The Art School Dance (52 page)

'Well, your
criticism is hardly a mature one,' Goomer responded.

'It’s
childish?'

'Somewhat.'

'You know,
Goomer, there have been times when I’d have smacked you in the
mouth if you’d been a man.'

'A real man? A
macho man?' Goomer laughed. 'And if I was, rather than a gentle
man, you wouldn’t be standing now. I’d have flattened you
already.'

As she scowled
at him and moved closer, intending to make her next insult more
telling, she found a third body in her way.

'Oh,' she
said.

'That’s
alright,' said the young man who had inserted himself between them,
mistaking her surprise for an apology. 'But you weren’t fighting,
were you?'

'No.'

'Ah, I’m so
glad about that. Me and my ex were always fighting and it does no
good, no good at all.'

Sage
words.

Virginia and
Goomer studied the chap, their difference of opinion already
forgotten, and spoke of him as though he had already moved on to
keep the peace elsewhere.

'He’s got no
eyebrows,' Virginia pointed out to Goomer.

'He’s friendly
enough, though,' Goomer replied.

'His lips look
greasy, like he’s been sucking chicken skins,' Virginia
observed.

'He’s
beautifully slim.'

'Only a
fraction over ten stone,' the intruder informed them both, sticking
his thumbs inside the jeans he wore and running them around his
waist, from front to back. 'I don’t eat meat, see. Or potatoes,
either. Or spaghetti. Or anything else that’s bad.'

'What’s bad
about meat?' Virginia wanted to know. 'Or spaghetti, for that
matter?'

The youth
grimaced, to show his disgust. Enough said about his diet.

'Would you
like to see a photograph of my ex?' he asked.

In turn they
looked at the black and white picture that he produced. Short hair
and a determined jaw, as butch as Goomer would sometimes pretend to
be; it was difficult to see how any relationship had come about,
for the young man and his silver-bromide lover seemed somehow
unsuited.

'Very nice,'
said Goomer, using another of his famously fatuous comments which
meant nothing.

'The trouble
is she’s wicked, she used to hit me a lot. I haven’t seen her for
ages.'

'Sad.'

Virginia and
Goomer found deep sighs with which to comfort.

'So for the
moment I’m living at the ‘Beaumaris’,' the chap continued. 'I know
it’s not the best of places, but I keep my room clean, share with a
bloke from London who won’t let the room get even half dirty.'

'Fortunate,'
said Virginia, recalling that the only thing to recommend the
‘Beaumaris’ was that it had wall to wall floors and ceilings.

'A blessing,'
Goomer added, then moved away from the bar. 'Just going for a pee,
dear,' he said, sensing Virginia’s alarm at being left alone with
the newcomer.

Suspiciously
she watched him cross the room.

'Are you two
married?'

'No,' she
replied, and immediately knew that this was the wrong answer.

'Me,
neither.'

'But I thought
you said-'

'Me and the ex
were never really married. We just lived together.'

'Oh.'

He smiled
-strangely, with no eyebrows to raise- and moved closer to
Virginia.

Her nose
twitched when she caught his aftershave.

'Something by
Givenchy,' he told her, seeing her sniff the air.

'Really? I
once knew a man-' she began, a memory being prompted by the
fragrance, but an aromatic hand clamped to her mouth silenced
her.

'Hush, don’t
mention any others,' he said. He was far too close to her as he
asked again, 'So you’re not married?'

'No, I’m not,'
she admitted, shaking her head and causing his hand to fall
away.

'You’re all
alone? Without anyone?'

She nodded,
gagging on a mouthful of beer as this stranger began to speak of an
occasion when she might need someone, might need a shoulder to cry
on, might need another body to sleep with when loneliness became
too dark a night. It was difficult for her to escape, his limbs
were spider-like about her, but she managed to twist her way free
and heard his voice like a litany behind her, fading away as she
leap-frogged her way to the door.

'I’ll wash
your clothes, cook your meals, be there waiting for you...'

Goomer was
outside, looking up at the sky and moving his lips slightly as if
counting the stars.

