The Art School Dance (32 page)

‘
He
ventures out of his room once every fortnight or so,’ said Griff,
‘tells us what’s wrong with our work, finds a girl from the
foundation course to pose for him and disappears again.’

‘
He’s
still got a thing about girls with no tits?’

Griff nodded.
‘Flat as dinner plates, his models are.’

Looking down
at the lower floor they both catch sight of a girl seated directly
below them. She was a fashion student with film star looks, busty,
far from tit-less, and from their vantage point they could see into
the open neck of her blouse almost down to her navel as, with an
exhausted sigh, she closed the books she had been studying, pushed
them into the centre of the table and sat back, eyes closed and
head resting against the wall behind her.

It looks
almost as if she is pouting up at her two unseen admirers.

‘
Not
Walter’s type at all,’ Griff commented.

‘
Christ,
no,’ Teacher drooled. ‘You could dive in there and get lost for a
week.’

He took the
bottle from Griff and had a drink. Elbows resting on the low wall
before him, he looked down at the girl with an old fashioned lust
and an adolescent mischief. Grinning at Griff, he poured some
whisky into the cap of the bottle and held it at arm’s length; his
hand moved a little, backwards and forwards, from side to side, and
then slowly tilted the cap. A thin stream of honey coloured liquid
hit the table, moved across the girl’s work, over her lap and down
her cleavage, all before she could even open her work-weary eyes.
Teacher and Griff ducked their heads out of sight as she screamed,
sending furniture scattering all about her; her angry stride could
be heard across the room despite the soft thickness of the carpet
and then she could be seen at the librarian’s desk gesticulating
wildly.

‘
Come
on, Griff, time we left,’ Teacher decided, hiding the bottle under
his coat.

On the
staircase they met the librarian and the whisky-soaked girl; the
librarian greeted Teacher and explained what has happened.

‘
Well we
didn’t see anything untoward,’ Teacher told the librarian, ‘we were
so deep in discussion. I’m sure you'll weed out the culprit,
though. Let me have his name and I’ll reprimand him most
soundly.’

‘
He must
have been able to smell the booze,’ said Griff, when they were
safely outside the library.

‘
Maybe,
but my exalted station is my safeguard,’ said Teacher. ‘It scares
the shit out of people. I’m untouchable, there’s bugger all they
can do to me.’

‘
Is that
right?’ asked Griff, thinking how dangerously the Principal is
tempting providence.

*

Later, Griff
was with Ceri and Rose in the canteen, filling his stomach with
food to soak up the whisky, when McCready joined them. He came with
a carrier bag in his hand, which he set on the table; he was
silent, contemplative, he looked at the Formica top rather than at
his friends and never even greeted them with so much as an
‘hello’.

‘
Is
there something wrong, Mac?’ Griff asked, sincerely hoping that
there was.

McCready
nodded sadly. ‘It’s the chicken. It’s dead.’

‘
Dead?
What happened?’

‘
I don’t
know for sure. I found it with its head caught in a roll of chicken
wire, its neck broken.’

‘
Foul
play suspected?’ Griff smirked.

Ceri grimaced
at the unfortunate joke. Rose, predictably acquainted with the
etiquette of bereavement, told Griff not to be so heartless.

‘
It
might have been an accident,’ McCready mused. ‘There again, it
might not.’

‘
Surely
it was,’ said Ceri. ‘Who’d want to get rid of your
chicken?’

‘
Ron
never liked the idea of me keeping it in the studio. He was always
complaining about it.’

‘
But
he’d never do something like that. He’s too stupid to be
evil.’

‘
Who
knows?’ said McCready, with a forlorn shrug of the shoulders, and
there was a respectful moment of silence, after which those with an
appetite returned to their meals.

‘
So
what’ll you do with the body, Mac?’ asked Ceri, shovelling food
into his mouth.

‘
I’d
become quite fond of the silly thing,’ McCready smiled. ‘I did
think of having it stuffed. Taxidermy-wise,’ he added, knowing that
there was another weak joke there, scowling as he saw the amused
glint in Griff’s eye.

