The Art School Dance (44 page)

I could
understand how he felt, stayed in his company because he was not
about to offer advice, as his wife had done, nor comment further on
McCready’s behaviour, as others might. Despite all rumours to the
contrary he was simple uncomplicated company.

Some time
later his wife returned.

‘
Do you
know, Barney, Bobby’s not at all like you said she was. She’s
certainly a lot nicer than you made her out to be. It just goes to
show how you can misunderstand people.’

‘
She’s
mellowed of late,’ said Barney.

‘
Just
the sort of colleague you need,’ his wife continued. ‘In fact, I’d
go so far as to say that she’s just the right sort of mistress for
you too, if you needed one.’ Barney spluttered over his drink as
his wife said to me, ‘And I sometimes think that a mistress is
exactly what my husband needs.’

Barney thumped
his chest, killing the choking spasms which shook him. ‘You think I
need a mistress?’

‘
Well if
you don’t need one, you’re certainly getting to the age where a man
usually takes one.’

Barney
laughed, bravely I thought, said, ‘So you want me to have an affair
with Bobby?’

‘
Well
taking a mistress would prove that you’re normal. But no, perhaps
not Bobby. A man should never have an affair with a friend of his
wife’s. That’s peeing on your own doorstep.’

‘
Bobby’s
suddenly a friend of yours, is she? But you’ve only just
met.’

‘
I know
that, yes, but I really do believe that we could become good
friends. In fact we’ve already agreed to go over to Stratford
together next weekend. A fondness of Shakespeare’s just one thing
that we’ve found we have in common.’

The Bobby I
knew and the Julia I had just met seemed poles apart, and Barney
was obviously of the same opinion.

‘
You
really think you could have anything in common with that woman
after all I’ve told you about her?’ he asked.

‘
I know
you’ve been exaggerating now,’ she said. ‘By the way, are you going
on to college later for the party?’

‘
I was
thinking about it,’ Barney said, a little hesitantly, as if not
sure whether his wife would let him.

‘
Good.
Then I think you might take Bobby with you. And Virginia too, of
course. You are going, aren’t you Virginia?’ she asked
me.

I returned the
nod as Barney asked, ‘Why?’

‘
Because
the poor girl’s chap has gone on without her. You could do with a
lift into town, couldn’t you Virginia?’

‘
Really,
it’s not necessary,’ I said.

‘
Nonsense. Barney’s only going to give you a lift, you don’t
have to dance with him,’ his wife laughed.

‘
Why
Bobby?’ Barney meant.

‘
Because-’ his wife said, and that was all, for Bobby then
rejoined us, having obviously spent some time in the bathroom doing
things to her face.

‘
Okay?’
she asked.

‘
It’s
all settled,’ Barney’s wife told her. ‘I’ll take a taxi home and
Barney will drive you into college. And Virginia too.’

‘
Please-’ I protested, but was ignored.

‘
Well,
the babysitter will be wanting to get off,’ Barney’s wife said,
consulting her watch, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Bye
darling.’

‘
Erm…’

‘
And
I’ll see you next weekend,’ she said to Bobby.

‘
Yes,
I’m looking forward to it.’

‘
And
you, Virginia, don’t forget what I said about patience.’

‘
I
won’t,’ I promised.

Barney looked
quite confused as he watched his wife walk away, saying her
goodbyes to other people as she went.

Bobby nudged
him. ‘Should we move on too?’

‘
What?’

‘
Should
we join the rest at the art school dance?’

‘
Oh.
Right,’ said Barney. ‘But tell me, Bobby, how did you manage to
make such a good impression on my wife?’

‘
Charm.’

‘
And
why?’

Bobby grinned
at me as she led the way out to Barney’s car. ‘Why what better way
to start an affair than to make friends with the wife first? Eh
Virginia?’

*

The second
floor of the art school is bright and raucous, like a funfair on
the on the quiet edge of the city with lights flashing as though
bulbs were popping in time to the music. As the three of us
approached the entrance we had to sidestep the chicken bones, dodge
the debris of the buffet which was being thrown from the
windows.

