The Art School Dance (22 page)

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 could 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.’

‘
A few
more of these and I’ll be seeing just fine,’ said Ceri, raising his
glass. ‘It’s all in the mind, Teach. The senses are a shackle until
they become fuzzed.’

Teacher
laughed approvingly. He had always had a fondness for the Welsh,
drinking was an art in itself for them and young Ceri made a
passable boozing partner. Of course the lad was only in his first
year, he was some way short of graduating, but when the mood was on
him he could match his elder pint for pint; give him the confidence
that will came with being a final year student and he would be just
fine. Only by that time Teacher might no longer be around, the
acolyte might need to find himself another avatar.

Ceri wetted
his thumb and scrubbed away at his drawing, melting shadow into
shadow, then folded the sketchpad shut and lay it on the table.

‘
Fuck
the figurative stuff,’ he sighed wearily. ‘It gives me a pain in
the arse.’

Teacher had
seen the paintings Ceri favours, they sprawled across twenty foot
canvasses in the studio, were executed with such vigour that they
covered much of the floor and walls as well.

‘
Still
the abstract expressionist?’ he said. ‘Jackson Pollock rules,
OK?’

Ceri nodded
gravely as he drained his glass. For him Jackson Pollock was king,
a man’s artist, drinking hard and painting hard. He modelled
himself on the American, right down to the tight white tee shirt
and glowering brow, carried a tattered photograph of the artist
around in his wallet which he consulted from time to time, standing
in front of a mirror to copy the pose.

‘
Why
bother with the representation, then, if it pains you so much?’
Teacher asked. If he was not allowed to interfere in the normal
course of the college, then he thought that the least he could do
is take an extracurricular interest, so to speak, in the work of
the students.

Ceri frowned,
his thick brows darkening his gaze. ‘It’s that toe-rag,
Walter.’

‘
Yes?’

‘
He’s
pushing us all towards figurative work.’

‘
And you
pay heed to him?’ Teacher remarked, a little surprised that Walter
Grundy could carry such clout. People rarely paid much notice to
what Walter said.

‘
It
makes for a quiet life,’ said Ceri, with a sigh that stirred the
Principal’s sympathies.

‘
Another
pint?’ he offered, shaking the last drops of beer into his whisky
and emptying the glass.

‘
Thanks,’ said Ceri.

‘
Good
lad.’

At the bar
Teacher saw other students from the art school entering the pub.
They hesitated between one room and the next, hovering in the
doorway, then chose the other more comfortable room. Whether it was
him they were avoiding, or the Welshman, he didn’t like to think.
Perhaps they were worried that their Principal might be responsible
for another bar-room brawl, as he had been some weeks before, when
he had been miserably drunk rather than happily so.

‘
So?
Things are going well?’ he said to Ceri, when he returned with the
drinks.

‘
As well
as they ever do, as well as they ever can do in this place,’ said
Ceri, not committing himself. ‘On the one hand we’ve got Walter,
doing his best to bring about a twentieth century renaissance of
figurative painting, and on the other we’ve got Barney trying to do
away with painting altogether, saying the idea is the thing,
persuading us to spend so much time thinking about it that we’ll
end up doing none at all.’ Looking despairingly at Teacher, he
says, ‘This is an art school, for fuck’s sake, we’re supposed to
paint. But there he is, senior lecturer in painting, telling us
that painting is a redundant activity. I tell you, Teach, the place
is fucking crazy.’

‘
Don’t I
know it? You're preaching to the converted there, Ceri
lad.’

*

On returning to
college Principal Teacher had a vision of a summer sky which was
more brilliant than the one glimpsed briefly on his dash to the
pub, he saw it as clear and crystal as a tropical sea into which he
hurled himself, feeling the waves of brine like cotton wool
plugging his ears to any intrusion. As deep as the blue was, so it
towered an infinite distance above, sea and sky a universal colour,
but there was no distance so great that his mind could not reach
it.

From this
vague distance there came a faint insistent buzzing sound, like a
swarm of summer insects to disturb him. It was Walter, even in his
sleep he knew this, Walter Grundy expounding the virtues of the
traditional ways of art, pleading for still-lifes and plaster casts
to be brought back into the studios.

His pleas were
not directed at Teacher, Teacher hoped, for he no longer had any
say in the way that courses were conducted.

‘
Breasts
and buttocks, that’s what it’s all about, if you can master breasts
and buttocks then you’re on your way to becoming an
artist.’

