The Art School Dance (56 page)

'I’m going to
the bog!' Tone announced, as the band struck up again.

Trev nodded,
but the movement did not disturb Virginia; her head remained in
place on his shoulder.

Fifteen
minutes later Coral remarked that Trev was taking rather a long
time.

'He’s had a
fair bit to drink, you know what it’s like,' Virginia murmured, her
lips licking against Trev’s neck.

'Why did he
take his coat with him?'

Another
fifteen minutes passed.

'Go and see
what’s keeping him,' Coral said to Trev.

'Yes, I
suppose I’d better.' His lips kissed Virginia’s cheek as he lifted
her head from his shoulder. 'Back in a jiffy, Ginny.'

Virginia kept
her eyes shut, still pretending that he was someone else.

'He’s gone,'
said Trev, when he returned.

'Gone?'

'The bloke on
the door says he left twenty minutes ago.'

Coral thumped
the table, spilling their drinks. 'The bastard!'

The jolt
snapped Virginia’s eyes open. 'What’s wrong?'

'The bloody
bastard has gone!'

'And so has my
drink,' observed Virginia, seeing her wine swilling over the table.
'We may as well follow,' she decided, persuading herself that Trev
was as he had seemed in her dreams, worth taking home.

'What? And let
that shithouse ruin our evening? No way!' said Coral, opening her
purse. 'Come on, Virginia, help me get the drinks.'

With the
promise of another glass Virginia closed her eyes and shifted her
head back into place on Trev’s shoulder. 'You can manage on your
own,' she yawned.

Coral punched
her hard on the shoulder. 'No I can’t. Come on.'

Virginia went,
stumbled across the floor and leant against the bar while Coral
ordered drinks. A half pint glass of beer was thrust into her
hand.

'What’s this?
A half of bitter?'

'That’s right.
Drink it up quick, then you can be off.'

'But what
about Trev?'

'He’ll be
okay. I’ll see he gets home safely.'

The dawning
came quickly, hours earlier than usual. 'Meaning that half a man is
better than none? I get it. Tone has pissed off so you think you’ll
settle for Trev?'

'Just go,'
said Coral.

'Oh no. You
conned me into doing this favour for you and I’m going to see it
through.'

She hurried
back to Trev’s side, where she felt she would be safe. Coral
followed, none too happy, placed drinks on the table and said that
she was going.

'So soon?'
grinned Virginia.

There was no
comment; Coral turned her back on them and left.

'Poor Coral,'
said Trev, and this time he rested his head on Virginia’s
shoulder.

'Poor you,'
said Virginia. 'You look tired. Come on, let’s go.'

Slowly Trev
got to his feet, slowly enough to give Coral a comfortable start
over them. Virginia led the way from the club and towards the
nearest taxi rank, clinging to Trev in the belief that she would
thus be safe from assault, from Coral or from any other aggravated
drunkard.

'Where do you
live?' she asked, seeing a row of taxis ahead.

'Kirkby.'

That was quite
a trek. Still, Trev was weakening, resting his tiny body as heavily
as he could against her, so she helped him into the first taxi in
the line, gave the driver his instructions, then settled herself
next to her prize. The city blurred past, then terraced houses,
then dark empty spaces broken only by scattered clusters of lights.
She roused Trev and he gave the driver more exact instructions,
left, right, third left and stop outside the next high-rise block.
It was only then that he admitted that he had no taxi fare.

'You
what?'

Trev shrugged
meekly. 'Tone was the one with all the money.'

Cursing,
Virginia paid the driver, counting the cost and hoping it was going
to be worth it, followed Trev up eight flights of concrete
staircase, her eyes too tired to read the graffiti on the
walls.

'This is the
one,' said Trev, just as she was starting to pant for breath,
opening a door and leading her into a thickly carpetted flat.

Though the
velour cushions and anaglypta walls were not to her taste, Virginia
had to admit that the room was more comfortable than her own. And
in addition to the living room there would be a bathroom, a
kitchen, bedrooms. She settled herself on the settee and
smiled.