‘
Here
Barney, catch this!’ someone shouted from above, and a whole fried
chicken burst on the ground at our feet.

‘
Are you
sure you want to go through with this?’ he asked Bobby.

‘
I’m
sure,’ she said, with an ambivalent glint in her eye.

There was a
porter at the door, cuddling a glass and a litre bottle of wine,
stationed there to keep out undesirables. We walked past him,
climbing over bodies in grotesque embraces, made our way upstairs,
feet slipping on greasy chicken skins and tripping over
outstretched limbs. The crowd swamped us as we got to the second
floor, someone presented me with a drink, people were talking and
people were shouting, twisting like tortured reptiles in
competition with the music. A plastic glass of beer flew through
the air, turning with topspin and spilling over the girl who was
dancing before Ceri. Her hair was suddenly damp over her shoulders,
her blouse wet and shrinking against her body.

‘
Take it
off!’ he ordered, trembling on his crutches, and she began to
unbutton the blouse, peeling it away like a sensual second skin. He
licked at her neck, her bared breasts, her stomach, crouching lower
until his crutches slipped beneath him and he was on his knees,
soaked by the beer which she was wringing from her
garment.

Griff came
staggering closer, trying to get a better view, and lost his
footing in the pool she had made, falling to the floor laughing,
slipping every time he tried to get up.

‘
You’re
pissed,’ Ceri told him, taking his mouth from a sticky nipple as he
force fed Griff more beer.

‘
Degenerates,’ Edith Billington sniffed, still looking cool
in her floral summer dress, and stepped over their bodies to speak
with Teacher, who at that moment was in charge of the music.
‘Haven’t you got any Satie or Stravinsky?’ she asked, her voice a
high pitched screech.

‘
Don’t
be daft, Edith,’ he told her, spitting whisky, and she snorted and
moved away.

‘
You can
really let go with Stravinsky,’ she said, and it was plain that
even she was not quite as together as usual, weaving as she did
between objects which weren’t actually there.

I made my
bruising way through the crowd, crossed the room, stopped at the
door to the canteen. There, on the tables, I saw row upon row of
crisp brown chickens, a banquet rather than a buffet, the food
which made an occasion of the evening, an excuse for the drink. And
amid them all was McCready, his head resting on a table, cradled in
his arms, while Rose sat at his side, looking even more funereal
than ever.

‘
Look at
all the fucking things,’ he was saying. ‘Burnt brown carcasses. You
remember my chicken, Rose?’

He looked up
and I’ll swear I saw tears in his eyes.

‘
We
buried it,’ Rose nodded.

‘
Under
the ring road. Tons of concrete and hard core on top of
it.’

‘
Never
mind,’ she said, her voice soft and soothing, her hand on his
shoulder, fingers creeping beneath the curls at his neck

Ceri hobbled
past me, into the canteen, picked up a chicken and took a bite out
of it.

‘
Ceri!’
said Rose, as it it was some sacrilege he was about, as if it was
the Holy Eucharist he was taking a piece from.

‘
Put
that chicken down!’ McCready told him.

‘
Fuck
off,’ Ceri grinned, white meat at the corners of his smile like a
mouthful of feathers.

‘
I said
put it down!’ McCready repeated, and throws a chicken at
Ceri.

Ceri caught
the bird full on with a swing of his crutch, peppering the walls
and ceiling with fragments of flesh and bone. A second chicken he
struck just at his feet, a perfect cover drive, sending the carcass
sliding along the floor, back to McCready.

‘
Great!’
McCready beamed, switching so quickly from anger to delight, like a
child distracted by a new game. He pushed all the tables against
one wall while Ceri pulled a rubbish bin into the centre of the
floor.

‘
Here's
the wicket, there's four runs for the windows and six for the far
wall,’ said Ceri, laying down the rules of the game, and McCready
bowled a chicken at him.

