Life Drawing for Beginners (19 page)

The shop door opened again and he turned his head towards it.

“Come on in,” the mechanic called.

His wife walked into the bathroom. “What are you up to? Didn’t you have a shower at the gym?”

“Yeah,” he said, “but it was a bit rushed.” He swirled a hand through the foamy water. “I could do with some company in here.”

She smiled. “I don’t need a bath, I’m not dirty.”

“’Course you are,” he said. “You’re the dirtiest girl I know. Come on in, there’s loads of room.”

She giggled. “Go on then.” She pulled her dress over her head and laid it on the stool.

“Keep going,” he said.

She undid her bra and dropped it on the floor.

“More.”

She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and pushed them over her hips and let them fall. “Here I come,” she said, stepping over the side and lowering herself into the water.

“See?” He squirted shower gel into his palm. “Jesus, you’re filthy,” he said, massaging it into her thighs. “I’ll have to give you a good scrub.”

“Wow.” She closed her eyes and lay back. “You weren’t kidding about a workout making you more energetic.”

“Baby,” he said softly, inching his way upwards, “you have no idea.”

“Teeth, love,” Pauline said, and Kevin took his toothbrush from its mug and waited while she ran a line of paste onto the bristles. He wore the blue pajamas he’d always worn—or rather, the latest version of the only shade and style he would tolerate.

He spat into the sink, and Pauline handed him a glass of water. His teeth were cream in color, and in perfect condition. In his entire life he’d never needed a single filling, despite the chocolate and sweets he ate whenever he got a chance. He’d gone through adolescence without a spot, his hair had never been greasy.

You had to wonder about a God who paired such a perfect body with a damaged mind. Was it supposed to be compensation, or the cruelest of jokes?

She waited while he took off his slippers and climbed into bed, and then she tucked the blankets up to his chin. He’d never been a fan of duvets; he preferred something that could be wrapped snugly around him.

“Can we go to the lake tomorrow?” he asked as she smoothed the sheet. Since he’d learned to swim as a teenager the lake was one of his favorite places. Pauline had taken him there several times over the summer, usually bringing a picnic and spending the whole day.

“Well, the forecast isn’t great for the next few days,” Pauline answered, “but if it picks up again we’ll go. You’d like another swim before the winter, would you?”

“Yeah.” He loved the water, he was like a fish in it. “If it’s not too cold.”

“We’ll see.” She bent and kissed his cheek. “Good night, love, sleep well.”

She left his night-light on and padded downstairs. In the kitchen she made a cup of tea and took two Jaffa Cakes out of their pack to go with it. She brought them into the sitting room and raised the volume on
Fair City
before taking her knitting from the basket at her feet. She didn’t really follow
Fair City
, she didn’t follow any of the soaps, but she liked the sound of it while she knit.

She’d be finished with the front of the sweater by the end of the week, and then it was just the sleeves and the neckband, and putting it all together. She had plenty of time, his birthday wasn’t for another three weeks. Forty-one, could you believe it? And her heading towards sixty-six in February, and eligible for the free travel.

They’d make good use of the free travel. Kevin loved the train. They could go to Dublin to see the zoo and the wax museum. Or Galway, and transfer to the Salthill bus for him to have a swim. Next summer they could do all that.

But the free travel was the only good thing Pauline could see about getting older. When she thought of the future it was with huge anxiety. What would become of Kevin when she wasn’t around to look after him anymore?

She couldn’t expect her sister to take him in. Sue had her own responsibilities, with a father-in-law down the road who was becoming more dependent on them every year and a daughter who’d just taken herself and her three small children out of an abusive marriage.

Where would Kevin end up, what alternative was there for him but a home where he would probably be left sitting in an armchair for hours every day, and given pills if he made a fuss? Pauline couldn’t bear the thought. Her needles clacked as she worked along the row, the pale blue wool unraveling jerkily from its ball as it was gathered up.

She tried to banish the gloomy thoughts. She’d go on for years yet, she was as healthy as a horse. And by the time Kevin was eventually left alone, there might be some kind of nice sheltered accommodation for him, with enough supervision to keep him safe.

