The Art School Dance (5 page)

‘
Stephen
left early,’ Gran observed.

‘
Yes.’

‘
He
didn’t look too happy when he left, either.’

‘
You
were peeping through the curtains again?’ I supposed, with a brief
glance up from my book.

Gran admitted
nothing, rattled her needles together as she asked, ‘What did you
do to upset him?’

‘
I
didn’t do anything to upset him. We all have our off
days.’

‘
And
whose turn was it today? Yours or his?’

I was in no
mood for the old woman’s nattering, was impatient with her. She
seemed to think that her age gave her some particular insight into
people, and I said quite sharply, ‘Who says we have to smile all
the time?’

‘
No one.
You need a special reason for frowning, though. What did you do to
the lad?’

‘
Nothing!’

My mother
stirred behind half-closed eyes, felt bound to add her opinion,
said, ‘He’s a nice young man is Stephen. So smart, so
sensible.’

‘
You’re
saying I’m not?’ I asked, knowing full well that this was exactly
what she meant.

‘
He’s
sensibly employed,’ my mother continued. ‘As we thought you would
be, after getting you’re A levels and all.’

‘
I’ve
gone on to college,’ I reminded her. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted me
to do?’

She shrugged,
said nothing, but Gran gave a wickedly disdainful chuckle. ‘Art
college?’ she said, her teeth now clacking in time to her knitting.
‘That place? Pah! That’s not proper study. It’ll get you
nowhere.’

I steeled
myself, knowing what was going to come next, having suffered the
topic so many times before. Sure enough the old woman cited those
places that were ‘proper’ institutions, the universities and
teacher training colleges, named those people who have gone on to
such places, old school pals, friends I now disliked because they
had the respect of my family. I wanted to swear as Gran went
through the endless inventory of hopes they had for me, and my
mother added to the list, mentioning the dreams my father had
nourished, quoting the advantages, denied their generation, which
had come my way. I always thought that this was particularly unfair
of my mother, to bring my father’s memory into such discussions;
when he died this became her most potent form of blackmail, one
that I always found difficult to counter.

To shut the
two of them up, to get away from their chatter for a moment, I went
through to the kitchen and set the kettle on the gas for a pot of
tea, even toasted a few slices of bread for their supper. My mother
appreciated the gesture and stopped pestering me, gazed quietly at
the fire and smiled softly, that smile which said that she was
dwelling on the past and was comfortable with her memories.

Gran, though,
she was at that age where she was never satisfied.

‘
The
tea’s a bit on the weak side and the toast’s too crispy,’ she
complained.

‘
It’s
the gas playing up again, it really needs seeing to. And the pilot
light keeps going out on the boiler.’ After my excuses I
apologised, with as much patience as I could muster. ‘I’m
sorry.’

‘
You
know it hurts my gums when it’s too crispy. You should have let
your mother do it. She knows just how I like it.’

‘
Mum’s
tired,’ I pointed out.

‘
Through
worrying over you most likely, you and that art school, the way you
dress. And to think you had all the advantages of a good
education.’

I couldn’t
take much more of this, and as soon as I’d finished my tea I went
back upstairs. My bedroom was small, even without Stephen there it
was cramped, pictures and prints pinned about the place made it
seem smaller still and the walls appeared to bow inwards beneath
the weight of the books on the shelves. There was always the smell
of turpentine and linseed which annoyed my mother, thickening the
atmosphere so that it was almost like going back to the womb to
feel the walls so close and the air so heavy. Quite comforting,
like a confessional.

As I gathered
together the things I’d need for college in the morning I took
another look at Stephen’s portrait and found it as unsatisfactory
as ever; the slight smile I wanted from him seemed like a sneer,
or, even worse, a cruel gash across his face, with no sentiment in
it, no sensitivity. It occurred to me that having it there, in that
room, was a little like sharing the womb with another person’s
child; bringing Stephen there diminished the security the room
afforded, diluted the life which had previously pulsed with such a
strong creative force. It was almost as if whatever was missing in
Stephen, that something which left him no more than flesh and bone,
was being sought after by him each time he entered, being inhaled
along with the smell of the paint and the oils, slowly being
drained from the room and drawn into him. He was taking too much,
giving too little.

Chapter Four

I had the
carcass of meat sketched out lightly in charcoal on the canvas; the
rail from which it hung was like the horizontal beam of a cross,
there was bone and gristle where a crucified person’s ribcage would
have been and lower down the torso tapered into two stumpy legs,
blunt and bloody. I began to fill in the tone using various shades
of sienna, giving the composition some weight and substance before
adding any true colour or detail, and the canvas gave gently under
the touch of the brush, a wonderful feeling which had me almost
purring with delight. I whistled softly as I worked, unladylike but
contented, quite oblivious to my surroundings.

‘
This
looks as if it might be a bit gory,’ said a voice, and I turned to
see Paula, dressed –since it wasn’t a Tuesday- in her secretarial
outfit, a pen behind her ear protruding from her fine blonde hair,
looking so smart and efficient. She was like a flower in a weed
patch among the scruffs who frequent the art school, and for some
reason, for just one brief moment, I felt conscious of my paint
stained jeans and torn tee shirt. I, who thought I had learned to
see beyond the superficial, was suddenly concerned about my
appearance.

The
embarrassment was short-lived, though, I quickly overcame it, said
‘good morning’ to Paula and then agreed, ‘Yes, I think it might
well turn out to be a bit bloody.’

Paula took
another step or two forward, stood beside me. ‘A crucifixion,
perhaps? After Francis Bacon?’

I was
surprised that she recognised the influence, glanced from the
painting to Paula and back again. ‘Yes, there’s a slight similarity
I suppose.’

