Life Drawing for Beginners (8 page)

W
hen he drew up outside the school, James reached past Charlie to open her car door. She ruffled his hair, as she always did. “Stop messing my hair, you monkey,” he said, as he always did.

“Can Eoin come to my house after school?”

Eoin again. “Not today, poppy.”

She scowled. “You
always
say not today.”

“Well, that’s because I have to meet his mum first.”

“But how can you meet her if you never come in?”

Good point. James had yet to lay eyes on the famous Eoin. When he dropped Charlie at school, he stayed in the car and watched her walking in, and in the afternoon she was collected from school by someone from the nearby crèche, and taken there till James picked her up again at five. He had no wish to strike up any kind of acquaintance with the parents of his daughter’s classmates—not yet anyway—and he figured if the teacher wanted to see him, she’d let him know.

All the same, he wondered how long more he’d be able to get away with distancing himself from Charlie’s school life. “Tell you what,” he said, “why don’t you and I have dinner out tomorrow?”

“Why not today?”

“Because I’ve already taken the bacon out of the freezer.”

She thumped her feet against the seat. “I
hate
stupid bacon.”

James kept his patience. “You do not, you love bacon.” He tickled under her arm, and she squirmed away. “Say you love it or I’ll tickle you to death. Say it.”

Being a parent, he’d long since realized, wasn’t so much one job as several, all of them unpaid, and all with extremely unsociable hours. Cook, cleaner, minder, nurse, educator, entertainer, chauffeur, disciplinarian—and doubtless as she got older the list would lengthen, maybe with jobs he didn’t even know existed now. Being a parent was a challenge. Being a lone parent was bloody terrifying.

When she eventually got out of the car he waited until she’d disappeared through the school doors before driving off. As he crawled through the Carrickbawn rush-hour streets, as eight more stultifying hours in the estate agency beckoned, James felt the familiar dread seeping under his skin.

He yearned to be his own boss again, to be in control, to be able to stand over every decision he took. He wondered if he’d ever get back there, if he’d ever manage to steer his life back onto its original course. No—not its original course, that was gone forever, but something he could be proud of, something he could look forward to.

He parked in the little yard behind the estate agency and took his jacket from the backseat.

“Belshazzar, is that you?” His mother’s voice was as clear as if she were phoning from the house next door.

Zarek’s heart stopped. “Mama—what’s wrong?”

His father dead, his sister in a horrible accident. Someone in hospital, on life support. He wondered how much a last-minute flight to Wroclaw would cost, and whether he could borrow from Pilar or Anton.

“We got the money,” his mother said. “It arrived this morning.”

The money. Zarek had forgotten the money. Relief flooded through him.

“You are a good boy,” his mother said. “Another son would get a bonus from his job and say nothing to his parents.”

The bonus fib had been a necessary evil—any form of gambling was frowned on in the Olszewski household. Zarek figured it was a perfectly acceptable fib under the circumstances—​admirable, even, in its credibility. As well as
€
150, he’d given his mother something to boast about to Kasia Zawadzka, who lived across the street, and whose daughter Margeta worked in the Polish embassy in London.

“Buy yourself something nice,” he told his mother, knowing he was wasting his time. His father’s shoes would be replaced, or the kitchen windows would get new curtains, or
€
50 would be slipped silently to his sister.

“Any news?” his mother asked.

Zarek thought. You had to have news when someone phoned you from Poland. “Work is busy,” he said. “Weather is mixed. Anton is cooking Irish stew for dinner. Pilar still hates her job.”

He wouldn’t mention the drawing classes. Keep it simple.

“Have you met anyone nice?” his mother asked.

“Lots of nice people here in Ireland,” Zarek replied. “So many nice people, like Polish people but with more freckles.”

“Belshazzar,” she said, “you know what I mean.”

He knew what she meant.

“I must go, Mama,” he told her. “The doorbell is ringing. Kiss Papa and Beata for me.”

He hung up and walked into the galley kitchen, where Anton, who came from Brittany, had just begun to peel carrots for the Irish stew.

“Want to ’elp?” he asked.

Zarek rolled up his sleeves. “Yes, I want.”

“You got a new dog.”