When the ads came on she put down her needles and dipped one of the biscuits into her tea. She wouldn’t worry. It might never happen.

T
here was a large brown envelope sitting on the hall tiles when Michael came downstairs. He picked it up and turned it over—and realized, by the complete absence of return address, no indication anywhere of the sender’s identity, that it must be the paternity test kit. At least they were quick.

He pushed a finger under the flap and slid it across. Inside he found an information sheet, a return envelope, and three smaller envelopes, each a different pastel color and each containing two cotton swabs colored to match their envelopes.

He scanned the information sheet rapidly and saw that it repeated what he’d already learned on the website. He pushed everything back into the big envelope and brought it into the kitchen while he made the porridge.

When the other two came down he waited until they were sitting at the table.

“That test came,” he said, watching her face.

She looked unconcerned. “So what have we to do?”

“It’s just swabs,” he said. “Like cotton wool buds, like things people clean their ears with.”

“What do you do with them?”

“You rub them on the inside of your mouth. We’ll do it this evening.”

She poured milk on their porridge. “Okay.”

Michael turned to look out the window. A weak sun shone, hardly there at all, but a vast improvement on yesterday morning’s rain.

He began to make the sandwiches. “I’ll take the boy,” he said, spreading butter thinly. “It’s better for him than dragging him around the streets all day. You can come and get him at lunchtime.”

“Okay,” she repeated. Michael turned and saw that Barry was poking at his porridge and not looking unduly concerned at the thought of spending more time in the shop.

Today he’d show him
Where the Wild Things Are
. That had been one of Valerie’s favorites. He’d read it to the boy. Children needed to be read to.

“I’m lookin’ for work,” she said. Aware of how she must appear, although she’d put on a bit of lipstick from the samples in Boots and combed her hair outside the door.

The man behind the newsagent’s counter barely glanced at her. “Nothing at the moment.”

“Any jobs goin’?” she asked in the stationery shop next to the newsagent’s.

“No.” The girl, younger than herself, was filing her nails. A white powdery film sat on the pages of the magazine that was open in her lap.

“Can you ask your boss?”

The girl gave Carmel an icy look. “He’s my father,” she said. “There’s no jobs.”

“I’m lookin’ for work,” she said to the woman behind the ticket desk at the cinema.

“Well, don’t look at me,” the woman said. “Manager comes on duty in the evenings. Next.”

“I need a job,” she said in a pub.

The barman looked her up and down. “Have you worked behind a bar before?”

“No, but I—”

“Can you pull a pint?”

“No, but—”

“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry.

“I’m a quick learner,” she said.

“I’ll bet you are,” he said, his eyes on the front of her blouse.

Carmel turned and walked out.

Irene picked up her phone. “Yes.”

“It’s Ger,” he said. “I was at the gym yesterday.”

She said nothing. He was keen.

“I was wondering if you’re free some evening this week.”

“Friday,” she said. Martin got home at six on Fridays. “Seven o’clock,” she said. “Where?”

“You could come to the garage. There’s a room.”

The garage: Talk about slumming it. But the notion was mildly exciting.

“Make sure you have a shower before I get there,” she said, and hung up.

“When you’re drawing hands,” Audrey said, “map in the overall shape first, like you do for the short poses, then find the line of the knuckles, using your pencil to give you the angle like I showed you last week, and from there draw in the fingers, noting their relationship to one another, which one is longest, et cetera. It might be helpful to think in terms of fingerless gloves.”

Hard to believe this was the third class, they were halfway through the course. The weeks were dashing by, and still she felt that she hardly knew any of them. Of course it was hard to get to know someone while the class was going on, when she was the teacher and trying to spread herself evenly among the five of them.

And it wasn’t as if she could launch into a conversation when they were all trying to concentrate on their drawing—which was what they’d paid her for, after all.

So getting to know them was confined to break time, and then it depended largely on who happened to be standing nearby when she filled her cup and moved out of the queue. Up to this, the only people she’d spoken to properly had been Jackie and Meg, and all she really knew about Meg was that she ran her own playschool.

