The Art School Dance (61 page)

'Come off it,
Virginia,' said Goomer. 'All your adult life has been spent getting
pissed, playing with yourself or trying to play with someone else.
Don’t try to kid me that there’s ever been anything more noble on
your mind.'

'Shut up,' she
told him. 'I thought you were giving your mouth a rest today.'

'Now she’s
reacting the way any guilty soul would,' Goomer smiled at Dean.

'Precisely the
impression I get,' Dean agreed.

Stupid
bastard. And he had been much more acceptable when he
was
stupid.

*

The weekend
itched, it scratched and clawed at Virginia’s temper, the weekend
being Sunday, her day of rest when everywhere was shut and the pubs
were restricted to ridiculous hours. Despite having been drunk the
previous night she was awake early to see Sunday rise in all its
glory from behind the cathedral. She stared at the ceiling, watched
it become brighter, nothing to do but wish she could sleep again.
And it was not even conscience which kept her awake, for the night
before had offered no simple sinful pleasures to make her feel
guilty. She had shared drinks with Goomer and Dean, staying with
them for as long as she could suffer their comments and opinions,
most of which were critical of her. Curiosity helped her bear their
jibes, curiosity over the change in Dean, how it had been
contrived, and a fascination with his constantly unfolding beauty,
so much of a surprise and so unexpected when she remembered back to
their first encounter.

The obvious
affection between the two men had been too much for her to take,
however, a persistent reminder that neither of them were for her,
and eventually the sight of them flirting openly before her became
a teasing thing, the drone of the adverse opinions an annoyance.
She had moved on, then, alone, calling at various places on her
meandering way home, sometimes looking at boys and young men and
sometimes longing after their touch but always gulping down the
drinks to deaden the senses and chase away the greedy cravings. If
drink could be said to be a sinful pleasure, then it was the only
one of the night, but she would argue that for once it had been no
pleasure at all; she had been drinking merely to sleep, she had
partaken of nothing of which she could feel guilty.

Josh? He
was still sleeping in his wife’s arms, no doubt, so there was no
guilt on that count. It was just Sunday keeping her awake. Sunday,
bloody Sunday. The film was recalled, and with it memories, a whole
series of them which flicked before her eyes like filing cards with
worn edges, but this is all they now were, memories. She blinked
and erased them, wiped them from the ‘
tabula rasa
’ of the ceiling she was staring at; the sounds
they made came jangling long after, though, echoing about the
Sunday morning silence of her room.

Sunday morning
silence? The bloody bells were starting now, clanging out a
cacophony. Next would come the Boys Brigade or the British Legion
or whoever’s turn it was to process about the streets that weekend.
There was always someone, every Sunday, prancing and posturing, and
she leapt from her bed before the buglers could pucker up or anyone
could rattle a tambourine, threw on some clothes, unfurled the rope
ladder and slipped out of the window.

After beating
her way through the garden and yanking back the rusted bolt on the
gate Virginia went to the corner of the street, to a point where
she had a clear view down to the Pier Head. Squinting at the Liver
Building clock she guessed that it was five minutes past eleven.
She hoped that it was five minutes past eleven; at least this would
give her only fifty five minutes to wait until opening time. She
walked down Mount Street, past the Institute -’Charles Dickens gave
readings here’- and towards the deserted city centre. The Liver
Building slipped from view as she made her way along the city
streets, wondering why they always had to be laid out at right
angles, wishing there were a few acute or obtuse junctions to break
up the monotony but left only with the feeling that she was an ant
creeping across a Mondrian painting -’Liverpool Boogie Woogie’-
imprisoned by the rigid geometry. When the two tethered Liver birds
came momentarily into view she saw that her eyesight had not failed
her; it was now eleven thirty. She made an about-turn, regimented
by the landscape and programmed by her impulses, and returned the
way she had come, left, right, left, right, regulating her pace to
ensure that her arrival at her destination coincided with the big
hand and the little hand meeting at opening time.

