The Art School Dance (42 page)

‘
It’s
turning out to be a great end of term, don’t you think?’ said
McCready as they ate. ‘My exhibition, our exhibition, the art
school dance to wind it all up.’

‘
Great,’
agreed Griff.

'That doesn’t
sound too enthusiastic. There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

No, Griff told
him, there was nothing wrong. Nothing he would admit to, that is.
Not even a hatred of McCready anymore. It was just a simple wish
that McCready wasn’t there, did not exist, had never happened.

*

I joined Griff
and McCready at their table, just as they were finishing their
meal.

‘
So how
are things going with the exhibition?’ I asked.

‘
Just
perfect,’ said McCready. ‘I’ve got the best spot for my work, right
in the middle, it’ll hit people as soon as they walk in. And Griff,
he’s given pride of place to your portrait.’

‘
That’s
nice,’ I said, my smile one that Griff might see as complementing
the sadness of my portrait. ‘I’ll be along to see it,’ I promised.
‘In a while, though, I’ve one or two things to finish
upstairs.’

McCready got
to his feet and leant across the table to kiss me. ‘I’d better be
getting back there, need to put my work up,’ he said. ‘You coming,
Griff?’

Griff shook
his head. ‘My stuff’s up, there’s nothing for me to do. I’ll be
along in time for kick off.’

‘
Don’t
be late, remember there’s free booze.’

I watched him
go from the canteen, said to Griff, ‘He’s bright as a button at the
moment, has been ever since his London exhibition.’

‘
You
didn’t tell him what happened between us, then?’ Griff
asks.

‘
No I
didn’t. Why? Did you want me to?’

‘
No, of
course not. Though in a way, yes.’

My smile was
rather more tender than joyful, it played as much in my eyes as
across my lips. ‘I doubt that he’d have minded, you know.’

‘
Minded
that we’d slept together? Don’t talk nonsense.’

‘
It’s
not nonsense. He’s fond of you, you’re a special friend of
his.’

‘
So
special that he’d even share his girlfriend with me?’

As if to
excuse the perversion of the idea, I said, ‘Anyway, he slept with
Rose, didn’t he?’

‘
Did
he?’ asked Griff.

‘
He
wanted to, has done for a while. I’ve seen it in his
eyes.’

Griff was
silent for a while, then asked, ‘Could you love two people,
Virginia?’

‘
Don’t I
already? And many more besides. McCready is a confusion of
people.’

‘
That’s
not quite the same thing.’

‘
No,
perhaps not,’ I conceded.

Griff went up
to the studio with me, while I finish one or two chores, and time
and again I caught him looking at me as an artist would, as
McCready never did, studying each contour and line of my face.

‘
Contemplating another portrait of me?’ I asked with a
smile.

‘
You
know I’m not.’

I blushed,
say, ‘Come on, let’s go see my portrait hanging in the city
gallery.’

‘
I’d
rather just stay here and look at you.’

‘
That’s
sweet,’ I said. ‘McCready can never say things like
that.’

‘
Perhaps
he doesn’t love you like I do,’ Griff suggested.

‘
Don’t
be silly, of course he does,’ I laughed, taking his arm. ‘Come on,
let’s go see what the locals think of your work. You never know,
you might get a commission.’

‘
If I
did, I wouldn’t accept it. I could never paint another portrait as
good as yours.’

*

It was a few
minutes after seven when we entered the art gallery; the invited
guests were already there, with glasses of wine served by Teacher’s
secretary. We took a glass apiece and joined the crowd which milled
about the room, listening to the low murmur of opinions for some
hint of approval.

Rose went past
us cursing, snatching empty glasses from the tops of her
sculptures. ‘Made them the wrong size, didn’t I?’ she said.
‘Fucking philistines think they’re tables or something!’

We laughed and
walk over to the space McCready has claimed for his own; Ceri, also
cursing, was standing before the single piece of work.

‘
Will
you look at that!’ he said to us, disgusted by the waste of
space.

