The Art School Dance (48 page)

This was the
City side of the city, peopled by office girls and grey-suited men
with attaché cases, and she was wary of it. People here always
seemed to speak in whispers, of the secrets and scandals that were
their business, and females would walk across the room as though
stepping on eggshells, toes down first and heels following, softly
but shakily.

She sat as
apart from the other customers as was possible, her drink before
her and her drawings neatly parcelled by her side, and she winced
as she watched one woman make her way across the floor, towards the
bar from which souvenir key-rings hung like a natural growth,
mementoes of places visited or people met. Thinking that her own
memories would be like a waste-basket of pages torn from a
calendar, she wondered where were the people she used to love, the
ones who had been naturally and effortlessly beautiful. They had
been attractive in the mornings, men unshaven or women without
make-up, and comfortable in any kind of dress. Now she was lost
among the secretary birds who preened themselves and left lipstick
kisses on glasses and cigarette ends, stockinged legs hissing as
they crossed thighs sounding like fingernails scratching down a
childhood blackboard, and the men with careers who stood at the bar
rather than sat, fearful of creasing their suits. Of course they
were sometimes beautiful, sometimes handsome, but always like
porcelain, a little too perfect to touch, as though they might
break or become grubby. And how costly their coiffures looked,
allowing for no self expression, not permitting fingers to run
through the strands in sensitive love-making gestures.

Virginia
scowled and downed her drink.

Despite the
shot of alcohol indecision still dogged her steps, even the few she
had to take from the pub to the ‘Corkscrew’ around the corner, and
she wondered if her drawings were worth showing to anyone. She felt
them under her arm and tucked them closer, like treasures, as
though she might actually refuse to let them be seen.

The wine-bar
was quiet, just a few scattered diners in the bistro twirling
spaghetti around their forks, and at the bar she found Coral in the
company of a dapper middle aged man. The Hawaiian shirt he wore
loose at the waist did nothing to disguise the generous spread of
his build and the smile he offered could not hide the fact that the
creases on his face were permanent.

'This is
Gerald,' said Coral. 'He has an art shop on Bold Street. He’s going
to help us.'

The man
greeted the parcel rather than Virginia. 'These are the drawings?'
he supposed, taking the parcel from her and ripping open the brown
paper. Her work was randomly scattered across the seats which lined
the wall, and, with a finger to his lips, Gerald considered it,
occasionally stabbing at individual pieces. 'Brash,' he said,
pointing to one, and then, 'Frenetic.'

With a ‘ho
hum’ sigh Coral drifted along the bar, emptying ashtrays and wiping
down the surface with a wet cloth.

'Yes!' said
Gerald, suddenly attacking the work, rearranging the pieces like a
lonely old man playing solitaire. 'Yes! I really do think so!'

Virginia
admired his enthusiasm but could not honestly share it; she joined
Coral at the far end of the bar.

'Is he
alright?' she asked.

'Gerald? Sound
as a pound. Leave him to it, he knows what he’s doing,' Coral
reassured her. 'He’ll have the drawings up in no time.'

'And are they
alright, the things I’ve done?'

'Fine,
Virginia, just fine.'

'Marvellous,'
was Gerald’s opinion, when all the work was hung. 'Don’t you think
so, Coral?'

Coral did not
know much about art -she was quite honest in admitting as much, and
not ashamed to coin the old adage- but she did know what she liked,
and there was not a single spot of damp or flaking plaster to be
seen. Yes, in her opinion the display was excellent.

'And now the
prices,' said Gerald, for all the work was to be offered for
sale.

Virginia
insisted that the sums had to be reasonable, enough to pay for a
night’s drinking perhaps, and she followed Gerald about the room as
he tried to estimate the worth of each piece, deducting pounds from
every figure he quoted.

'You really
should charge more,' he maintained. 'Shouldn’t she, Coral?'

Coral
ho-hummed, Gerald protested that the work was being undervalued,
but Virginia was insistent, happy with whatever she might get,
knowing that even at a fiver each she would make a profit.