'Coffee?' Trev
asked, less sleepy and more sober than he had been all night.

'Lovely.'

He went
through a door, presumably to the kitchen, and Virginia unbuckled
her belt, dropping her trousers to her ankles. Trev could remove
them for her when he came back.

'Pull those
back up!' he cried, entering the room with two silver jubilee mugs
of Maxwell House.

Virginia made
no move to do so, so he did it for her, putting the mugs on a
glass-topped coffee table and yanking her jeans back up around her
waist.

'That’s
better,' he said, and sat beside her.

'Much better,'
she sighed, her head against his shoulder once more, thinking that
no doubt he expected a little more foreplay.

She caressed
his hands, stroked his neck and the numbers on the digital clock
above the fire clicked remorselessly on. She nibbled at his ears
and it all became too much for her.

'I want to go
to bed!' she cried, flinging her arms around him.

'Hush,' he
said, twisting out of her embrace. 'You’ll wake Mum.'

'Mum? You
still live with your Mum?'

'Yes. Just
until my wife comes out.'

'Comes out? Of
where?'

'Nick. She’s
doing six months, so I had to move back home so Mum can look after
the baby.'

'A baby,
too?'

Mother, wife,
baby. And two younger brothers who would be home at any time, Trev
added. There was obviously no room for Virginia, not even on the
settee where she might be caught copulating with any one of three
brothers, much to the chagrin of a doting Mum. She fixed her jeans,
stood and walked to the door.

'Yes, it is
late,' said Trev. 'You’ve probably got quite a way to go.'

Late had
become early, there was a suggestion of sunrise behind the thin
curtains and a weak light shone through the frosted glass of the
front door. Trev asked if he would see her again, as he let her out
of the flat, but the smile on his lisping lips said that he did not
expect to.

'No,' he said,
'it’s difficult when you’ve got a wife in nick.'

'Bastard!'

*

‘
Bastard’ was what each called the other, Coral and
Virginia, when they met again the following day.

'You
call
me
a bastard? Do
you realise that favour I did for you cost me a fortune and a three
hour walk home?'

Coral stabbed
a finger towards the till. 'How much money do you think it cost me
last night? And I was still frustrated at the end of it! I didn’t
even get off with the bloody midget!'

'Neither did
I!'

'You
didn’t?'

Virginia was
embarrassed to admit it, but no, she didn’t, not even a nibble.
This made Coral’s anguish a little easier to bear; her fat cheeks
puffed into a smile and for the first time that morning the teeth
shone through.

'There’s a
lesson to be learned here, Virginia,' she said philosophically.
'Don’t blow your money on men because they don’t appreciate it and
it won’t buy you any special favours.'

'That’s easy
for you to say,' said Virginia. 'My money’s already blown. I’m
skint. How about cashing me another cheque?'

'Skint? You
had thirty quid off me yesterday.'

But the
majority of that had already been committed to other expenses,
Virginia explained; rent, rates, child maintenance, monthly
subscription to the Legion of Mary.

'I only had a
fiver of that to spend on myself,' she said. 'That went on a taxi
for Trev. Come on. I can’t go to the bank until there’s money paid
in next week.'

With favour
fighting favour, each one leading to further troubles, Virginia
wrote out a cheque and received twenty pounds from the till, just
one day older but even deeper in debt.

Chapter Seven

Twenty pounds
is nothing, it does not go far, especially not when a person earns
a reputation, deserved or otherwise, and finds credit hard to come
by. The twenty pounds Virginia received from Coral soon ran
out.

It was no use,
she decided, after a week in the flat with nothing to do but stare
at the hole in the wall; she had to get more cash.

Groggy with
her first taste of fresh air for so many days, she ventured
outdoors. It was evening. The streets were dark, traffic crawling
along and clouds hissing above, chasing the retreating sun into a
vivid neon strip of sky and taking with them the rain. The night
was chilly and it would be no friend to Virginia.