'Thanks a
bunch,' Virginia said, but he just smiled, his gaze still fixed on
the heavens.

She stood
beside him and waited for something to fall from the inky blue. If
anything should come tumbling down then she would catch it and keep
it; there just had to be a lucky one somewhere up there for
her.

Chapter Five

The mirror
before Virginia was an inconvenient height and she had to bow in
genuflection as she brushed her hair. She was mindful not to count
the falling strands and did not bother to sweep them away; they
rested in a greasy pile on the dressing table, along with the dust
and the used tissues and other miscellaneous items which paid
tribute to her independence. This homage was reflected behind her
and about her and within her disordered mind in a maelstrom of
casual gestures, blouses and shirts gesticulating in haphazard
fashion, like limp crucifixions, while other articles traced her
movements across the room.

She had to get
out quickly, the place was choking her and she had an appointment;
the note, delivered to her via Coral, was taped to the mirror.

‘
CORKSCREW AT SEVEN. PARTY LATER. KEITH.’

She waved
goodbye to the message, opened the window and unfurled the rope
ladder. Carefully, still not fully trusting Gus’ expertise with
knots, she eased herself over the window sill and down, eyes fixed
on the brickwork before her to fight the vertigo. The exciting
conviction that celibate weeks would end that night caused her to
miss her footing once or twice, but she made it to the ground
without mishap.

'Celibate
weeks will end tonight!' she shouted, and crashed through the
undergrowth, beating her way to the back gate.

Once out in
the cobbled alley she was able to skip along more freely in keeping
with her mood, turning right onto Hope Street for the promise the
name offered. Her route took her by way of the ‘Cracke’, the ‘Phil’
and others. Just a half pint in each brought her close to an
understanding of what joyous was. She went along Seel Street and
into the ‘Marlborough’ to start on the pints; a game of backgammon
with Peter would cover the first, the second she would pay for just
to be polite, and then she would move on.

'Out trying to
act like the men again?' said Peter, guessing at the force which
fired Virginia’s good spirits.

'Partying
tonight,' Virginia said, trying to do a dance at the bar and
finding that she had forgotten how to. That was one overture she
would have to forego, then, dancing with Keith; quiet words in a
corner or a crudely direct assault on him would have to be her
strategy, once at the party.

Luck was with
Virginia and she won her first pint from Peter.

'As sure as
omens is omens and the future’s in the stars tonight will be my
lucky night,' she said, and though the landlord cautioned her
against over-confidence she was undeterred. She played him for a
second pint and won again.

'You’re going
to cop it, you’ll get your come-uppance,' he warned her, petulantly
zipping shut the backgammon case.

Virginia made
a lecherous face. 'Groo! You can bet on that!' she said, and went
from the pub, kicking tin cans down the street like a juvenile
delinquent, all the way to the ‘Corkscrew’. There a twenty pound
note from Gerald for more work sold only confirmed her belief that
the night would be special. She waved the note about, demanding a
drink.

'The work’s
going quite well now,' Gerald remarked.

'Yes, not bad
at all.'

'So how about
doing some more? For me, this time. I’ll put them in my shop.'

Virginia made
some non-committal noise, her attention divided between getting a
drink and searching out Keith. Her back was turned to Gerald as she
scanned the faces in the room.

Gerald nudged
her, hard in the kidney. 'Well? What about it?'

'What about
what?' she asked, trying to attract Josh who had just finished
serving someone at the other end of the bar.

Gerald waited
until she had a drink before her, then repeated his
proposition.

'A commission,
is it?' she said.

'That’s rather
a grand word for what I had in mind. Designs for postcards would be
a little more exact. Anything you like as long as it’s
original.'

'Postcards?
You mean you’d have me do work for folk to scribble over, for folk
to slap their saliva-soaked stamps on?'

Virginia
sounded genuinely insulted, as though she was no longer just a
person who did Day-Glo posters for chippies and Chinese
takeaways.

'You think
it’s beneath you, do you?' said Gerald.

'Well-'

'You arrogant
little cow! You jumped up little bitch! You’re an even bigger shit
than I took you for!'

