was reckless enough to get in his way. The main foyer was as busy as ever, its terrazzo tiles echoing with the hubbub of people, students buying materials at the shop or haranguing the staff with their chits for petty cash, a constant stream of them entering and leaving the building. It was easy to do nothing at art school, as much effort could be expended on considering a work as on its actual execution and there was always an excuse to explain a student’s absence from the building. The only person who needed no excuse was Teacher himself; his position was inviolable, his authority -he could still believe- was total.

  *

  Outdoors, a bright blaze of summer momentarily blinded the Principal, but he had no need to see clearly ahead, instinct guided him down the steps of the college and across the road without ever having to accustom his eyes to the glare.

  He entered the bar of the ‘Campbell’.

  ‘A pint of bitter and a Teacher’s,’ he said, to the shadow that was the barman, then turned to survey the room while he was served.

  Sun streaming through the frosted windows fogged the scene, it was like being bleary-eyed drunk already, there was little he can make out clearly other than the ricochet of light from mirrors and bottles.

  ‘Ceri? Is that you, boy?’ he asked, seeing a figure in the corner hunched like a stone caryatid beneath the weight of shadow. He thought he discerned a nod, so paid for his drinks and carried them across to the table. ‘So, Ceri, comment ça va?’

  ‘Not too bad, Teach,’ the young man replied, only briefly looking up from the sketchpad on his knee.

  ‘Hard at it, eh?’ Teacher took a peek at the drawing, then inched his stool a little to one side, seeing that he was in the way. He took a mouthful of beer and a swallow of whisky, smacked his lips on the taste and sucked on his moustache, said, ‘It beats me how you can draw in here, though. You can’t see bugger all.’