The Art School Dance (46 page)

It was
obvious to Virginia that the woman was not
au fait
with the way the hierarchy worked; worms belonged
at the bottom, where they had always been and ever would be, and
she was tempted to pound the grubby creature, to push it back into
its servile niche. By way of compromise, not especially fond of
violence, she took the greasy chin between finger and thumb,
turning the face a fraction to divert the foetid breath, and spoke
gently yet with authority.

'Listen,
creature of dirt, if you do not introduce myself and my hairdryer
to your electricity outlet I shall force your brittle spine through
and around the nearest U-bend.'

She has always
been a great one, Virginia, for the persuasive patter and the
well-chosen word.

'Here! You
can’t say that to me! I’m a council employee!'

'I just did.
But don’t worry, I shan’t repeat myself.'

She pinched
the old woman’s flesh with difficulty, her fingers slipping over
the slack oily skin.

'Alright!
Alright! It’s over there!' the attendant cried, appreciating the
truism about actions speaking loudest of all.

Virginia
thanked her, worm though she might be, for her politeness was her
one great failing and had been with her since the cradle. She
crossed the floor and inserted the plug into the socket, hoping the
hairdryer worked for it would have to be sold at the earliest
opportunity. As she dried her hair she only regretted that she had
not had time to take the stereo. Yet what was music without style?
Her appearance was her fortune, to be cared for and maintained, and
a fifty watt sound system would have little effect on her tangled
locks... unless the music was to his taste and made each lock stand
on end!

She smiled,
pleased that she had retained her sense of humour though she might
have lost all else, and the machine teased and caressed her hair
into more silken strands. She noticed a hint of grey in places,
which she thought was quite distinguishing. So how about tinting
the curly bits between the legs? What an impact that would have!
She could imagine young men mute in wonder, approaching with open
mouths, tentatively touching, thinking that her genitalia might be
sterling silver. She would smile and beckon them on and suggest
that they suck it and see.

All this while
the cretinous lavatory attendant was intruding on the reverie,
reflected in the mirror over Virginia’s shoulder, but it seemed
like admiration in the bloodshot eyes so the poor unfortunate was
not chastised. Let her look and learn and be consumed by evergreen
envy.

The work was
finished and the recovery completed. Virginia packed her things
into the bag and walked to the exit. As the attendant followed her
she heard a slight cough, that respectful hiccough which said
‘thank you for allowing me to serve’. A gratuity was hoped for, no
doubt, and Virginia gave a shrug, rummaged through her pocket and
tossed away a shiny silver coin. Then she was gone, out onto the
street before her lucky French franc -what luck had it brought her
recently?- could be recognised in the brightly artificial light
below. Her duty was fulfilled.

She was a
great one, Virginia, for returning the favour and seeing that
justice was done.

*

The rain had
stopped, a blessing which Virginia could only acknowledge with the
greatest reluctance, guessing that it had been given grudgingly and
was in no way indicative of a brighter future. Still, she was happy
to feel her hair flowing freely behind, rather than hanging in lank
strands about her face, and she bounced on her way, past the
railway station and then uphill. Before her the cathedral stood
tall and conceited, dripping against the grey sky, a dull beacon
directing her home. Stepping into its shadow she crossed the road
and counted her way along the row of once grand houses, now all
alike in their disrepair.

Her key
slipped smoothly into the lock of number eleven, so this at least
had not been changed; hopefully everything else would be as she had
left it.

She entered
the hallway and climbed the uncarpetted stairs, noticing that the
bannister was a little less safe and the walls a little more
yellow, the paper peeling and jaundiced. These apart, it seemed
that nothing much had altered. Music and voices mingled in the
common ground outside each room, and if the people within were
different this would not matter to Virginia, for they were always
very much of a kind. What was important was that her own flat
should be as she had left it, that it should still be hers and not
let out to anyone else; the rent had been paid during her absence,
certainly, but this guaranteed nothing.