Audrey started, her trowel slipping from her hand. “Kevin, you gave me a fright.” So quietly he moved, like a cat. She should be used to it by now, but his sudden appearance on the other side of the dividing hedge startled her every time. She sat back on her hunkers and smiled up at him.

“Did you have a nice time in Cork?”

“Yeah.” His piercing green eyes were still fixed on Dolly, who was looking up at him from Audrey’s side of the hedge, tail wagging. “You got a new dog,” he repeated.

Audrey stood up and lifted the pup towards him. “Yes, I did. I bought her in the pet shop. Isn’t she lovely? Do you want to hold her?”

“No,” he said, flinching back.

“Just pat her head so, to say hello.”

He reached cautiously toward Dolly, but jerked his hand back quickly when the little dog lunged at it.

“It’s okay,” Audrey assured him. “She won’t hurt you, she just loves licking things. It’s her way of being friendly.”

But he kept his distance, regarding her warily. “Where did you get it?” he asked.

“In the pet shop,” Audrey told him again. “She was sitting in the window, in a special kind of box, and I thought she was gorgeous.”

“Did you pay money?”

“Oh, I did, a lot of money. She was very dear.”

“More than a euro?”

“Oh yes, much more.”

Kevin was forty, with a beautiful unlined face and the mind of a young child. He’d been living next door with his mother, Pauline, when Audrey had bought her house three years previously. He rarely smiled, but would occasionally give a sudden bark of laughter, gone as quickly as it had come.

“Her name is Dolly,” Audrey told him. “After Dolly Mixtures, because she’s a mix of two different dogs.”

“Why?”

“Her dad was one kind of dog, and her mum was another,” Audrey explained. “So she’s a mix of the two.”

“I don’t like Dolly Mixtures,” he said, still watching the dog intently, “except the jelly ones. I like Mars bars better.”

“Me too.” Audrey bent and released Dolly, who raced down the garden.

“Where’s it going now?” Kevin asked.

“Just for a little run,” Audrey said. “She has lots of energy, doesn’t she? Look how fast she can run.”

“She’s jumping in the flowers,” Kevin said disapprovingly.

Audrey sighed. “Yes, she is.”

Every morning Kevin and his mother walked to the local shop, Pauline holding him by the hand, for the daily paper and whatever other bits and pieces they needed. Twice a week Kevin was collected by mini bus and taken to a day center in the grounds of the local hospital, where he socialized for a few hours with other disabled residents of Carrickbawn.

“Audrey, there you are.”

Pauline emerged from her house, holding a package wrapped in yellow paper. “We brought you a tiny little present from Cork, didn’t we, love?” She handed it to Kevin. “Why don’t you give it to Audrey?”

He passed it solemnly over the hedge.

“Ah, you didn’t.” Audrey unwrapped the package and lifted out the blue plastic mug with her name spelled out on the side in colorful cartoon letters.

“It says
Audrey
,” Kevin said. “I saw it.”

“Well, that’s just wonderful.” Audrey smiled at him. “That’s a lovely present, Kevin—thank you so much.”

“And you got a new little dog,” Pauline said. “Isn’t he—” She stopped, her smile fading. “Oh, Audrey, what happened to your lovely dahlias?”

“I got a dog,” Audrey said. “That’s what happened.”

“Oh no, isn’t that awful. You’ll have to train him not to do that. Look Kevin, the little dog dug up poor Audrey’s flowers.”

“And it tried to bite me,” Kevin said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t think so, love,” Pauline said, exchanging a look with Audrey. “I’m sure he was just being friendly.”

Kevin’s father had walked out when it became clear that his son would never grow up mentally. He lived about fifty miles away with his second family, and Kevin hadn’t seen him in over thirty years.

Pauline had worked all her life, cleaning houses, childminding, tending gardens, taking in other people’s washing and ironing. When Kevin left his special school at eighteen Pauline gave up working outside the home, but two years later she was offered the job of housekeeper for a man whose wife had just died, leaving him with two young children.

As soon as it was agreed that Kevin could accompany her to the house each day Pauline accepted the job and kept it for ten years, until the children were old enough not to need her any more. The daughter of the house, in her twenties now, still visited her old housekeeper regularly, and Audrey knew her to see and say hello.

