The Art School Dance (50 page)

'Look, I’ve
got identification,' she told them, reaching for her pocket.

'JUST-DON’T-MOVE!' warned the WPC, moving threateningly closer.

Virginia froze
and the discussion continued around her. After some minutes her
buttocks began to ache, seated, as she was, on the hard metallic
floor of the van. She shifted about and no one jumped on her, so
she risked speaking up again.

'I can prove
who I am. I’ve done nothing wrong.'

Nothing.

'I can prove
where I was not five minutes ago,' she told them, trying to
remember the name of the last pub she had visited.

No
reaction.

'What do you
want with me? What am I doing here?' she asked, supplication
creeping into her voice.

Silence.

She groaned.
'Shades of Franz Kafka.'

'You just
watch what you’re saying!' the young policewoman cautioned.

'Easy, Wilkie,
take it easy,' said a sergeant.

Luckily for
Virginia the woman named Wilkie took the advice of her older
colleague.

'But just tell
me why I’m sat on the floor without any shoes,' Virginia
pleaded.

Wilkie seemed
only too happy to. 'Because people in your position panic and start
to kick out. We don’t want a boot in the face from a little bitch
like you.'

Virginia
considered the explanation, even managed to sympathise somewhat
with the policeman’s unhappy lot, but this did not explain why she
had been picked up in the first place. She had tried to be
reasonable with them and got nowhere, so she decided to use a
little honest, down-to-earth, I-know-my-rights aggression.

She steeled
herself, then spoke. 'Now listen, friend-'

'We’re none of
us your friend!' one of them screamed at her, and she apologised,
so losing the initiative.

She did,
however, manage to whisper that they could not keep her in that van
without a reason, that they either had to take her down to the
station and charge her, or let her go.

Obviously
impressed with her grasp of matters legal, they nodded to each
other; it was either in admiration, or perhaps fear, worry that
they had picked up a student of law, a bright young thing who could
have them out of that Transit van and back on the beat before they
could say ‘Robert Peel’.

The one with
the broadest grin -Miss Wilkie, of course- leant forward. 'Well how
about if we take you down to the station and charge you with being
drunk and disorderly? Will that keep you happy?'

Virginia had
visions of the Statue of Liberty weeping sadly, of Justice slumped
forward with broken sword and teetering scales. She crept back into
a humble silence, not knowing what else to do.

Ten minutes
passed. The occasional glances which were cast in her direction
seemed to challenge her to move, to ask for an excuse to stamp on
her. Then the rear door of the van opened and a small, frightened
man peered in.

Frightened? He
should have been in Virginia’s position.

'No, officer,
that’s not her,' said the man, after a moment’s scrutiny.

Wilkie seemed
disappointed. 'But she’s just like you described; tall, slim, brown
suede jacket.'

'Sorry, but
it’s not her,' the man repeated, shuffling nervously from foot to
foot, gratefully hurrying off when the sergeant dismissed him.

'You can go as
well, Wilkie,' the sergeant added.

WPC Wilkie
frowned. 'What about her?' she asked, nodding to Virginia.

'We’ll see
Miss- what’s your name, by the way?'

'Virginia.'

Wilkie
laughed. 'Virgin-ya. La-de-bloody-da!'

'Alright,
Wilkie, back to your vehicle and on patrol,' said the sergeant;
then, to Virginia, 'We’ll see you home.'

Upset by
Virginia’s smile of innocence, Wilkie slammed the van door, no
doubt to go off in search of some other scapegoat.

Without
actually mentioning her address -she was now sober enough to think
herself in full command of the situation- Virginia directed the
driver towards the cathedral. The van bumped over the kerb and
across pedestrian shopping areas, dodging the benches and the
concrete flower tubs. Confident, now that she had been exonerated,
she applauded the reckless driving and asked what it was that she
had been accused of.

'Suspected,
love, you were only suspected,' the sergeant said, and explained
that there had been a break-in at a shop in the precinct. The
description of the culprit who had kicked in the shop window had
been so vague, of course, that it had matched that of Virginia.

'Jesus Christ!
So that’s what all the business with the glass was about? You
thought I’d kicked in some shop window?'

'Right.'