On the third
floor, at the end of the corridor, she saw the doors which led to
the two rooms of her flat; neither appeared to have been tampered
with, the postcard from Parma was on one and the picture of Thomas
Aquinas on the other, both with colours a little more muted than
before but still firmly fixed.

Halfway along
the same corridor was a third door, slightly ajar; she tapped on it
and entered.

'Goomer? John
Goomer?'

A paper
lampshade hung from the ceiling to within inches of the floor and
in the dim orange light which crept apologetically from it she
could see a young man squatting on the carpet, preoccupied with
whatever was laid before him, his blonde hair burning beneath the
coloured bulb.

'Virginia,
home at last,' he said in a matter-of-fact tone, unwinding his feet
and standing, losing whatever had occupied his attention in the
shadow he cast. He picked up a coat, took Virginia by the hand and
pulled her back to the door.

'I-'

'Come on,
Virginia, drop your things here. You’re just in time.'

Virginia
huffed as she was hurried from the room, a little peeved by the
reception; she might just have come home late from the pub, rather
than from a four month absence and a relationship gone sour.

'My flat,' she
said, anxious to know that it was still her flat and had not been
rented out to anyone else, but Goomer did not stop to listen or
reply; he scampered on down the stairs, tugging her along after
him.

Outdoors he
held onto her hand, as though he worried that she might be carried
away by the breeze which swept up from the river. Weaving between
the early evening drinkers, past bars and restaurants down the
cosmopolitan slope of Hardman Street, they headed across the
city.

Goomer had
plans for Virginia.

'You’re an
artist, aren’t you?' he said, squeezing her hand to insist that she
was.

'No,' she
answered, but he ignored her.

'Well this
friend of mine, Coral, she runs a wine-bar, the ‘Corkscrew’, and
she wants some paintings to tart the place up for the jazz nights
she holds, real Left Bank stuff.'

'I’m not an
artist,' Virginia repeated. 'I do Day-Glo posters for chippies and
Chinese takeaways.'

Goomer gave
her a kiss on the cheek to silence her. 'You’ll cope.'

The smile
which followed, as if the kiss might not be enough, was a
persuasive peeling of the lips, curling up at the edges as always
in a manner which Virginia could never quite manage. But then
Goomer had been perfecting the style for eighteen, no, nineteen
years. He was nineteen, now. Virginia had been away since before
Christmas and he had not even remarked on the fact.

They hurried
on, beneath St John’s Beacon and behind the shopping precinct.
Virginia asked Goomer why he could not do the paintings himself,
since he seemed so capable and struck all the right poses, but all
he could answer was that she would cope,and they ducked beneath a
green-striped awning and went down dark stumbling steps.

Though the
walls around them were painted the colour of wine they gave off a
smell of damp, dripping with the condensation of nights of excess,
like corridors on the way to some palace of wisdom; under their
feet the carpet exuded a similar odour, a makeshift mattress which
had known too many sweaty love sessions. Behind the bar, in the
room they entered, perhaps looking larger than life in the dim
light, stood Coral, a cuddly Cotswold figure with a shock of
untrained hair. She tugged stubby fingers through this wiry mass
and then offered a hand to Virginia, one obstinate curl lodging
beneath a fingernail, then falling to the bar as they shook
hands.

'How do?' she
said. 'How about a drink?'

Goomer rested
a hand on Virginia’s to warn her. 'Don’t touch the beer, it tastes
like it came out the wrong end of a cat.'

'Is there a
right end to a cat for beer to come out of?' she wondered
absently.

Coral smiled,
said, 'It’s alright, Goomer, especially for you I’ve got some Red
Stripe.' She foraged about behind the bar and came up with two
cans. 'Only for my most favoured customers,' she stressed to them.
'This is supposed to be a faffing wine-bar, after all. Folk aren’t
supposed to come in here expecting real ale.'

They opened
their cans and poured the beer into glasses while Coral spoke of
how she saw her bar, with portraits of the jazz greats lining the
walls while their music swept sweetly about the room.

'I’m not
really an artist, you know,' Virginia pointed out, in what was for
her an admirable display of honesty.