'You’re a
stupid young woman,' said Gerald, but the prices remained and the
list was completed.

This done,
they emerged from the bar into the afternoon sunlight, blinking in
the glare while Coral locked the doors behind them. Then they
followed her across the city streets, understanding her need to
have a drink elsewhere after serving others in her own bar for the
past four hours. As they passed shop windows where their
reflections shimmered, their shadows before them making a mockery
of their figures, Gerald waved darling greetings to people he knew,
their number so considerable that the thirsty Coral had to
continually hurry him on.

At last they
stopped just opposite his art shop, at the door of a club on Bold
Street. Coral pressed the bell and the three of them gazed in at
the empty ground floor, Gerald using Coral’s bulk to shield him
from the view of the staff in his shop. They waited until they were
recognised on the television monitor upstairs, until the door
clicked and unlocked, then climbed the stairs to the bar where
Gerald again threw out more friendly hellos.

How nice to be
so intimate, thought Virginia, without so much as a hint of a
self-conscious flush to the cheeks.

She took a
drink and was introduced to Gerald’s friends as Virginia, an
artist, not denying the description but not sure if it was
accurate; she still thought of herself as someone who did Day-Glo
posters for chippies and Chinese takeaways.

*

When Gerald
left for his shop and Coral for her bar Virginia stepped around the
corner for one more drink or two. There were plenty of places en
route back to the ‘Corkscrew’ and she chose the ‘Marlborough’.

'Watch out,
Peter,' she warned the landlord as she entered, 'the man from the
water board’s round the corner, coming to test the ale.'

'Do I take it
you want serving?'

'Yes, please.
A pint of titter.'

'Then a little
less sarcasm, if you don’t mind.'

Virginia took
the glass which was served her, poked at buttons on the juke box to
deafen out any thoughts which might try to crowd her mind, then
returned smiling to the bar.

'You look
pleased with yourself,' Peter remarked. 'Come into some money, have
you?'

'Ah, if
only...'

'You haven’t.'
This was a statement of fact, not a question. 'Then I’ve got some
work for you if you need cash. Posters, Saturday night is doubles
night, cheap spirits. You know the thing.'

Virginia
sniffed derisively at the offer. 'And how might Leonardo have
reacted if you’d asked him to do something like that?'

'Eh?'

'Don’t you
realise, Peter, that I’m capable of better things than adverts for
cheap whisky or chicken chop suey? My art is sacred, it can’t be
prostituted.'

'So you don’t
want to do it?'

'I’ll think
about it,' said Virginia, cautious enough to keep her options open,
and turned from Peter to survey the room, her elbows resting on the
bar behind her. There were no other customers as yet, but those who
might come would be ones who were expected. There was a homely
comfort about the ‘Marlborough’, despite its proximity to the city
centre, and Virginia would have liked a pair of slippers behind the
bar, on the shelf where others kept their favourite pint pots and
tankards; this would have made her comfort complete.

When Goomer
arrived, one of those expected customers, he bought her a fresh
drink and asked how the work was.

'It’s up on
the walls and it looks remarkably good.'

'There you are
then, Virginia, always have faith in the faith others have in you.'
He stepped back a pace as if to appraise her, not noticing the
tiredness her drinking had brought on. 'I must say you’re looking
well on your success. It’s just what you needed, inspiration rather
than fornication.'

'Yes, and I
can just see myself trying to screw a life-size, two-dimensional,
acrylic on canvas nude. All the artistry in the world won’t help me
there.'

'How can you
be so crude?' Goomer asked, but Virginia was not listening, she was
applying herself to the problem.

'Mind you, I
suppose I could add a touch of ‘bas relief’ to the painting,
perhaps have a kapok filled protrusion where the willy should be.
That would be a nice bit of invention, eh?'

'A nasty bit
of perversion, more like.'

Goomer led the
way from the pub to the street and the beauty of the early evening
seemed sullied by Virginia’s base thoughts, shop window dummies
appeared to cringe in fear of being assaulted by her. She was
prevented from any such bestial impulses, however, by Goomer’s
tight grip on her arm, and they reached the ‘Corkscrew’ without
incident. There Goomer saw Virginia’s work and Virginia saw hair so
golden that it might have been used in commercials to sell the sun
and the sea and holidays in the tropics.