‘
All you
need now is the pope screaming in the background.’

Now it was one
thing for Paula to recognise the influence of Bacon, but to know
that he also painted screaming pontiffs, anguished versions of
Velasquez, suggested a rather more comprehensive knowledge of the
artist. Despite my surprise at the remark, however, I realised
immediately that Paula might have an idea here, in her mention of
the pope, for wouldn’t the pope indeed be screaming, in the style
of Bacon, if he saw a crucifixion painted by Bacon? I put down my
brush, looked back at Paula and then at the canvas, and my surprise
must have been obvious for Paula laughed, red lips parting from
pure white teeth, and told me to carry on, not to mind her, she’d
only come in for a coffee.

She walked
over to the vending machine which was in a corner of the studio,
slim heels tapping delicately on the tiled floor, and I saw her
skirt hitch up slightly as she raised her arm to drop a coin in the
slot. She had a pleasing shape to her legs, the flesh at the back
of her knee –was there a particular name for that part of the
anatomy?- looked beautifully soft and for a moment I wondered: what
the hell was I doing painting a dead piece of meat?

When Paula
came back from the coffee machine I offered her a cigarette, which
she took, and we sat on stools before the canvas like a middle aged
couple watching television.

‘
So how
come you know so much about Francis Bacon?’ I asked.

‘
I
don’t, not a lot. You shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think that all
blondes are dumb, though.’ Paula said this with a gay little laugh
that had her hair dancing about her shoulders. ‘I may not
know-’

I interrupted
her, thinking of what Stephen might have said, begged her, ‘Please,
please don’t tell me you don’t know much about art but you know
what you like.’

‘
I
wasn’t about to so don’t insult me!’ Paula bristled, giving me a
punch on the arm.

‘
Sorry,’
I apologised.

‘
What I
was going to say is that I might not know as much as you students,
or the staff, but I’m bound to have picked up a bit of knowledge
after working here for five years. I type out the lecture notes,
remember. Some of that sinks in. And I see all the work you do.
It’s only natural I should pick up a bit here and there. I’m not
too old to learn.’

Which was how
old, exactly? If she had worked at the college since leaving
school, or maybe after a secretarial course, she could be in her
mid twenties perhaps.

After my
second apology we had an engagingly cultured conversation while
everyone else was taking a break in the canteen, and when Paula had
finished her coffee and returned to her office I continued with my
painting. The carcass of beef progressed nicely, gradually becoming
more solid, taking on substance, a very real weight; colours became
stronger, to give depth to certain parts and bring others forward,
the canvas was no longer a flat object but became increasingly
three-dimensional, you could almost feel what an effort it would
take to grip the meat in your hands and lift it from the surface.
This was how a painting should progress, and was precisely how my
portrait of Stephen was not progressing. When I got home that night
I tried to improve on it, without having Stephen posing before me,
tried to make it seem at least as real as the slab of beef; as it
was the face was flat, only one side could be seen and you couldn’t
imagine there being another, it was no more real than one of those
old Victorian silhouettes; though it had colour it was lifeless and
might as well have been black and white. I struggled with the
painting for an hour or two before giving up, returned to it the
following evening and the evening after that but made little
progress. Even when Stephen came around I still had
difficulties.

‘
How’s
it coming?’ he asked, perched on the edge of the bed.

‘
Fine,’
I lied, because I was grateful for his patience and didn’t want him
to think he was wasting his time.

‘
Is it
nearly finished?’

‘
Soon, I
think.’

The fact of
the matter was that the more I worked on it the more animal the
image became, as if there was something bestial about Stephen which
was coming to the surface; at one point I had been concerned with
making him look handsome, but now it had got to the stage where I
was only concerned with making him look normal. Even this was
beyond me and time was running out, I had promised him the painting
as a Christmas present and the holiday was only weeks away. Time
and again I had to look hard at Stephen, and for longer and longer
periods; he was nothing like the portrait, not bestial in the way
that it was; there might have been times when I sensed something
missing in him, some inner spark, but nonetheless he had a surface
beauty which was becoming more and more elusive as I tried to
capture it on canvas.

For once I was
grateful to hear Stephen talk about his day, it distracted me, I
listened and even encouraged him and my interest pleased him, he
chatted incessantly and the smiles he gave me were warm and fond.
After two hours of work, the customary length of our sessions, I
was glad to put away my things, to turn the painting to the wall
once more even though little improvement had been made. The evening
had gone well in Stephen’s view, though, the lengthy conversation
I’d drawn from him had him in such a mellow and contented mood that
he made no protest when I massaged his neck without first washing
my hands, succumbed to a caress and a kiss or two without
complaining about the smell of turpentine. We had a minute or two
of intimacy, but no more, for Gran and my mother were aware of how
long I usually spent on the painting and one or other of them would
come up to the room if we lingered too long; we went downstairs,
then, to the living room, and I asked Stephen if he’d like a cup of
tea.

‘
Yes,
smashing,’ he said. ‘I’ll make it, though; yours is always too
weak.’

‘
Isn’t
that what I’m forever telling her,’ Gran chipped in, from her usual
chair by the fire. ‘Her tea’s too weak and her toast’s too crisp
every time. You make it nice and strong, son. You know better than
her how to do it.’

‘
Not
much use in the kitchen, is she?’ Stephen grinned, such a trite
thing to say.

‘
Except
for washing up,’ Gran chuckled.

I sat down and
waited, frowning; Stephen would get no help from me after a comment
like that, and though Gran smiled at me I knew that it was only
because of Stephen. In a whisper the old lady said what a wonderful
lad he is.

As the kettle
boiled my mother came in from the front room, where she’d been been
sewing.

‘
A cup
of tea?’ Stephen called through from the kitchen.