‘
An
expensive business,’ Ceri told him.

‘
Yes, I
imagine so. I’ll just have to bury it, I suppose, give it a decent
send-off. Will you two help?’

Ceri and Griff
were hesitant, it seemed like an eccentric thing to do, but Rose
prompted them into agreeing, her only involvement with funerals in
recent months having been to gaze uninvited from a distance at
those of strangers.

‘
Okay, I
guess so,’ said Ceri. ‘Where’s the bird?’

McCready
pointed to his package on the table. ‘There, in the bag.’

‘
In
that? Jesus Christ, McCready! We’re having our lunch and you slap a
rotting carcass on the table?’ Ceri pushed the bag away in disgust.
‘Shift it!’

McCready took
the bag and placed it on the floor beneath his chair. ‘But you will
help me bury it?’ he asked.

‘
Yes, we
will,’ says Griff, with an impatient sigh.

‘
Later
this afternoon, when the place is quiet? I’ll meet you
downstairs?’

‘
We’ll
be there,’ Ceri promised.

McCready
huffed and heaved his shoulders and looked thoroughly dejected.

‘
Aren’t
you having any lunch?’ Rose asked him, her own appetite having
improved markedly on learning of a death in the family.

‘
I don’t
feel all that hungry,’ he told her.

‘
You
really need to eat something. Go on, at least get yourself a
sandwich.’

‘
I
suppose you’re right,’ he agreed, and went over to the serving
bay.

While he was
away they tried to sympathise, recalling how they’d each felt when
favourite pets died, quoted fathers burying budgies and cats in
back gardens, but the comparison was a little too tenuous for all
but Rose to be able to relate with McCready’s grief. They were all
older now, for one thing, and more able to cope with
bereavement.

‘
A
chicken can’t really be considered a pet,’ said Ceri.

‘
Except
in the case of someone as eccentric as McCready,’ said
Griff.

‘
I mean,
you can’t cuddle it.’

‘
McCready did.’

‘
The
nut.’

It was as they
were discussing McCready that I came looking for him.

‘
He’s
getting something to eat,’ Rose told me, gesturing towards the
entrance of the serving bay.

‘
No he’s
not, I’ve just come from there,’ I said, laying my tray on the
table as evidence. I sat down and began to eat.

‘
Then
he’s run off. He mustn’t be able to face any food after
all.’

‘
Why
not? Is he ill?’ I asked.

‘
I don’t
know about physically,’ said Griff, ‘but he’s certainly got a touch
of what Teacher would call
mal-de-tete
.’

‘
More so
than usual today,’ Ceri added.

‘
Why?
What’s happened?’

They told me
of the demise of the chicken, and of McCready’s reaction, Griff
describing his present state as almost catatonic.

I was sorry to
hear of the loss, said, ‘I suppose it’s my fault in a way for not
letting him keep the bird at the flat.’

‘
Thank
God you didn’t, we’d have had it crowing us awake at dawn every
day,’ said Ceri.

‘
Cocks
crow,’ Rose reminded him. ‘Not chickens.’

‘
Well,
whatever its habits we wouldn’t have wanted that bird about the
place.’

I had rested
my knife and fork by the plate for a moment, pausing to dwell on
the bad news and its ramifications. Now I returned to my meal,
saying, ‘Still, he’ll get over it.’

‘
Will
he?’ asked Rose, not so sure. ‘Aren’t you worried about
him?’

‘
No, not
at all. You get used to his strange ways.’

‘
Though
how you put up with them I don’t know,’ said Griff. ‘Just what is
it you see in the nutter?’

That same
question again.

‘
All
eccentrics are a bit innocent,’ I said, gazing into the distance
and smiling fondly. ‘I suppose that’s what I love about him, his
innocence.’

Griff frowned,
innocence being one trait he had never associated with
McCready.

‘
So he’s
going to give the bird a decent burial, is he?’ I remarked, with
just a hint of an amused grin. ‘Is that where he’s gone now,
perhaps?’

‘
No.
We’re helping him do that later,’ Ceri told me.