“Did you start your evening class?” Pauline asked.

“I did, on Tuesday.”

“Well? How did it go?”

“Fine, apart from my model having last-minute nerves—oh, and apparently two people protested outside the college, although they were gone by the time I arrived, because my moped wouldn’t start.”

“Lord, it sounds like you had your hands full. What was the protest about?”

“Oh, they objected to the nudity.”

“Well, haven’t some people got little to do. And what are your students like?”

“Lovely—three women and two men.”

“Two men—are they unattached? Anyone interesting?”

Audrey laughed. “You’re worse than my mother. One is gorgeous but far too young, and the other is…very quiet.”

Have you done this before?
she’d asked James, and he’d said no, never, in his soft, singsong accent. His drawings were crude but they had a charming naïveté that appealed to Audrey. He’d given no indication that he’d enjoyed the class. He hadn’t attempted, as far as she knew, to make conversation with any of the others throughout the evening, and he’d gone missing at the break. Hopefully he’d open up a bit over time.

When Pauline and Kevin left her to finish their unpacking, Audrey rinsed her gardening tools at the outside tap and returned them to the shed. Back in the kitchen she lit the oven and took a low-calorie pizza and a bag of oven chips from the freezer. She set the pizza on a baking sheet and added cubes of pineapple and strips of ham, and grated more cheese over the lot. No wonder it was low-calorie, with the tiny amount of topping they put on. She shook a generous handful of chips onto the tray beside the pizza. She wasn’t overly keen on oven chips—much too dry, you had to
drown
them in vinegar—but they were so handy.

As she closed the oven door Dolly pattered in from the garden, soil scattering from her paws across the tiles. Audrey looked at her. “What am I going to do with you? When are you going to stop ruining the garden—not to mention the house? There isn’t a thing left you haven’t chewed.”

At the sound of Audrey’s voice the little dog wagged her tail. She trotted to her water bowl and began to lap noisily.

“I’m bringing you to the vet on Saturday,” Audrey went on. “You might need a few vaccinations, and he might give me some tips on how to train you. You’ll have to walk there, and it’s quite a long way, but I’ve got no carrier.” None of the supermarkets stocked them, and she was damned if she was going to darken that man’s door again.

Dolly wandered away from the water bowl and pushed her head into the log basket, knocking two blocks onto the floor. She looked up at Audrey and barked happily.

Audrey smiled. “That’s the trouble,” she said, retrieving the blocks. “You’re just so adorable.”

“You’re kidding.”

Jackie spooned foam from her cappuccino and shook her head. “Swear to God.”

“You stripped? Everything?”

“Every stitch. I was totally naked.
Totally
.”

“
Jesus
.” Her friend blew on her tea. “Weren’t you mortified to have them all staring at you?”

“I was at the beginning, I thought I was going to throw up. But once I realized they weren’t, you know, getting turned on by it—” she giggled “—I kind of relaxed.”

“
Jesus
…I’d have
died
.”

“Ah no, it’s grand.” Jackie ran her spoon around the rim of her mug, gathering more foam. “It’s just art. There’s nothing sleazy about it.”

“I know, but still.”

“And you can’t breathe a word, remember. Not to anyone. Imagine if my folks got to hear.”

“I know, don’t worry.”

“And…”—she licked the spoon—“…there’s something else.”

“What?”

“There’s this guy in the class…it’s nothing really, I haven’t even talked to him—”

“But you fancy him, and he’s seen you naked.”

Jackie giggled again, her eyes on the steady stream of people passing the café window. “Well, yeah, I suppose—” She broke off abruptly. “Oh my God, I don’t believe it.”

Her friend swung around. “What? What is it?”

“He’s just walked past,” Jackie said. “Just this second, while we were talking about him. How weird is that?”

Looking different today, striding purposefully along the path in a dark shirt and grey trousers. Two nights ago he’d been in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and a navy jacket had been slung across the back of his chair.

But it was him, she was sure.

“Go after him,” her friend was urging. “Go on, just pass him and say hello.”

“Ah no.” She couldn’t, not when she’d been sitting naked in front of him the night before. Not when he’d been looking at her breasts, and her thighs, and everything in between. “No, I’ll leave him off.”