The Art School Dance (60 page)

'You’ll be
found out,' Peter was sure.

Virginia was
equally sure that they would not, and she grinned broadly. Old Gus,
the ex-seaman, commented on her good mood. He would be sure to
disapprove of her affair so she said nothing of the reason for her
improved humour.

'I’m broke,
there’s no work to be had and the bank manager hates me,' she said.
'Things can’t get much worse so why should I worry?'

Gus chuckled,
admiring her spirit. 'Have a drink on me, then,' he invited.

'No, you’ve
got me wrong, Gus,' Virginia said, grabbing the old man’s hand
before any money could be placed on the bar. 'I wasn’t looking for
pity or charity.'

'Now you’re
sounding like that miserable old Filipino who lives round the
corner,' he said, breaking free and paying for two drinks. He
handed one to Virginia, his hand trembling and spilling beer. 'I’ve
been broke too, love,' he continued, and his face became suddenly
grave. 'So broke, in fact, that I’ve done things I was ashamed of.
I remember New Orleans. I was so desperate...'

What he did
when funds were getting low was to check the obituary column each
day, looking for the better addresses, and then buy pencils in bulk
and have them stamped with the name of the recently deceased. His
good manners and soft words, when he called at the house of
mourning with the goods the dead man was purported to have ordered,
would be charming enough to persuade the widow of only days to buy
the items in remembrance of her dearly departed husband’s last
act.

'I’m so
ashamed,' said Gus, shaking his head. 'The poor women would say
they couldn’t understand why their husbands would want a gross of
the things, but still they’d buy them.'

Virginia
consoled the old man. 'They could afford it. You shouldn’t
worry.'

'But
you
should
worry,'
Gus insisted. 'Never, ever, take advantage of someone’s misfortune
like that. It’s a nasty thing to do, love, and don’t you forget
it.'

Nasty things
to do included hair-dryers stolen and then sold, cheques bounced
and wives cheated, Jenny Wilson tripped up in the school playground
eighteen years ago; Virginia recalled all her sins but just as
quickly forgot them.

Perhaps it was
the momentary guilt on her face which prompted Gus to say, 'But
you’re alright, love. You’re a good girl.'

Virginia let
the opinion stand uncorrected. Rather than upset people by being
honest with them, by showing her true self, she always preferred to
resort to silence, deceit or unashamed lies. In this, at least, in
trying not to upset people, she was good. This was the fair
way.

'It’s a
kindness,' she told Peter, when Gus had gone. 'It would only upset
him if I told him what I was really like. Any sin is justified if
it keeps people happy.'

In Peter’s
opinion this was a pitiful philosophy and he would entertain none
of Virginia’s arguments. 'Come on, admit it, it’s wrong,' he said.
'Be reasonable.'

'But any
reasonable person has to be unreasonable, Peter, since reasoned
thought leads to nowhere except God. How can you reason for or
against anything if reasoned thought gives you so many alternatives
that all you can fall back on is blind faith?'

'I’ve heard
all your arguments before, Virginia, ontologies and Cartesian
doubts.'

Yes, Peter
had, and very often he had an answer for them. Rather than risk an
argument which she might lose Virginia said that she would have to
go.

*

It was early
evening and Josh would be at home with his wife, pretending to be
happy with her, and Virginia found herself with another night to
waste. She tried to convince herself that she was content. This
process -convincing herself that she was content- necessitated a
further drink, of course, for contentment according to Virginia
meant being free and having a degree of independence. And what was
it that those people were denied who had neither freedom or
independence? Why, the opportunity to drink whenever the urge came,
without consultation or the permission of another. If only Virginia
had been able to accept it, of course, what she mistook for freedom
and independence was nothing other than loneliness; this, which she
had at first encouraged, was now slowly becoming something to be
accepted, to be carried like a cross or a monstrous placard which
announced her remoteness and warned people away as if from some
contagious disease.