The fact was, all of them were still practically strangers to her—and of her five students, James Sullivan remained the most unknown quantity. He was quiet, but it was more than that. For whatever reason, he didn’t seem in the least interested in getting to know anyone. Look how he kept disappearing at break time, and he barely opened his mouth the rest of the time. Shame, really, given that he’d been her only hope among the males—not that the choice had been exactly wide.

Zarek, though, was a delight. Always good-humored, always eager for Audrey’s advice, even if he was the one who needed it the least. She hadn’t been surprised to learn that this wasn’t his first attempt at life drawing.

“I like to draw,” he told her, “is good for relaxing.” Poor man, probably catching about a quarter of what she said, despite her attempts to make sure he understood.

Sadly, her efforts to bring him and Jackie together were proving useless. When she did manage to draw him into conversation with Jackie he made polite small talk with both women, not appearing remotely interested in letting Audrey slip discreetly away.

Irene clearly was no artist, but she was easily the liveliest in the class, keeping the rest of them amused with frequent deprecatory comments on her own efforts. For all her wisecracking, though, Audrey knew virtually nothing about her life outside the classroom. She knew nothing about any of their lives.

She stood behind Irene’s latest drawing. Jackie’s hand had been drawn at such an improbable angle to her arm that she’d have to have severely dislocated her wrist to achieve it.

Irene looked up and grinned. “What d’you think, Audrey? Will they be looking for it in the Louvre?”

Michael swept the pale blue swab gently around Barry’s mouth. This was it, he told himself, this would give him the answer. The child held his mother’s hand and kept his eyes on her face as Michael worked.

“Good boy,” she murmured. “See? I told you it wouldn’t hurt.”

Michael removed the swab. “Wait here.”

In his bedroom he placed it on the edge of his chest of drawers to dry, careful not to allow the tip to come into contact with anything. He had to do this right, it had to be perfect.

He took one of the pink swabs from its envelope and returned to the bathroom and handed it to Carmel. “Roll it against your cheek and under your tongue and behind your bottom lip, and don’t stop till I tell you.”

He counted slowly to ten in his head. Barry stared as she moved the swab around her mouth. She kept her eyes fixed on the middle of Michael’s chest. At ten he held out his hand and she gave him the swab.

“Dinner in ten minutes,” he told them.

Back in his room he used the green swab to collect his own sample. He regarded the three swabs sitting side by side on the chest of drawers. He wrote their three names on the appropriate envelopes. In the morning when they were dry he’d pack up the swabs and post them off, and then they’d wait.

And then what? His mind still refused to go any further. What a turn his life had taken, Ethan still creating turmoil from the other side of the grave. Michael closed his bedroom door gently and went downstairs to take the shepherd’s pie from the oven.

“Working in café is okay,” Zarek said. “The other peoples are friendly, it is not so bad.”

“And if you get hungry you can help yourself, I suppose,” Audrey said.

He looked mildly shocked. “Oh no, Audrey, I do not like the fast food, the chip and the burger. It is not good, and very full with the fat. I like to eat the food that is healthy for the body.”

And Audrey, who had a hard time resisting food that was full with the fat—a bag of salty, vinegary chips, say, with a generous dollop of ketchup—decided that a polite smile was the only possible response.

“My flat mate Anton is from France,” Zarek went on. “He is very good cook. He cook very nice food, very healthy.”

“Your own French chef—lucky you.”

“Yes,” Zarek replied. “I am very lucky.”

“Do you have kids?” Fiona asked.

Irene nodded. The boredom of small talk. “One. You?”

“Actually”—Fiona smiled, the color rising in her pale face—​“I don’t have any children yet, but I’ve just found out that I’m pregnant.”

Irene raised an eyebrow. “And you’re happy about it?”

Fiona looked at her in surprise. “Oh yes, very happy. Delighted. Of course.”

“In that case, congratulations.” Irene sipped her coffee and grimaced. “Jesus, I thought the tea was bad till I tasted this.”

“Weren’t you?” Fiona asked.

“Wasn’t I what?”

