The Art School Dance (62 page)

'He's a
reminder to me that even philosophers can become saints,' Virginia
said, wetting a finger and smearing the whiskers across the face of
the holy man.

'Silly cow.'
Goomer went back into his flat, then reappeared almost immediately.
'Oh, I forgot, there was someone looking for you yesterday
evening.'

'Who?'

'Dunno.'

'What did he
look like, then?'

'Dunno that,
either.'

'Explain
yourself, Goomer.'

Goomer yawned
and stretched, rubbed the sleep from his eyes. 'I didn't open the
door. He was just a voice on the other side, didn't say what he
wanted, just asked where you were. I said I didn't know.'

'I suppose you
were in bed, copulating with your friend Dean.'

'I don't think
men can copulate with each other, Virginia.'

'No, I don't
suppose they can,' she said, walking back down the stairs. She
could not think why she had gone to her room in the first place,
there was precious little left there to interest her. On the way
down she banged on the door where she guessed today's protagonist
lived, then hurried outdoors. The voices which assailed her, on her
way into and out of the house, were sometimes male and sometimes
female, sometimes old and sometimes not so old, and she did not
want to risk tangling with anyone younger than an octogenarian
spinster. Give her someone on crutches and she might cope, but
confronted by an agile arthritic she might have to fight dirty.

On the street
she passed by brawling young boys on their way to school. Was it
still only that early? There was no watch on her wrist but she
could feel the hairs there itching their way into the five minutes
to nine position. What a time to be up and about! She might as well
have been a schoolteacher for all the rest that she got!

She turned
left, skirted all the way around the cathedral to avoid the brats
on their way to school, approached town through the Chinese
district. Burnt brown birds, ducks or geese or whatever, hung in
the windows of restaurants she passed, and she had to avert her
gaze to hold onto any contents there might be in her stomach. Ahead
a horde of jabbering Chinamen tumbled out of one doorway, delirious
after a night of booze and Mah Jong, and she just had to doff the
cap she never wore in admiration of their stamina; they were only
little buggers but they certainly knew how to keep going.

Her route took
her onto Seel Street and as she passed the 'Marlborough' she saw
Peter, collecting the morning delivery of milk from the step.

'There was
someone looking for you last night,' Peter told her.

'Who?'

'No idea.'

'Don't tell
me, he was just a disembodied voice on the other side of the
door.'

'Huh?'

'It doesn't
matter,' said Virginia, and Peter went indoors with the milk.

Virginia went
to the newsagents next door, bought a newspaper and a packet of
Polo mints.

Very well, she
thought, as she sucked on a mint; someone was looking for her. That
probably meant debts, and she racked her mind to think who it might
be. She still owed Coral money, certainly, but Coral would sit
tight and wait, she would not send people knocking at the flat. Who
else, then? The bank manager? No, of course not.

Too much
thought brought on a pain in the head, a knot behind the eyes which
reminded her of her hangover. She shrugged, as best she could with
the dull throb which hurt her brain, and spat out the mint. Let the
problem sort itself out, she decided; she had her health to worry
about and that was enough. A cup of coffee in the Bluecoat Gallery
started to settle her stomach, a subsequent glass of cold milk
attacked the sickness and soaked up the poisons, rose back up the
throat to swill out the tubes and then reluctantly subsided. She
burped as she left the bistro and the fresh air shivered at the
stench which left her mouth. She was winning the battle. Another
hour and opening time would coincide with a revitalised
constitution. This time she spent in walking to the Pier Head, in
challenging the heavy swell of the river to make her nauseous. She
laughed in triumph when the contents of her stomach failed to rise
above chest height, and laughed again, more loudly, when she spat
out another Polo mint -marvellous things, Polo mints, bursting like
mortar shells when they struck the pavement- and saw it hit a
seagull on its dirty orange beak. An old woman who had no more
imagination than to throw stale bread at the creatures looked away
nervously. Virginia smiled her
'you've-got-nothing-to-worry-about-from-me' smile and turned
inland, away from the river. The sickness of the early morning was
creeping away in defeat.

In the
'Corkscrew' Virginia was not surprised when Coral told her that
someone had been looking for her, though perhaps a little
disappointed to have it confirmed that this person was not Coral
herself. After all, better the devil you know.

'Mind you, I'm
not surprised there are people after you,' said Coral, the corners
of her mouth signalling all kinds of smiles and smirks.

'What do you
mean by that?'