Still. What
the hell. She toured the town, not realising that she was
frequenting bars where other lonely people stood in their singular
ranks, restating dreams in the hope that they might become more
real, speaking of past conquests and times enjoyed and refusing to
admit to regrets for they were heroic folk who were masters of
their own fates.

Virginia’s
mood slumped without her knowing why; she could think of no reason
why it should soar and dive like a demented roller-coaster. She
blamed the weather, she blamed the drink, she blamed the people she
overheard in the dismal places she visited, and by the time she
reached the ‘Corkscrew’ she was in a vicious temper.

'Give us a can
of Red Stripe, Coral,' she said, a demand rather than a
request.

'Give me fifty
quid first.'

Malfunction!
The one place Virginia had told herself she must avoid was the
‘Corkscrew’, she had written a reminder on her bedroom window in
chinagraph pencil that very morning, but drink had distracted her
and she was left to pay the price.

'Fifty quid,'
Coral repeated.

'Make it ten
for the time being.'

'Fifty.'

'Twenty,
then.'

It was the
doctrine of eternal recurrence once again; everything was happening
in the same tragic way that it had happened before. Virginia tried
to reason with Coral; some more work had come along, necessitating
an initial outlay but promising to pay dividends. Would Coral
settle for twenty five pounds?

'It’s only
until the end of the week, Coral. I promise.'

'This is the
end of the week, Virginia.'

'Next
week.'

Coral
eventually softened and held out her hand for the twenty five
pounds. 'The rest by next Saturday, though,' she cautioned.
'Otherwise I’ll have the men with the cricket bats out after
you.'

Virginia
smiled. Though Coral was big and burly she would never be so nasty,
and with half the debt paid her mood was already mellowing. Her
cheeks billowed around her half-contained smile.

'There are
these two blokes coming down tonight,' she told Virginia.

'If their
names are Tone and Trev you can forget it.'

'That
bastard?' He was so easily dismissed. 'No, it’s not him and his
puny mate. These are real lookers.'

'You can still
forget it. After the last time I’ll find my own men, thank you very
much. In fact I already have.'

'Really?'
Coral showed interest; as she leant against the bar a few of the
weaker timbers creaked. 'Who?'

'Oh, you know
him,' Virginia grinned smugly.

'It’s not
Goomer. He’s turning the other way again, back to his own kind. I
know that.'

'No, it’s not
Goomer. It’s someone much closer to the ‘Corkscrew’, in fact.'

Still the clue
did not help, so Virginia told her.

'Josh?' said
Coral, and creased up with laughter, her large frame doubling up
behind the bar.

'What’s the
matter?' Virginia wanted to know. 'You’ve got to admit that Josh is
a hunk, especially compared with some of the weeds you’ve
introduced me to.'

'Oh yes, Josh
is a hunk alright,' Coral agreed. Then, cryptically, she said, 'I
just wonder if you’ll be able to cope, that’s all.'

Virginia was
confused. 'Cope? With Josh?'

Coral
crumpled, her laughter bringing her down to crack her chin on the
bar.

Loopy, thought
Virginia, and retreated to her favourite corner, the one where she
had got smashed and sold her drawings for a drink at a time. She
smiled at this memory and found herself slipping back, from one
recollection to another, not quite as far back as childhood.

'Good evening,
boys,' she heard Coral say, when the clock behind the bar had made
innumerable tipsy spins, and she assumed that the two men mentioned
earlier had arrived. She would not make up a foursome, she was
determined of that, but curiosity made her get up out of her seat
and take a step or two towards the bar. The two men Coral had
greeted were Goomer and Dean.

'You’re surely
not taking these two out?' she said.

'If only.'
Coral gave Goomer a welcoming smile. 'But no, I’m not.'

Virginia made
a quick assessment of the choices she faced. Knowing Coral, it was
inevitable that the two expected would be pretty low in the stakes
as regards looks and personality, less attractive than Goomer and
Dean. This was no condemnation, of course, for Goomer was always
quite the handsome one, and Dean, well, at least his eyebrows had
started to grow back. It would always prove to be a risk, though,
agreeing to join one of Coral’s foursomes, and Virginia thought she
would be safer with the devils she knew.

