The Art School Dance (17 page)

‘
Yes,
that’s Stephen,’ Gus told her.

‘
And
look what she’s called it!’ Stephen screamed. ‘‘Boy-fiend’! Oh,
Mum!’

I looked at
Gus and recognised the guilt written on his face, the proof that
he’d switched titles on me. I took a step or two towards Stephen
and his folks, as they turned to see me, noted that his mother was
already dripping tears of mascara onto her lovely peach wedding
outfit.

‘
You
nasty vindictive little cow!’ Stephen’s father said to me, and I
could see that he was all set to lay into me with both fists, or at
least give me a slap across the face; luckily for me Stephen’s
mother flung her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder. He
consoled her, and as the three of them walked across the hall I
edged along one wall and then another, keeping a safe distance
between us. They were just near the exit, close by Paula’s desk,
when someone went across to them. I didn’t see who it was at first,
it took me a moment before I recognised the girl; I knew her as one
of the college catering students, yes, but then realised she was
the very same girl who had tried to chat up Stephen in the
‘Crofters’ that night, the one I was responsible for getting thrown
out. I couldn’t hear what’s being said -I only found out later,
from Gus- but there was much gesticulating, the girl and Stephen
looked across at me, then she shook her head and pointed at
Paula.

Stephen looked
at Paula, who turned away innocently, and it was all too easy to
guess what had passed, for Stephen looked as crestfallen as a bride
ditched at the altar.

When they had
gone, and that cow of a catering student, I went across to
Paula.

‘
I’ve
been fingered, shopped, cited as the other woman,’ she said,
looking from Gus to Chrissie to me. There was a slight humour in
her voice, a look of startled amusement intended to make me feel
better.

‘
Jesus
Christ,’ I said, in too much of a state of shock to smile
back.

‘
Well,
at least he’s found out now,’ Paula sighed.

‘
It had
to happen,’ Chrissie nodded.

I looked
around the hall. All the people who witnessed the scene had now
returned to the work on show, most of them paying especial
attention to the portrait of Stephen.

‘
I’m
going,’ I said.

‘
Where?’
asked Paula.

‘
Out.
Anywhere.’

‘
With
Stephen’s father out there somewhere? Do you think that’s safe,
Ginny?’

‘
I’m
going,’ I said again, thinking that I had a better chance of
evading him outdoors than in the narrow confines of the exhibition
hall.

‘
Go with
her,’ Paula said to Gus, as I started to walk towards the
door.

‘
Yes, go
with her,’ said Chrissie. ‘I can manage on my own until the next
shift comes.’

*

I wanted to
get drunk, rotten rolling drunk, but felt too sick in the stomach
to take much. Gus and I sat in the ‘Commercial’ for a while,
wandered around town, in the park and by the parish church,
returned to the pub about five o’clock and found Paula and Chrissie
waiting there.

‘
Well
wasn’t that a to-do?’ said Chrissie. ‘I bet there’s never been an
open day like that.’

‘
Not in
the five years I’ve been there,’ said Paula. ‘Look on the bright
side, Ginny. At least Stephen knows about us now.’

‘
But I
should have told him,’ I said, rather more shocked than stricken
with remorse. ‘He should have heard about it from me.’

‘
You’d
never have said anything to him,’ Gus believed. ‘You’d only have
kept putting it off.’

‘
No I
wouldn’t. I was going to tell him next week.’

‘
Like
you were going to tell him last week?’

‘
I was
going to tell him last week. I would have told him if it hadn’t
been for that bloody bitch in the pub. I’ll swing for the cow, I
swear it.’

‘
She did
you a favour, really,’ said Gus.

‘
Like
you
did me a
favour, I suppose, by swapping those titles? The painting was
supposed to be called ‘Portrait’, nothing more. I told
you.’

‘
My
title was better.’

‘
Did you
know what he’d done?’ I asked Paula. ‘Were you in on the joke as
well?’

‘
I
didn’t know a thing about it, I swear. I didn’t take any notice of
what the titles were, not with so many to do.’

‘
Come
on, forget about it,’ Gus urged. ‘There’s nothing you can do about
it now except have another pint.’

Gus bought
another round of drinks, and as miserable as I was I was beginning
to see the funny side of things by the time I reached the bottom of
the glass.

‘
Did you
see his old man’s face, though?’ I said.

‘
Livid,’
Chrissie remembered.

‘
I hope
I don’t meet up with him tonight. He’ll likely murder
me.’

‘
You’ll
end up looking like one of your bloody crucifixions,’ said Paula.
‘I think you’ll be safer staying at my place tonight.’

‘
And for
the rest of the weekend,’ I added.

Gus imagined
what the wedding of Stephen’s cousin might be like, more of a wake,
with his mother still in tears and his father quaking with rage.
Slowly I cheered up, we drank a little more and laughed a little
more and I managed to convince myself that everything was for the
best.

‘
You’re
not sorry?’ Paula asked me.

‘
About
what happened?’ I said, and shook my head. ‘I just wish it hadn’t
come about the way it did. No good can come of it, all these people
upset.’

Chapter Twelve

I didn’t stay
at Paula’s flat for quite the whole weekend, but went home early on
Sunday evening. Although there was no posse waiting for me I could
tell by the faces of Gran and my mother that Stephen had been there
and told them everything. My mother was pathetically glum, gazing
vacantly at the fire, and Gran had a face like thunder, her
knitting needles were clacking together and working up a storm. I
said a quick ‘hello’ and took off my coat, went to the bathroom for
a pee and then to the kitchen to put the kettle on, doing anything
to postpone the inevitable confrontation. It was no use, though, I
knew that, so eventually I sat down with them in the living
room.

‘
Just
what the hell do you think you’ve been up to, girl?’ Gran finally
demanded.