‘
So
what’s he done with the corpse in the meantime? Is it lying in
state?’

‘
He’s
left it behind,’ Griff then noticed, seeing the carrier bag still
on the floor and picking it up. ‘Here it is.’

‘
Ugh!’

Suddenly I
didn’t feel hungry anymore. I persuaded Rose to go across to the
pub with me, to have a drink and wash away the taste of
putrefaction.

‘
Just
pretend it’s a wake,’ I encouraged her.

*

It was mid
afternoon when Ceri and Griff returned to the canteen with the dead
chicken.

‘
Why are
we bringing it back here?’ asked Griff.

‘
It
seems a waste to throw it away so I thought we’d give it to Joan, a
little goodwill gesture to make our peace with her. I’ve plucked
it,’ said Ceri, ‘it’s a freshly killed bird, and you know how she’s
always going on about fresh food rather than frozen.’

‘
One
bird? What’s she going to do with that? And a few loaves and fishes
to feed the five thousand? And what about McCready? He’s expecting
to bury it, remember.’

‘
Questions, questions, questions. Do you think I haven’t
thought of everything? I’ve got something for him to bury, a soft
toy I found in textiles. It’s stuffed with scrap from sculpture to
give it weight. He’ll never notice the difference.’

‘
Unless
he sees it.’

‘
No
danger of that. It’s tied up in a sack and he’ll never think of
looking inside, he’ll be too stricken with grief. Now come on,’
Ceri urged, pushing Griff along before him, ‘let’s get rid of the
thing then we can help McCready bury his cuddly toy.’

The canteen
was deserted, the tables freshly wiped down, everywhere as spotless
as Joan liked it to be. They went into the serving bay, find the
shutters pulled down so passed through the door which leads to the
kitchen. Apart from the gentle bubbling of pans, in which the
evening’s food was being prepared, all is quiet, seemingly empty;
then they caught sight of Ron at one of the sinks, feverishly
scrubbing at his overalls.

‘
Ron?
What are you up to?’ Ceri asked.

Ron started,
not having heard them enter, and turned around; his face was
covered with fine red scratches and he began to stutter, not quite
sure how to explain what he was doing.

Ceri and Griff
stepped closer to examine the marks on his face.

‘
Who
tried to claw your eyes out, Ron? Getting too fresh with Joan, eh,
and she turned on you?’

Ron continued
to stammer, he was too incoherent to make any sense. Griff took the
overalls from him, to see why they were in such an urgent need of a
wash, and found that they were covered with drops of some chalky
white substance.

‘
What’s
this, Ron? Quick-setting dandruff?’

‘
It’s…
it’s…’

Ceri looked,
then laughed wickedly. ‘It’s chicken shit, that’s what it is. It
was no middle aged bird from the canteen he’s tangling with, it was
one of the feathered kind. You wicked little bastard, Ron! It was
you who killed McCready’s chicken, wasn’t it?’

‘
N-no.’

‘
Yes it
was, you malevolent little moron.’

‘
I
didn’t!’ Ron blurted. ‘Didn’t mean to! I was only trying to shut it
up!’

‘
Well
you certainly did that alright,’ said Ceri, tossing back the
overalls. ‘What do you reckon McCready’ll do when he finds out?’ he
asked Griff.

Griff made a
cut-throat action from ear to ear. ‘He’s very upset. He’s capable
of anything.’

‘
But I
didn’t mean to hurt it!’ said Ron in panic. ‘I just wanted to stop
the noise!’

‘
You’re
in trouble, Ron,’ Ceri said, taking a step forward, and quoted the
cleaner’s favourite lament. ‘The Principal’s going to hear about
this.’

‘
Get
away from me, you crazy Welshman!’

‘
Listen
here, worm,’ Ceri threatened, still advancing, ‘you’re going to be
a bit more respectful to this crazy Welshman from now on, otherwise
McCready’s going to find out who did his chicken in.’

‘
Get
away! Get away!’ Ron screamed, and his cries brought Joan running
in to see the burly young Celt threatening the cowed old
cleaner.