In the centre
of the wall was a small aluminium frame in which the following
message was printed, very neatly, probably courtesy of some
obliging soul in the typography department:

WHEN A VISITOR
(A) OBSERVES ANOTHER

VISITOR (B)
OBSERVING THIS PAGE (C) THEN

THE CONDITIONS
ARE FULFILLED BY WHICH

MY CONTRIBUTION
TO THIS EXHIBITION EXISTS

‘
You
like it?’ McCready asked, swaggering across.

‘
It’s
another con trick,’ said Griff, but without any
malevolence.

‘
And a
bit on the small side,’ thought Ceri, still annoyed that so much
space should be lost to such an insignificant work.

‘
Small
is beautiful, Ceri.’

‘
Small
minded is what I call it,’ said Rose, running past again, her hands
full of empty wine glasses.

‘
She’s
upset,’ Griff told McCready.

‘
I can
see that.’

We watched her
dash across to Teacher, who was having a surprisingly sober chat
with the Mayor and his wife.

‘
Will
you tell the cunts to stop it?’ she demanded, forcing her way into
the company.

‘
Rose,
this is the Mayor-,’ Teacher began, extending his hand to make
formal introductions.

‘
The
fuckers keep putting their drinks on my sculptures!’

‘
That’s
enough now, Rose. Just keep your voice down and mind the
language.’

‘
See!’
Rose screamed, snatching a half empty glass from the Mayor’s wife
as the woman was about to set it down on the nearest Minimal work;
red wine spilled over the woman’s pearl coloured dress as Rose
tried to explain. ‘The fuckers keep doing it all the
time!’

A shiver shook
the shoulder’s of the Mayor’s wife, as though the wine was
cold.

‘
You
stupid cow!’ Teacher hissed, pushing Rose out of the way and
turning his sickly smile on the whimpering woman. ‘I’m so sorry
about that,’ he mewed, like a cat after affection. ‘It was just too
stupid of the girl.’

‘
I’m
sure it couldn’t be helped,’ said the Mayor’s wife, doing her best
to return the smile.

‘
Yes,
artistic temperament and all that, we should have realised they
were her sculptures,’ said the Mayor, regarding his wife anxiously
and anticipating the fury to come later. ‘Still, it’s time we were
going in any case.’

‘
So
soon? Must you?’ said Teacher, grovelling in a manner we would
never have thought possible.

‘
Yes, we
really must.’ The Mayor shook Teacher’s hand and followed his wife
to the exit. ‘It’s been a very informative evening, thank you so
much for inviting us, we look forward to the next
occasion.’

‘
Our
privilege,’ said Teacher, escorting them from the room, all the
while looking back over his shoulder to Rose.

‘
Poor
Teacher,’ I said.

‘
Poor
Rose,’ said McCready.

‘
She’ll
feel the lash of his tongue now,’ Griff was sure.

‘
Rose!’
Teacher roared, returning to the gallery. ‘Where the fuck are you,
Rose?’

Rose was
wiping down the top of one of her sculptures with a wad of tissues,
scrubbing away the scarlet rings left by the glasses. ‘Yes,
Teach?’

‘
You
tit! You prat! You stupid bitch!’

‘
I
couldn’t help it,’ said Rose, backing away as Teacher moved
menacingly forward. ‘Honest Teach, it wasn’t my fault. People kept
putting their drinks down on my sculptures. What could I
do?’

‘
You
shouldn’t have made them so fucking short for a start!’ he said,
kicking one of his sculptures out of his way, shattering the
plaster across the floor and scarring the polished wood. ‘In fact
you shouldn’t have made such stupid fucking things in the first
place!’

‘
Here!’
cried a voice, one of the gallery’s attendants hurrying into the
room. His voice was instantly recognisable, and the threat he made.
‘Just look at what you’ve done to my floor! The Principal is going
to hear about this!’

‘
Ron?’
said Teacher, turning slowly. ‘Is that you? They let you out
already?’

Ron chuckled.
‘Mr Teacher? I didn’t recognise you.’