Standing on
the corner of Egerton Street and Catherine Street she smiled,
knowing that behind her, by the river beneath the birds, the two
hands of the clock were about to merge into one. A dozen brisk
steps to her left took her to the door of the ‘Grapes’ just as it
was being unlocked.

Stepping
inside, into the brown leather rooms, her pleasure at being the
first customer of the day was quickly dispelled; her name was
called out, appended by a familiar ‘darling’.

Gerald. He was
seated in a comfortable manner, wearing his customary voluminous
Hawaiian shirt; this morning, though, the swathes of fabric were at
rest, not billowing about him in a flurry of activity, as he
slouched over a plate of scrambled eggs.

'What are you
doing here?' Virginia asked.

'Having
breakfast, dear. It’s the only place on Sunday mornings.'

'But so
early?'

'We have an
arrangement, the landlord and I.'

At that moment
the landlord came from behind the bar, dressed in a white boiler
suit which was so spotless that it made a lie of any suggestion
that he might have been working. He asked Gerald if Virginia was
with him.

'With me? Yes,
I suppose she is now that she’s here. Give her a drink.'

'Only she
caused a bit of bother last night,' the landlord continued, eyeing
Virginia suspiciously.

'I did?'

'She did?'
said Gerald, and then chuckled. 'Yes, I imagine she might have
done. If she did, you’ve got to excuse her. She’s an artist.'

This was
obviously excuse enough for the man in the white boiler suit; he
asked Virginia what she would like, went to the bar and returned
with the required pint.

'Thanks,' said
Virginia, and then, taking advantage of the sudden friendliness,
she asked what she had done to cause bother. She could not even
recall having been in the pub.

'Forget it, I
have,' said the landlord with a wave of the hand, and went away to
serve customers who were beginning to queue at the bar, leaving her
to her confusion.

'A sweet man,'
Gerald said, pushing away his empty plate. He asked Virginia if she
would like some breakfast, but before she could accept the offer
-if that is what it was- more people came into the bar, extracting
darling hellos from him. Each greeting meant another body pinning
Virginia to her seat, hemming her in, and to each one she was
introduced as ‘Virginia, an artist friend’. She was flattered at
first, as always, but soon became suspicious of the status afforded
her and wary of the ease with which Gerald tossed it about, along
with his dear greetings. She would have left, found some place else
to drink; the only thing that kept her in her place, like a moth
pinned in a display case, was the fact that so many outstretched
legs had her caged and there were so many drinks placed before
her.

They were
generous people, Gerald’s friends, and the glasses on the table
multiplied; for each one she emptied it seemed that another two
full ones arrived, and she tried to down them as quickly as she
could, to reduce their number to a respectable level so that she
could leave. There were three full pints left, then just two. Soon
everything would be alright, she would be able to depart without
embarrassment, having supped up and shown to be a boozer rather
than the artist Gerald made her out to be.

She would
finish one more and then she would go, she decided, choking down
the last two thirds of a pint and chewing the dregs between her
teeth. It was difficult, a struggle, but the glass was emptied and
she got to her feet.

'You’re
going?' Gerald asked.

'I’m-'

Drunk again,
and tired, and need to get away from your obnoxious friends.

'You’re
going?' Gerald repeated. 'Now that you’ve drunk your free drinks
and everyone else has left me you’re going?'

She looked
around. Gerald’s friends had gone without her noticing, they seemed
to have dematerialised, their legs were no longer fencing her in
and their chatter no longer making her wince.

'I’m-' she
tried again.

'Fucking off!'
said Gerald in disgust, as Virginia fell back against the quilted
brown leather, probably only some cheap synthetic substitute but
feeling so comfortable. 'Fucking off! You’ve taken my drinks and
now you’re fucking off to your Sunday afternoon mass! Fucking
hypocrite! Fucking Catholic!”

Hypocrite?
Virginia could take that. Catholic? Never!