‘
How do
you mean?’

‘
Stephen
was round here this morning.’

‘
I saw
him yesterday,’ I said. ‘He was on his way to his cousin’s
wedding.’

‘
His
parents were here, too.’

‘
What
did
they
want?’

‘
What do
you think? You shamed them! You belittled their son! How could you
treat the poor boy like that?’

My mother was
silent, she could almost be asleep, but I knew that she was taking
everything in.

‘
Alright, so we’ve finally split up,’ I said. ‘No one
promised that it would last forever.’

‘
But did
you have to shame him like that in the process? He’s told us all
about the painting.’

‘
It was
a joke,’ I said, and tried to explain about Gus’ unfortunate
prank.

‘
He
didn’t think it was! And neither did his parents!’

‘
The
joke was supposed to be on me.’

‘
Stephen
was the one hurt by it.’

‘
Well
I’m sorry, I meant to tell him, I’d tried before.’

‘
Tell
him what? That you were going to make a fool of him in public? And
with a painting that he’d told everyone was so
wonderful?’

‘
It is,
it’s a good painting.’

‘
It’s a
monstrosity!’

‘
You
haven’t seen it.’

‘
I’ve
heard enough about it to know.’

‘
Yes.
And a fat lot you know about painting anyway.’

In
exasperation I looked to the ceiling, to the floor, and my mother
said softly, ‘Ginny, what about this woman?’

‘
Paula.’

‘
Stephen
tells us she’s the college secretary.’

‘
That’s
right.’

‘
And the
woman you draw naked?’

‘
Yes,
the life model.’

She was
tearful as she asked me, ‘What are you doing getting involved with
a woman like that?’

She talked as
if Paula was a tart. ‘I’m not involved,’ I said. ‘I’m in love.’

‘
But
she’s a woman. She’s older than you.’

‘
By a
couple of years, yes.’

‘
And she
has a flat?’

Which was made
to sound like a brothel, the way my mother spoke of it.

‘
Yes,’ I
said, with as much patience as I could muster. ‘She has a
flat.’

‘
Ginny,
don’t you see what you’re doing to us?’

‘
I’m not
doing anything to you. I’m just doing something for myself, that’s
all.’

‘
Always
for yourself, never a thought for anyone else,’ said Gran. ‘I
suppose that’s where you’ve been all weekend, with her?’

I ignored the
old woman, said to my mother, ‘We would never have stayed together
in any case, Stephen and me, not when I went off to college. It had
to happen sooner or later.’

‘
But
this way, with a slap in the face?’

‘
I
didn’t-’

‘
Just
look what you’re doing to your poor mother,’ said Gran, for now my
mother had started to weep.

‘
What
would your father have thought?’ she cried.

‘
He’d
have thrown the little reprobate out on her ear,’ Gran was
sure.

This was the
two of them at their blackmailing best and for the first time in
their company I swore –‘oh, fuck it!’- and stormed from the living
room even while Gran was shouting after me and demanding that I
apologise.

Apologise? For
what? I had done nothing to be sorry for and all I could do was go
to bed, go to sleep, go to college in the morning and back to
Paula.

*

‘It was
terrible,’ I told Paula, when we got a chance to talk; it was
lunchtime by then and I’d needed to speak to her all morning, had
needed her comfort all the previous night and wanted her near to
tell me that everything would be alright.

We spent the
lunch break in the studio, Paula with her arms draped around me and
her head resting on my shoulder.

‘
The
funny bit’s over with now, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘
For the
moment,’ I agreed. ‘There’ll be no fun for me for a while, not with
those two old bags going on at me all the hours God sends. There’ll
be days and days of arguments, then weeks of their silent accusing
glances.’

‘
Poor
Ginny,’ said Paula. ‘How will you cope?’

‘
I’m not
sure that I will,’ I had to admit, in all honesty.

‘
I know
a way you could.’

‘
How?’ I
asked, lifting Paula’s head from my shoulder and searching her eyes
for an answer; there was that gleam of a smile in them, that
twinkle I often saw when Paula had an answer that I myself had
overlooked.

‘
Well,
if things get too much-’

‘
They
already have,’ I told her.

‘
-then
you could come and stay with me,’ she invited, and I looked at her
uncertainly, once again slow to grasp what she was suggesting. She
gripped my hand, made the proposal more concrete, said, ‘Come and
stay with me, Ginny.’

‘
I
could?’

‘
For two
days, three days, every day of the week. What’s the difference?
Wouldn’t you like to?’

‘
Would
you really want me to?’ I countered.

‘
I’d
never make the offer if I didn’t. So? What about it? Do you want
sanity and love with me, or would you prefer two tired old women
and an ex-boyfriend’s bitter parents hounding you all the
time?’

There seemed
to be little choice, but it was still not a decision to be taken
rashly. ‘You wouldn’t think me ungrateful if I asked for time to
think about it?’ I said.

‘
Of
course not, I wouldn’t expect you to rush into anything.’ Paula
glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I need to do some errands before I get
back to work. You think it over and I’ll see you
tonight.’

I left the
studio with her, we parted company on the ground floor and I went
on down to the basement canteen.

I was the one
who had caused a controversy, most everyone in the canteen was
aware to some extent of what had happened on Saturday. I sat with
Gus and the others, suffered their jibes for a while before they
settled down to treat the matter with a little less amusement. It
was talking with them which persuaded me, when I considered the
vendetta which would be waged against me at home and accepted that
I wouldn’t be given a moment’s peace, when peace was what I most
needed; it was talking with my friends which convinced me that I
would be foolish not to make the break with home and family,
foolish not to take Paula up on her offer. I didn’t need any more
time to consider, but went to meet Paula as she returned from her
errands, was waiting for her on the college steps.