Ceri struck
it, but it disintegrated before it could reach either boundary, and
as McCready ducked and spun on his heels he finally caught sight of
me.

‘
Virginia! You be wicket keeper!’

Patience and
understanding? Were these what was needed? It seemed to me that the
qualities McCready demanded of me were those of a nursery teacher.
I turned and left, felt the breeze of a full toss go flying over my
head as I opened the door. There was manic laughter behind me,
ahead the ‘Rite of Spring’ thumping like an express train, and my
only escape was a quick left turn into the toilets, there to find
Bobby and Barney banging away on the floor, Barney trying to
whisper unqualified sweet nothings into Bobby’s ear while she
squirmed away on the cold tiled floor, her skirt up to her waist
and her knickers down to her ankles.

‘
Hi
there again honey!’ Bobby smiled over Barney’s shoulder, and I
would have preferred a more feminine embarrassment for once, a more
predictable blush.

As it is Bobby
just lay there like a Barney's very own wanking machine.

‘
Go
away, there’s a dear,’ Barney grunted, which is a little better,
but even he didn’t bother to break his stroke, just kept pumping
away, pushing Bobby closer and closer to the wall.

‘
Dirty
bastards,’ I muttered, and went into a cubicle. There was an
unopened bottle of wine cooling in the toilet; I removed it, did
what I needed to do, then left, taking the bottle with me. Bobby
was halfway up the wall by this time, hugging Barney to
her.

The music met
me like a hammer again, a heavy beat which seemed to make the
windows bow, and then there was a screech and boos and applause as
the music system fell to the floor. I had to get away from the
noise for a while, I needed some peace, and upstairs in one of the
studios was the only place I could hope to find it. I climbed the
stairs, hearing the din behind me growing fainter until, on the
fifth floor, it could barely be heard. In the painting studio I
flicked a single switch, which illuminated one corner and gave me
enough light to see by, searched around for a palette knife and dug
the cork out of the bottle. It was not until I sat down that I
realised I was in Griff’s workplace, not until I lifted the bottle
to my lips that I saw my image all about me, in pencil and
charcoal, in pastels and paint. He had made his cubicle like a
shrine, from the single drawing I had posed for he had conjured a
lifetime gallery of portraits.

And in each
one I saw an inexplicable sadness, a whole blue period of misery.
Was this how Griff saw me? Was this how I was? And all because of
McCready?

*

Downstairs, it
seemed that the music had grown even louder, tracks changing
continually, sad songs, logical songs, clashing classical songs of
joy which had people jumping when I entered the room, making cymbal
sounds with anything which came to hand.

Griff was
beating his head with a drinks tray.

‘
Some
party, eh?’ he said.

I gave a
non-committal shrug and sat on a window ledge, feeling a cold
breeze through the open window freeze my dress to my flesh. Ceri
came over to us, back bowed like a sleuth, eyes flitting back and
forth.

‘
Have
you seen her?’ he asked.

‘
Who?’

‘
The
girl whose tits taste of brown-bitter,’ he said, and then burst out
laughing. ‘Ha! That’s what I’ll call em! One brown and one
bitter!’

‘
I think
she wandered off with Walter,’ Griff told him.

‘
With
Walter? But she isn’t his type, is she? She’s not flat
chested?’

‘
Almost
pert, I’d say they were. Like two little pears about to
ripen.’

‘
Is that
right?’ Ceri turned to me. ‘Shit but that’s no good! I need someone
with breasts like pillows, big enough to hide my face
in!’

‘
A
mother figure,’ Griff understood.

‘
You
just keep my mother out of this, fucking pervert!’ Ceri said,
thumping away on his crutches.

Was I drunk or
was all this really happening to me? I went out onto the balcony,
taking more drink with me to chase away the drunkenness. Below,
people walking the sane streets looked up at the college as if
wondering what they were missing.

‘
Not
much! You’re not missing much!’ I shouted, and two young men
shouted something back, stuck two fingers up at me.