'That’s
alright, I’m not really a patron,' Coral countered. 'If the work is
good, then... good; if it’s not so good, well, at least it’ll cover
up the flaking plaster.'

Of which there
was rather a lot, Virginia saw, now that her eyes were becoming
accustomed to the low light and were able to penetrate the shadows.
Money might have been better spent on redecoration than on art
works.

An optimistic
customer rattled a coin against the far end of the bar, explaining
why the counter was so pitted, and Coral responded slowly, puffing
as she ambled away, as if to blame her weight.

Virginia
thought she resembled a bear.

Goomer saw her
more as a panda, friendly, but she was grumbling when she returned
to them.

'The faffing
buggers, they expect me to cream my knickers with excitement at the
prospect of serving them.'

She had a
particularly scornful way of looking at people, swivelling her eyes
in their sockets without moving her head until the whites became
almost full moons of contempt. Then she would suck in air,
greedily, in a grimace between clenched teeth.

When her eyes
came back to Goomer and Virginia she laughed and asked how the beer
was.

'Lovely,' said
Goomer.

'Well best
enjoy it while you can, because that’s your lot. The rest goes away
for a special occasion.'

'Like my
birthday perhaps?'

'Oh yes,
and when might that be?' Coral asked, but Goomer shrugged, not
saying. Coral laughed again. 'If his name was Ruby I’d call him
Tuesday,” she told Virginia. 'You know the song...
‘
she would
never say where she came from
’. Getting anything out of him is like getting blood out of
a stone.'

'I’m an
enigma,' Goomer smiled.

Coral sighed,
a sound something like ‘ho hum’, and took the case of Red Stripe
down to the cellar.

'She often
says that, ‘ho hum’,' Goomer told Virginia, smiling as he watched
the large woman lumber down the stairs, pleased with her
predictability.

'What does it
mean?'

'Nothing. I
think she just uses it when she can’t think of anything else to
say.' He watched Coral disappear below ground, then turned to
Virginia. 'So? What about you? What have you got to say for
yourself?'

Nothing.

Unfortunately
Virginia had no expressions to match Coral’s miscellaneous murmur;
when she was at a loss for something to say, she simply kept her
mouth shut. This was not especially satisfactory, she had to admit,
for people were often disconcerted by her silences, reading them as
snubs, accusations, hints that their company was uninteresting.
Still, her dumb silences were all that she had, and Goomer
understood; rather than pursue the subject of Virginia’s four month
absence he bought more drinks.

The wine now
served to them was poured by a young man who Virginia saw was
blessed with a complexion which shone as if it had been caressed by
a thousand hands; it had that glow which is seen in well worn
marble, a statue which has been venerated. He was a vision, his
face was that of a china doll but softer, with lips which Virginia
would like to kiss. As if in a car showrooms, a prospective buyer,
she let it be known that she would take that one, the model with
the sculpted smile and the ceramic complexion.

Goomer sighed,
as if he could feel nothing but pity for her. 'Ah, but the passion
can be a pig of a thing at times; it tickles away at your nipples,
making them prick, and then...'

'Yes?' asked
Virginia eagerly.

'Then screws
them around like the knobs on a television set.'

His hand shot
out and Virginia had to step back quickly to escape the clawing
fingers.

'But he’s just
what I need,' she said, from a safer distance. 'Aren’t you always
telling me that I should find myself a man?'

She was
corrected.

'If I did say
that, and I’m not admitting that I did, then what I almost
certainly meant was a good man, not a painted imitation of one. He
looks as plastic as Barbie’s Ken.'

Virginia
looked at the barman, at the cheeks which were tanned and smooth,
and she could already taste his kisses which she imagined would be
scented like strawberries. 'He’s good enough,' she drooled. 'He’ll
do for me.'

Goomer sniffed
disdainfully. Virginia could not possibly know that the barman was
as wonderful as she claimed, she was simply skipping over his shiny
superficial surfaces and she just might crash. Thin ice, deep water
and a chilled heart was how he described it.