Walter was
boring, bloody boring, and his drone soporific enough to send
Teacher into an even deeper sleep, if a sleep deeper than the
present sleep was possible.

‘
You’re
wasting your breath, Walter-’

This second
voice was not so loud -loudness alone could not disturb the
Principal’s slumber- was not even a slightly insistent whine which
might simply have made his sleep fitful. No, the voice was that
jangling mid-Atlantic twang which could only be Bobby Greenbaum’s.
Teacher surfaced from whatever depths he had reached, for a moment
was tempted to rouse himself for a glimpse of her cheerleader
thighs, but sleep, however shallow it had become, was even sweeter
than such a sight, so he forced himself to keep his eyelids
closed.

Bobby was no
one’s favourite person; her company could be embarrassing, she was
coarse in her ways, and there was something offensive about the way
she plucked her jeans from her crotch while she spoke, as if she
was sweating heavily down there. Teacher always did his best to
avoid her, though he could sometimes excuse her crude behaviour as
honest he could never quite feel comfortable with it; so,
recognising the voice, he feigned the sleep which was now being
denied him.

‘
He’s
not listening, he’s totally zonked,’ he heard her say, her words
muffled as though her mouth was full of marshmallows.

‘
I’ll
get through to him,’ Walter believed. ‘Don’t you worry. He’s like a
sponge, soaks everything up.’

‘
Teacher’s whisky is all Teacher’s soaked up today. The
man’s a veritable dipso.’

Really?

Walter
continued to address himself to the dozing form of the Principal,
undeterred by the lack of response to his exposition of the merits
of life drawing; no reaction at all, he probably reasoned, was
preferable to the customarily adverse reaction his views
received.

Moments of
dozing, a dream, perhaps some conversation missed.

Then Bobby
asked, ‘How are things going in the studio, anyway?’

‘
Not too
bad,’ Walter replied optimistically. ‘Ceri’s flinging paint about
the place as usual. Griff’s making an effort -he’s got Pam with
tits like barrage balloons, very monumental- and there are one or
two others doing their best, painting like virgins who’ve never
seen a naked woman before.’

‘
Pam’s
tits are that big?’

‘
To
believe Griff, they are. I promise you, if they get any bigger
we’ll have to anchor his canvas to the floor.’

As Teacher
shifted in his sleep he made a mental note to see the painting, and
the model too, to remind himself of how pneumatic Pam was. He had
dallied with her once, after an end of term party, and the memory,
though dim, was still there in the recesses of his mind.

‘
And
that’s it? That’s the sum total of the work being done?’

There was the
rustle of an ill-fitting jacket as Walter shrugged, said, ‘It's
enough for the moment, more than we can usually hope for. Things
have picked up of late.’

‘
In the
absence of Barney, you mean?’

There is a
brave huff -‘huh!’- as Walter said, ‘Barney? Who cares about
him?’

‘
I’m
sure
you
do. What do
you think he’s going to say, Walter, when he gets back from his
paternity leave and sees what you’ve been up to?’

‘
As if I
give a damn,’ Walter grumbled, and Teacher could sense what courage
it took to come out with such a simple dismissal.

The
conversation droned on like the ebb and flow of a tide on a shale
beach and Teacher slipped deeper into sleep, back to the past of
some distant childhood holiday. He was on the shore, he was in the
sea, he was happy until-

‘
Mr
Teacher! Mr Teacher!’

He felt that
he was drowning, sinking under crashing waves for the last time
when someone grabbed him, shook him, dragged him to the surface and
cried out his name in panic. As he was roused from his dreams he
felt his clothes to be dry, knew that he was not drowning, blinked
and grumbled and asked, ‘What the bloody hell is it?’

‘
Mr
Teacher! Mr Teacher!’

Opening his
eyes he saw Ron standing before him; Ron, the most -the only-
enthusiastic cleaner in the college, supporting himself like a
cripple, the handle of his broom tucked snugly into his armpit.

‘
You,’
he groaned. ‘What the hell do you want?’

‘
It’s Mr
Grundy, he’s wet the floor-!’ Ron began, but this was not what he
wanted to say, the words came out in a babble, so he tried again:
‘I mean his students-! His models-! The Welsh boy’s-!’

What the
cleaner really meant to say was that two tramps Ceri had brought in
off the street as models had urinated on the staircase outside the
painting studio. He was too flustered to be coherent, though, too
offended by the act he had witnessed to be explicit. In a flurry of
agitation he looked around him, then made a sudden grab for Walter
Grundy’s leg and pulled off one of the leather moccasins the
lecturer wore.