'Let me buy
the two of you a drink,' she said, quickly coming to the decision
that the company of Goomer and his boyfriend would be preferable to
that of any who might come later.

'Short of a
drinking partner, are you?' Goomer unkindly asked.

'My boyfriend
is out with his wife tonight,' she boasted, ignoring the fresh
burst of laughter which this brought from Coral.

'And my
boyfriend is by my side. As long as you bear that in mind.'

Goomer’s hand
clasped Dean’s, raising it to his lips to kiss it. Whether the
gesture was intended to frighten her away or merely serve as a
caution, Virginia could not say. Whatever the reason behind it, she
paid for the drinks, buying her way into their company.

They sat down
at Coral’s request, to save her more conservative customers the
embarrassment of seeing two males so intimate.

'Don’t you
have any insults for me tonight, Virginia?' Dean asked.

He had noticed
the others?

His smile,
less stupid than any of his previous expressions, suggested that he
must have. Something about him had altered, he seemed to be more
aware, and he talked not of his weight -still quite plainly just a
fraction over ten stones- and his diet but of going to college, of
expanding his mind rather than reducing his weight. He seemed to
age as he spoke of basic qualifications needed before he could
begin to study seriously, psychology he hoped, not sociology which
he had considered at one time, for he did not want to help people,
merely to understand them. Understanding was what was lacking in
the world, he believed; if people had understanding then they would
not need help, they would be more together and in control.

Virginia was
stunned and Goomer was smiling.

'What have you
done to the boy?' she asked Goomer, but he did not answer.

It was Dean
who again spoke up. 'We all have potential, if only we knew it.
That’s why I want to know what makes people tick, move, do what
they do. They have potential but they aren’t aware of it, and I
want to know why.' He paused, then remembered Virginia’s question
to Goomer. 'What has he done to me?' He smiled and Kissed Goomer on
the cheek. 'Understood me, that’s all. That’s all that is
needed.'

'What I need
is another drink,' said Virginia, dazed and thirsty.

'Let me get
it,' said Dean, sliding out from behind the table and going to the
bar.

'And what
about you, Goomer,' said Virginia. 'You’re very quiet tonight. What
have you got to say for yourself?'

He shrugged.
'We tend to take it in turns, Dean and I, him doing all the talking
one day and me the next. No interruptions that way. Today I’m
resting.'

'But what have
you done to him. He’s so... different.'

'It was just
understanding, as he says. I recognised something in him that you
overlooked, that night in the ‘Phil’.'

'What?'

'You’ll
recognise it when you meet it, Virginia. If you ever do meet
it.'

He edged along
the seat to make room for Dean and the affection he demonstrated in
such simple things as taking a glass from him, or offering him a
cigarette, was noticeably more sincere than all the teasing
caresses Virginia had ever received. She studied Dean intently, but
whatever it was he possessed, this special ‘something’ which she
had overlooked, still evaded her. All she could note was that he
was becoming more physically attractive, more charmingly natural.
That, surely, had been one thing that Goomer had done for him,
given him a basic instruction in how to be beautiful. Old songs of
lost opportunities came back to Virginia, she remembered old
friends who had grown more beautiful without her and wondered if
what Goomer recognised in Dean was what she had always missed in
those boyfriends she had cast aside, this potential.

'Are you
listening, Virginia?'

Dean had been
speaking to her.

'Sorry,' she
said. 'What was that?'

'I said that
Goomer thinks you’re only motivated by drink and lust.'

'A gulping
gullet and a grubby groin were the precise words I used,' said
Goomer.

'You’re
misjudging me, as always.'

'But they’re
important to you?' asked Dean. 'Your groin and your gullet?'

'Not
all-important. There’s something which takes precedence, I’m sure,
but I can’t chase after that, whatever it is, if the other two are
frustrated. I need peace of mind first before I can think about any
deeper purpose.”

'But then
don’t you become preoccupied with these baser things to the
exclusion of the finer ones.'

'No.'