'You were
going to mess up my good name all over a few splinters of glass?
This whole fucking city’s covered with broken glass, for God’s
sake!'

Virginia was
becoming righteous and indignant again, and it did not go down too
well; she was reminded that the threat about drunk and disorderly
still held.

'Just forget
it, it was a mistake,' she was advised, and there were no smiles on
any of the faces around her, so she was silent, seething and
anxious to be home.

'You can drop
me here,' she said, when they were in the shadow of the cathedral,
and the van slowed to a halt.

'Goodnight,
take care,' someone said, as she climbed out of the van and walked
away.

She made no
reply until she reached an alley some twenty yards away. Then she
turned.

'Bastards!
When are you going to handcuff the flowers, too?' she shouted, then
disappeared into the night.

*

'I’ll sue the
fuckers! I’ll have them for harassment and defamation of
character!'

Goomer
applauded. 'Very smart, Virginia, and once they’ve got away with
their harassment and defamation, which they most certainly will,
then they’ll have your name, your address, even the colour of your
knickers. You’ll be chased all over the city, down to Cheapside
every other night.'

Virginia
huffed and paced about the room, scowling at each of the four walls
in turn as though they were her cell at the local lock-up, but the
shawls pinned to them, the dark silks and soft velvets which
covered the faded wallpaper were too comfortable to be convincing.
In her temper she kicked out at Goomer’s cat and the cat parried,
its claws ripping through her sock.

'Sod,' she
said, rubbing her ankle, then overbalanced and fell onto the
mattress beside Goomer. 'But I can’t just let it go,' she told him.
'Suppose someone saw what happened, suppose someone saw me in that
police van. Bang goes their respect for me.'

'Stupid. What
friends you have are even more disreputable than you are.'

This was
unfair, and she said so. It was cruel, too, and her shoulders
slumped, her head fell onto her chest and she stared at her foot,
at the specks of blood which could be seen through the torn
sock.

'Just look
what that little bugger’s done to me,' she grumbled. 'The last
clean pair I had.'

'Take it off,'
said Goomer. 'I’ll darn it.'

Virginia did
as he said, removing her sock and tucking her bare foot beneath her
thigh. She sat like a Buddha with a broken leg, one limb stretched
out before her and the other folded under her dirty jeans which
blotted the blood and masked the smell of sweaty toes.

Without
flinching at the odour, Goomer took the stiff stocking from her. He
crossed the room to the dressing table, found a needle and a skein
of wool and returned to her side. Squatting next to her, his
dressing gown parting about his legs, he started to darn the
hole.

Casually,
Virginia rested her hand on his bared knee. 'If only I had someone
like you,' she mused.

'You make it
sound too sordid,' said Goomer, pricking her hand with the
needle.

She yelped and
pressed her hand to her mouth. 'You’re as vicious as that bloody
cat.'

'Not vicious,
just independent,' Goomer smiled, continuing with the repairs to
the sock.

Those shy
suggestions and tentative approaches would have to stop, Virginia
decided; it was just that from time to time the temptation became
too much, she just had to make one last token attempt. Face it, she
told herself, the guy was weird, he simply would not respond to any
of the advances she made.

She watched
Goomer’s fingers flick the needle in and out, weaving the wool
through the hole in the sock. It was the wrong colour, of course,
but she made no comment; if she did, he would only persuade her
that the contrast of the complementary colours was right.

'Do you want
this?' she asked, picking up a glass of wine from the bedside
table.

He didn’t, it
was from last night, so Virginia drank it down, one sip to taste
and then one gulp to swallow. Almost immediately her bladder began
to ache. She got up, from what was not quite a lotus position, and
went across to the washbasin in the corner of the room.

'Not there!'
Goomer said, as she rose on tiptoe and fumbled with the zip of her
jeans.

'But-'

'I said not
there! Why can’t you use the loo downstairs?'

Virginia
shuddered. 'A person is at their most vulnerable when they’re
urinating,' she said. 'I need to be with someone I trust. You
should be flattered.'

'I am, but
you’re still not peeing in my sink.'

*

Virginia had to
wait until her sock was repaired and they were outdoors before she
could think of relieving herself.