'Stephen!' she
cried, taking Goomer’s hand from her arm and crossing to where two
young men were seated. There was a bottle of wine on the table
between them so she found an empty glass and helped herself, smiled
at the younger of the two and said, 'How are you?'

'All the
better for being rid of you,' said Stephen acidly and introduced
her to the person beside him. 'Keith, this is Virginia,' he said,
his smile becoming more of a bitter sneer, as if the wine -or the
past- was a sour taste in his mouth. 'If she tells you that your
hair is like a television commercial, that it could sell the sun,
then just ignore her.'

In actual fact
the one named Keith had hair with curls like burnished copper and
Virginia could not think what it might be used to sell.

She switched a
hurt expression to Stephen, said, 'That’s cruel.'

'But a fair
warning.'

Fair enough.
The man was still a bastard and she could not understand how she
had ever found him attractive, let alone devoted a full four months
of her life to him.

'So tell me,
where are you living now?' she asked, adding untruthfully, 'I tried
to find you.'

'With Keith,
in his house. You might say that he’s my landlord.'

Indeed? A
single man with a house, a single man with money. She looked at
Keith, at the copper curls which were like a gilt frame about his
face; he shone, he was beautiful, like an archangel.

Stephen cut
short her obvious appreciation of his friend by asking what she was
doing in the ‘Corkscrew’, apart from getting drunk.

'Hoping to see
people buying my drawings,' she answered.

'These are
yours?'

The two young
men looked around at the work on display.

'All mine and
all for sale,' she said proudly, but neither of them opened their
wallets. In the absence of their cash she had to settle instead for
their admiration.

'So you’re an
artist?' said Keith.

She was not
yet sure that she was, or that she wanted to be, but Keith seemed
happy to believe that she was and she made no attempt to correct
him.

If she was an
artist, then Keith thought she might be able to help him.

'If I can,'
she said eagerly, leaning forward to listen, to look into his
eyes.

'I have an
empty wall in the lounge at home,' he explained, 'and it really
needs filling.' He turned to Stephen. 'You know the one I
mean?'

Stephen
nodded.

'So what have
you got in mind?' asked Virginia, and when he told her a splodgy
flower was what he was thinking of she should have walked away.
What kind of man would want a ‘splodgy’ flower on his wall? Having
decided that Keith was handsome, though, she stayed and listened as
he described the room, painted in tasteful browns and creams, with
its coffee coloured settee and the bottle garden on a table by the
window.

Virginia
cleverly suggested that it might be better if she saw the room for
herself before starting on any specific piece of work.

'Of course,'
Keith agreed. 'In fact we’ll be having a party at the house soon,
so you could come along then. Couldn’t she, Stephen?'

Stephen
-proving himself the rat she had always suspected him to be- showed
little enthusiasm for the idea, but the house was Keith’s and so
was the party. She was invited.

'Now, how
about a drink?' she asked, thinking that one was needed to cement
what might be a wonderful new friendship.

'We’re going,'
said Stephen, rather too abruptly to be polite, and got to his
feet.

'Oh, do you
have to?'

Virginia
directed her question to Keith, taller by the side of Stephen, more
imposing and altogether more pleasant. He smiled apologetically as
he endorsed what Stephen had said, that they really had to be
going.

'Well,' said
Virginia. 'Until the party, then.'

'Until the
party,' Keith accepted. 'We’ll let you know when and where.'

Once they had
gone Virginia returned to Goomer, who had positioned himself in a
corner, strategically placed, able to notice anyone showing an
interest in the drawings.

'Who was that
you were talking to?' he asked her.

'An old
friend.'

'There were
two of them. Who was the other?'

'A stranger,'
she answered, sitting down beside him. 'But not for long, I
hope.'

Goomer gave
her a look of disappointment and disgust. 'Not letting your itchy
genitalia get the better of you again, are you?'