“Happy—when you found out you were pregnant, I mean. Sorry,” she added quickly, reddening again, “it’s just that you asked me, and I thought you sounded as if…well, as if you weren’t—​happy I mean, when you found out. Sorry,” she repeated, “maybe I’m being too personal.”

What a little mouse she was, tiptoeing around Irene, stuttering and stumbling as if she were going to be taken out and shot if she said the wrong thing.

“I was as sick as a pig for the whole nine months,” Irene said. “Couldn’t wait for it to be over.”

“But then your baby was born, and it made it all worthwhile,” Fiona said, and Irene hadn’t the heart to tell the silly cow the truth.

“Of course,” she said. “When are you due?”

“Oh, not for ages, not till next May.”

Irene sipped more horrible coffee. Barely pregnant and over the moon about it, dying to be telling the world. Took all sorts.

“I was wondering if you’d like to come to a birthday party—well, it’s really a children’s party—” Meg laughed and pushed her red braid behind her ear “—it’s my daughter actually, she’ll be five. But I thought it might be interesting for you, you know, an Irish birthday party, just to see what it’s like.”

Zarek struggled to keep his polite smile in place. “Er…when is party?”

“Friday, around three o’clock. You wouldn’t have to stay for long, just a glass of wine, or whatever…you know, just to experience it.”

“Oh, sorry, on Friday I work all the day.”

“Oh…well, no harm, just thought I’d ask.” She smiled brightly before lifting her mug to her lips.

“Sorry,” Zarek repeated, watching her glasses fog up from the coffee’s steam. Another lie, but he felt it was unavoidable. The invitation had perplexed him. He had no experience of Irish children’s parties—but surely it was rather odd to invite a man to a party for a little girl?

Coupled with Meg’s presence at the swimming pool the previous Thursday, the invitation suggested rather more to him.

He might be wrong, he reminded himself, he might be misjudging her. Maybe she genuinely felt it would be interesting for him to witness an Irish child’s birthday party.

But he thought not.

“It’s between the fire station and the library,” Irene said. “Redbrick building, two stories. Floor-to-ceiling windows.”

“Oh yes,” Audrey said vaguely. She must have walked past it umpteen times—she went to the library every two weeks or so—but she had no memory of seeing a gym on that street. Or maybe she’d seen it and blotted it out.

“I should have known you had a job that involved lots of exercise,” she told Irene. “You’re so lovely and slim. You must be really fit.”

“Anyone can be fit,” Irene replied. “All it takes is a bit of willpower. You’d be amazed at how quickly people change once they start to eat right and take some exercise.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right,” Audrey said, attempting to suck in her stomach, and ignoring the last custard cream on the plate beside her.

“People come in for a free workout, and most of them are pleasantly surprised by how much easier it is than they were expecting. We tailor our programs to suit the person’s ability, and then adjust them as they start to get fit.”

“Really? That’s so interesting,” Audrey said, beginning to edge away. “And now you’ll have to excuse me, I need to run to the loo before we go back in.”

She made her escape, vowing to avoid Irene in future during the breaks.

“Night-night, sweetie,” James said, and hung up. He’d wait until their model went in—the class couldn’t very well resume without her.

He could see her from the car, sitting on the low wall to the side of the front door. He’d momentarily forgotten her name; he’d always been useless with names. Frances often had to remind him who was who at dinner parties.

He supposed she wasn’t unattractive, in a girl-next-door kind of way. Nice, pleasant face, the kind that seemed ready to break into a smile at any moment—after she’d gotten over her first-night nerves. Couldn’t be easy, taking off your clothes for strangers—​he didn’t think he could do it, whatever incentive he was offered.

He saw her standing up and turning towards the door. Give her a minute and he’d follow.

“Well done,” Audrey said, “you all made great efforts with your homework.”

“I sense another lot coming on,” Irene said.

Audrey smiled. “How right you are, Irene. For next week I’d like you to forget about the whole body and try a few detailed studies, hands and faces in particular.”

“Hands are impossible,” Fiona said. “I can never get them right.”

“Everyone finds them tricky,” Audrey assured her. “Just persevere. Remember what I said—map in the whole hand first, then find the line of the knuckles and work from there. Watch the length of the fingers, measure them against one another.”