'My conversion
was a painful one,' she told Gerald. 'Very painful, with the
Sisters of Notre Dame beating the faith out of me. Christians?' She
scoffed at the word, for the Sisters had been anything but
Christian. 'They’d hit you with whatever came to hand, beat the
shit out of you.'

The
memories came back. Sister Marie Gleeson drawing blood from the
palm of one shy twelve year old just because she could not remember
that ‘
amatis
’ came
after ‘
amamus
’; Sister
Bernadette Mulligan asking how an alkali could be identified and
thrashing the girl who said ‘suck it and see’; Virginia herself
being battered by a sadist named O’Toole when she accidentally
bounced a hockey ball off the greenhouse -no one believed that it
had been a miraculous stroke of the stick- and through the stained
glass window of the chapel.

Catholic?
Virginia? No longer. After that last transgression she had been
branded a heretic at sixteen, bruised and pronounced a pagan.

'It sounds
like a grand place,' said Gerald. 'Boarding, was it?'

'Boarded, more
like, where the local kids had put out the windows. It was bus ride
from home, that’s all, and anyone who failed their eleven plus
hated the place. So did we, even though we’d passed. So did the
headmistress, because she’d been sent there rather than to one of
their older places. Too new, see, no tradition. She saw herself as
a missionary and she didn’t like the idea, treated us worse than
dark savages. No, there was nothing going for the place, not from
anyone’s point of view. So call me a hypocrite if you like, but
never a Catholic.'

Gerald
apologised. 'Sorry, Virginia, I didn’t mean to offend you. Let me
make amends and cook you Sunday dinner.'

'Sounds nice,'
she said, for the drink had given her an appetite.

They got to
their feet, clumsily because they were both drunk, and shuffled
from the bar. Gerald only lived two streets away, midway between
the ‘Grapes’ and Virginia’s flat, in a place much like hers but
rather more comfortable. His flat had furniture, for one thing, and
Virginia sank back contentedly into a rocking swivelling armchair,
then immediately felt sick. She struggled to her feet again, noting
that each time she did so it became a little more difficult. She
went to the bathroom.

'Yes, have a
bath if you like,' Gerald called through from the kitchen. 'Dinner
won’t be ready for a while yet.'

Good idea,
Virginia thought. She stripped off her clothes, lay in the bath and
turned on the taps.

Chapter
Ten

Even feathery
grey clouds edged with the weakest of whites were too painful to
consider, laughing and luminous, skipping across the sky like
mischievous children banging doors. They were too much for Virginia
so she kept her tired eyes fixed on the ground, on the cracks in
the uneven pavement which seemed to be guiding her along. She had
no need to look around for landmarks, or search for a taxi; she
thought she knew where she was going.

She had come
to on a settee again, hungover, a little short on the details of
what had happened. Gerald, dressed in the flowered black kimono he
used for a dressing gown, had 'tut-tutted' and offered her a fried
breakfast, then 'tut-tutted' again when she had run to the bathroom
to throw up. When this was done all she could accept from him was
toast and coffee.

She had to get
a grip of herself, she knew; once she was over this present minor
relapse she really had to start taking better care of herself.

The cracks at
her feet led her along, though one gritty black furrow looked much
like another they did not deceive her but took her faithfully back
to the worn steps she recognised. She would forego the rope ladder
for once, the thorns around its base would be as vengeful as the
sky was mocking. She took out her key, inserted it into the lock at
the third attempt and pushed her way into the hall.

'If that's you
then you've got it coming!' a voice cried, as she climbed the
stairs between the second and the third floors.

'Shut your
face!' she shouted back, and walked along the corridor to her room.
Someone had drawn a moustache and glasses on Thomas Aquinas in her
absence, the sight of which caused her to spin around and scream,
'You fucking Philistine!'

'What's all
the noise about?' Goomer asked, coming to his door. 'What are you
screaming about now?'

'Look!' she
said, pointing to the defaced picture.

'Someone's
scribbled on it. So? I don't know why you've got the guy pinned up
there in the first place.'