‘
Well
you do now, half wit.’

‘
Yes, Mr
Teacher.’

‘
And if
you want to leave this place with your teeth intact you’d better
get out now,’ Teacher threatened, then swept his arm out to damn
everyone, yelled, ‘Go on! All of you! Just piss off!’

In the rush
for the door Rose was able to escape unseen, sheltered by Griff and
Ceri and myself; we formed a scrum around her and took her to the
top of the stairs. It was there that Ceri noticed the case of
wine.

‘
I don’t
think they’ll be expecting any more visitors now,’ he said. ‘Seems
a shame to waste all this stuff.’

We emptied the
case and divided the bottles between us, left the gallery and cut
across the city centre, laughing about the evening even while we
sympathised with Teacher.

‘
Imagine
letting a nutter like Ron loose in an art gallery,’ said
Griff.

‘
It’s
always the insane who survive, coming up smelling of roses,’ said
McCready, doing a cart-wheel along the pavement and sending loose
change spilling from his pockets.

*

‘I’m no
virgin, you know,’ Griff confided in me. ‘I mean that night we
slept together I wasn’t.’

McCready had
gone storming ahead, happily drunk; Ceri had fallen far behind,
hobbling along on his crutches; the rest of our party was strewn
like a slapdash caravan across the park.

It never
occurred to me that Griff had been, but instead I told him that
McCready was a virgin when I first slept with him, thinking that
this information, perhaps offered unkindly, would be ammunition
enough to distract Griff’s attentions from me.

‘
I’ve
slept with other girls before, of course,’ Griff continued, ‘but
never with anyone like you.’

‘
No, of
course not, we’re all of us individuals,’ I said, wondering if I
could have been so wanton in my love-making, so abandoned, that I
had made such an impression on him.

Like a blind
man blundering about an unfamiliar room, barking his shins on
unexpected obstacles, Griff stumbled bruisingly from one tack to
another, trying to speak whatever it was that was on his mind.

‘
I’d
never treat you like McCready does,’ he now said.
‘Never.’

‘
And how
does McCready treat me?’ I was interested to know.

‘
With
neglect.’

I laughed.
‘Like I’m a pet he got for Christmas and now he’s tired of cleaning
my litter tray?’

‘
What
future have you got with him?’

‘
Who
cares about the future?’ I said, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘If
I’m happy today then that’s all that matters. I’m certainly not
looking beyond my college days, and when I do it’ll be to plan for
a career, not a family and some lifelong commitment.’

Optimistically, as if this offered some hope for him, Griff asked,
‘So you don’t love McCready that much?’

‘
That
all depends on your definition of love, Griff. If it means forever
and ever amen, then no, maybe I don’t. If it means enjoying his
company and wanting to go to bed with him, then there’s no one in
the world I love more at the moment.’

Griff sulked,
I thought he was going to cry, he looked like a groom who had been
jilted on his wedding day.

‘
For
goodness sake, Griff,’ I sighed.

It was then
that he said it, offered the admission that I dreaded to hear. ‘But
Virginia, I love you.’

McCready had
warned me that Griff did, long ago, had taken great delight in
telling me, and perhaps it was to spite McCready that I took
Griff’s arm. We walked close together, our bodies touching, as we
had done on one previous occasion.

‘
Oh
Griff,’ I sighed again.

He smiled, a
little boy lost who was unable to handle adult emotions.

And was it to
spite McCready that I went to bed with Griff a second time? Or was
it therapy for Griff? I didn’t know.

Whatever.
While McCready and the others partied on the stolen wine upstairs,
in the attic flat, Griff and I lay downstairs in his bed. He would
have called it making love, but it wasn’t. It’s nothing more than a
quick fuck, rushed before Ceri could hobble his way up the high
street and catch us at it. It served little purpose. If it was
indeed to spite McCready then it was of no consequence unless he
learned of what had happened; if it was to be therapy for Griff
then it failed, for the euphoria of the act quite quickly gave way
to further depression and tantrums on a par with the best of
McCready’s.