She went into
a public house, to rest a while or maybe longer depending upon the
clientele and the affability of the management. She stood on the
threshold to appraise her surroundings and savour the warmth, took
particular note of the landlord; stately and barrel chested, with a
splendid moustache, there was a military bearing about him which
Virginia found herself echoing in her stride as she walked across
the room.

'Good evening
to you.'

'Evening,'
said the landlord gruffly.

'I’ll have a
half a pint of mild, please,' said Virginia, asking for the
cheapest drink available.

Her needs were
attended to with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm. No doubt the chap
had had a hard day, with its unfair quota of bitter moments.

Virginia paid
for the drink with a smile and her last few coins, suggesting that
the beverage was worth every hard-earned button. She tasted her
drink, then remarked on the landlord’s bearing, asked if he had
been in the army perhaps.

The landlord
shook his head.

'No? You
weren’t in the guards or the marines?'

'No.'

'So it must
have been the air force.'

'Wrong
again.'

'Strange,'
said Virginia, her eyebrows cocked. 'I somehow picture you in
uniform.'

'That’s right.
The police. I retired six months ago.'

Pardon me,
thought Virginia, and went to sit down before her legs gave way.
That bloody Tormentor on high was back again, playing tricks like
the savage God that He was.

So what to do
with the hairdryer which she had brought along in the carrier bag,
hoping to palm it off on a landlord in return for the price of a
drink or two? Virginia approached a solitary drinker in a quiet
corner of the room and struck up a conversation, ascertained that
the man was married and congratulated him on his good fortune.

'For myself,'
she sighed, with eyes downcast, 'I had hoped to tread that happy
bridal path, our romance was blossoming, and my fiancé offered a
gift as a token of his affection.' She took the hairdryer from the
carrier bag. 'This very hairdryer, it was, and what did he do the
week after he gave it me but run off with the very sales assistant
he had bought it from.'

'How sad,' the
man commiserated.

'And now the
hairdryer, marvellous machine that it is, I can’t bear to use it.
It can only serve as a means of regurgitating his memory.'

'Yes.
Tragic.'

Virginia held
the hairdryer out so that the man could see it more closely. 'You
wouldn’t be interested, perhaps?' she asked. 'A surprise for the
good lady?'

He smiled
sheepishly, as surprised by the offer as his wife would be by the
gift. 'No, I don’t think so.'

'One crisp
tenner. That’s all.'

The man shook
his head, but slowly and without conviction, and Virginia guessed
that she might have him with a few more carefully chosen words. She
spoke of the merits of the device, the saving for the man and the
delight of his wife, who would thank him and want to repay him, who
would wrap her arms around him with a kiss-kiss, bang-bang, and off
they would go to bed to enjoy the conjugals for the first time
since Christmas.

'Excuse me for
a moment,' the man said, getting to his feet.

Virginia
understood and nodded, thinking that he probably wanted to go to
the gents to check his funds in privacy, but the man strode briskly
to the exits rather than to the toilets, was gone from the bar
before he could even be cursed or tripped.

Ah well, at
least in his haste he had left a half full glass of beer. Virginia
commandeered this before the landlord had a chance to notice.

She was
lamenting her luck and consoling herself with the beer when
-’brrr!’- a cold draught came from the door as it was opened and
closed. But what a heart-warming sight she saw! The girl who
entered was not especially attractive, but she was alone, her lack
of company was her greatest recommendation, and Virginia sniffed
the air as she passed, recognising the sweet essence of
salvation.

Carefully her
gaze stalked the girl to the bar and back, as one would with any
timid creature. She was a typist, perhaps, a secretary bird of that
species which Virginia so often despised; this seemed highly
probable when she saw the way the girl’s nylon legs crossed as she
sat facing her. The eyes spoke of sadness and of empty nights and
she approached her slowly, anxious not to startle.

She excused
herself, begged her pardon for speaking without invitation, and
commented on her hair which she said had a sheen like sunshine. She
was a great one, Virginia, for the flattering phrase and the
so-sincere suck, and the secretary bird was caught unawares.

'What do you
mean?' she asked warily.

'Your hair,
when you move your head, it’s like a television commercial. It
could be used to sell holidays in the sun.'