'Temper.'

'Toad!'

A chuckle of
laughter caused them both to turn; the person so obviously amused
by their argument was Keith.

'Toad?' he
said, looking from Gerald to Virginia. 'How quaint. And if I kiss
her will she turn into a beautiful princess?'

Virginia’s
introduction of Keith to Gerald was wasted; Gerald walked off, his
stride deliberately dignified.

'He’s a funny
one. Who is he?' asked Keith.

'A sort of
patron. He helped set up the exhibition.'

'A bit of a
battle-axe, is he?'

'No, not
really,' said Virginia, and she found herself apologising for
Gerald. As she listed his redeeming traits she distractedly took in
Keith’s beauty, the clear eyes which gazed directly into hers, the
copper curls which were lit from behind and shone like a halo, the
lips which pursed as though perpetually amused.

Keith cocked
his head to one side and grinned. 'Are you going to talk about him
all night or do you think you might let me buy you a drink.'

Virginia
apologised, again. She had lost herself in her appreciation of the
man before her, her words had bubbled out in an almost meaningless
stream. She had to keep control.

Equilibrium!
O.K.?

When Keith had
bought the drinks she went with him to where his party was
gathering. Stephen was there -he almost smiled a greeting before he
remembered who she was- but the other faces were all new to her,
mainly social workers she learned, like Keith himself. Their
conversation soon proved tiring, they could talk about little else
but work, they were as bad as schoolteachers. Virginia moved into
an arrogant overdrive, barely disguising the condescension she felt
towards the group.

'Virginia’s
going to do a painting for my living room,' Keith said at one
point, to bring her into the conversation.

'So you’re an
artist, are you?' someone asked.

Or a person
who does Day-Glo posters for chippies and Chinese takeaways?

'Yes, I’m an
artist,' she said without hesitation.

'Fancy. It
must be rewarding, to be able to do what you like.'

'Rewarding?
Not a bit of it. It’s agonising. It’s a commitment one has, an
obligation, not a thing to be enjoyed.'

Her
description of the artist as a martyr was not suffered for long,
various secondary discussions began, small groups talking among
themselves. She and Keith were not directly included in any of
these enclaves and to make their isolation more complete she
shifted in her seat, turning her back on everyone else to face
Keith.

'Your manners
haven’t changed,' said Stephen, pointedly excluding her from the
invitation when he asked Keith what he would like to drink.

'He doesn’t
like you,' Keith confided, when Stephen had gone to the bar. 'He
told me not to trust you.'

'So why did
you ask me along tonight?'

Keith laughed.
'A warning like that is sure to excite curiosity. Anyway, you might
be a lot of things but I don’t think you’re a thief.'

'He called me
a thief?'

She was
tempted to clasp her hands to her breast and cry ‘injustice’, but
this seemed a little too melodramatic, so she settled for a hurt
and astonished look, subdued enough to seem sincere.

'Not in so
many words,' said Keith. 'He just hinted that some of his things
went missing at the same time that you moved out of his flat.'

'Poor Stephen,
he was always losing things. You must have noticed how forgetful he
can be.'

Keith nodded.
'Just what I said to him, that he’d probably mislaid things, but he
wouldn’t have it, he insisted that you took what you could and
ran.'

Stephen
returned from the bar and they were silent for a moment as he
placed Keith’s drink on the table; when he was back in his place,
out of earshot, Virginia moved her mouth close to Keith’s ear to
whisper.

'Actually I
didn’t run. I was chased. He threw me out.'

'Actually I
know that,' said Keith, in the same hushed voice. 'I was being
discreet by not mentioning it.'

'But did he
tell you why?' said Virginia. Stephen most probably had, but she
had to get in there with her own version. 'Did he tell you it was
because I...' She paused, then shook her head sadly. 'No, forget
it, it doesn’t matter.'

'What?'

'Nothing.'

Keith placed
his hand on hers. It was soft but firm, comforting, with nails
neatly clipped. 'He said it was because you were impossible to live
with. I know that much.'