'You can use
the loos at the station,' Goomer told her.

'Why
there?'

Goomer pointed
to the sky, which was becoming clear after a spell of morning rain,
a soft blue which was stretched above the rooftops like faded
denim; he thought that they might take a trip across the river, to
taste the salt air and perhaps steal some rope ladders.

Virginia was
unenthusiastic, after her encounter with the law she was reluctant
to antagonise them further, but, as Goomer pointed out, if they
were determined to harass her then she may as well give them good
reason.

His simple
logic worked; Virginia was persuaded and they walked into the gloom
of James Street station, took the lift to the platform below. Once
she had used the toilets they stood side by side before the
sweating, rough hewn walls.

'Face it,
Virginia, it’s fate, if the police are out to get you for something
they will do sooner or later. You’re a perfect victim for
prosecution.'

'That’s very
comforting. Thanks.'

'You’ve got
the face for it, a face that people will pick on, remember seeing
at the scene of a crime.'

'That’s fine
encouragement for someone you’re asking to commit a felony. I’m
going.'

But she could
not; Goomer had the tickets.

The train
grumbled into the station, sighed its doors open and shut, then
laboured on again, gradually picking up momentum to thunder through
the dark dank tunnels beneath the river, sparking the walls with
electric blue flashes. Bouncing, humming and shaking, it emerged
into the daylight, onto that strip of land which was like a blunted
finger pointing to the Irish Sea, showing one way out of that
sometimes sullen city. Soon glimpses were offered of sail on the
sea, pocket handkerchiefs fluttering white against the blue and
prompting Virginia to think that it might be a nice thing to try,
to take in the briny breeze and then wash it down with a pint at
the yacht club. It was a dream, though, it would need money and
manners before it could be fulfilled.

Goomer broke
the dream and they left the train one stop before the end of the
line.

'We may as
well walk a while, we’re not going to try nicking anything in broad
daylight,' he said, and so they walked, along the wide promenade
which was nothing but grassy plain and tarmacadamed roadway,
bordered by the concrete sea-wall. The high tide slapped against
the wall, keeping Goomer’s sandalled feet from the beach, and in
places it spilled over, lazily trickling across the pavement and
into the gutter.

Virginia
imagined the sea at its most wicked, a liquid predatory thing,
plucking bodies like false gods from their pedestals.

'I’m not too
sure about this,' she told Goomer. “Those ladders might be
needed.'

'Balls.
They’re neither use nor ornament. Come on, let’s have a drink to
bolster your courage. Forget your sense of decency and trust in
air-sea rescue.'

Chapter Four

Awake early,
with the dawn as nature intended, Virginia yawned and stretched and
prepared to vacate her bed, only to realise that there was no bed
beneath her; she reached out a hand but there was no wall to her
side, she opened her eyes and saw that there was no ceiling above.
She was on the beach, in the shadow of a concrete slipway, her toes
only inches away from being kissed by the incoming tide. Scrambling
to her feet she went up the slope of the slipway, dreams of an
angry sea still snapping at her heels, and sat down on the sea
wall. Street lights had dimmed against the morning sky, there was a
whisper of light on the trees in the distance and a breeze softly
stirring them. She brushed the sand from her clothes, then started
to walk towards the beckoning branches.

Rope ladders!
She turned to look back at the sea wall, remembering why they had
come, and saw that it was noticeably lacking in rope ladders.

What had
happened?

Not stopping
to dwell on the matter, nor worrying over how she had come to wake
on the beach -it was only one more night lost, after all, there
were plenty left- she hurried on before she could be accused of any
felony.

Once past the
pier, on the other side of the single street which was the town,
she slowed down, drifted whimsically along, following the tide
towards the ferry. Waves reflected sky-blue rather than revealed
the muddy grey which lay beneath the surface, and it was easy in
such circumstances to forget how dirty the river actually was. With
the last vestiges of intoxication still in evidence it seemed that
her spirit was some distance ahead, absorbed by the daydream
morning, while her carcass like some oriental bride followed a few
respectful paces behind. The sensation was not a disturbing one,
though, in fact it was almost welcome, for any sensation at all was
preferable to the states of analgesia which sometimes affected
her.