'Oh, nothing,'
she said. Then, strangely, she asked, 'How's Josh?'

'Don't you
know? He works for you, after all.'

Coral
shrugged, sniggered like a young girl and walked the length of the
bar, wiping away imaginary stains. Virginia knew what was wrong, it
was that Coral begrudged her her success with Josh. He was
beautiful, after all, there was no denying it, and poor Coral was
just too bitter. Or perhaps it was that Coral had never actually
noticed her barman's beauty until she imagined him with Virginia,
in her mind's eye seen the two of them sitting side by side and
hand in hand exchanging kisses. She was probably thinking that she
would have to find someone else to make up her tatty foursomes,
would have to find someone else to suffer the lisping undersized
circus creatures who were her excuses for men.

She came back
down the bar, laughed for no obvious reason, then went off again to
serve a customer; she repeated the same pattern bravely, choking
back her bitterness with the thick false laughter.

Like a
heroine, Virginia thought.

'You don't
mind me being involved with Josh, do you?' she asked, when the
lunchtime rush slackened off and they had time to talk.

'Why should
I?' said Coral, with a surprised smile.

'Well, he does
work for you.'

'So?'

'So he's been
behind that bar with you, five nights a week for God knows how
long. Aren't you kicking yourself, now, for not trying anything on
with him? Aren't you just a little bit envious, seeing me come
along and sweep him off his feet?'

The question
was a serious one, with no hint of conceit, but al it brought from
Coral was a further stream of laughter, the breezy buffeting kind
which seemed to have stricken her so badly of late. Virginia could
not understand it, it seemed more hysterical than heroic.

'Kicking
myself? Me? Oh no, not me!' Coral sniffed back her tears, scrubbed
her fingers across her face and squeezed the stubby knuckles into
her eyes. 'Oh Virginia, you really are precious!'

As much an
object of ridicule as she felt, her every word scoffed at, Virginia
did not refuse the offer. She waited while Coral, still chuckling,
checked the till, nodded with approval as she saw twenty pounds
pocketed for immediate expenses, then went with her through the
busy streets where shoppers hurried about, clutching purses as
though they had not the slightest intention of opening them.

'Aren't people
tragic?' Coral said, her derision now switching from Virginia to
the passing throng. 'Look at them and you can see they think
they're so smart, but really they're all such easy touches, so
stupid and gullible.'

Virginia
hurried along at her side, occasionally stepping behind to let the
larger woman's bulk cut a path through the more thickly crowded
parts of town. Abreast or astern, she noticed an urgency of the
people around her, the wise concentration in their eyes.

'They seem to
know what they're about,' she thought.

'Don't you
believe it. Not one of them, is as clever as they pretend. These
fools and their money will soon be parted, you can get any amount
out of them.'

'When you see
them, when they're drinking, perhaps,' said Virginia, thinking just
how perfectly the description suited Coral herself, who leant money
so freely.

'You're just
in one of your intolerant moods,' she suggested.

Coral stopped
sharply in the middle of Church Street and the crowds made confused
eddies around her. 'You don't believe me?' she said. 'You don't
believe that people can be made to cough up anything?'

'No, quite
frankly I don't,' said Virginia.

'Right.' Coral
held out a hand. 'Give me a fiver and I'll show you.'

'You're on,'
said Virginia, rising to the challenge. She fumbled in her breast
pocket and produced a five pound note. 'There you are.'

'No, there you
are,' said Coral, folding the money and tucking it into her purse.
'I've proved my point and that's five pounds off what you owe
me.'

'But that was
me!' Virginia protested. 'You conned me!'

'Just as I
warned you I would,' Coral smiled.

*

Virginia was
found, it was inevitable, that anonymous disembodied voice which
others had described called out to her from the other side of the
door at an unearthly hour, accompanied by a heavy salvo of
knocks.

The voice was
unfamiliar. It was also officious and she wondered if it might be a
bailiff, as she wearily vacated her bed. But what if it was? There
was nothing in the flat worth repossessing.

'Coming!' she
answered, opened the door and came face to face with a uniformed
policeman. She was not yet awake enough to recall what she might be
guilty of, and all she could do was blink as the policeman stepped
uninvited into the room.

'Sorry to wake
you so early, Miss, only you're a difficult person to catch.'

Catch? As
criminals are caught?

'Yes, well I
do get about quite a bit,' said Virginia. Then she nervously added,
'I'm not a v-v-vagrant, though.'

'A
w-w-wanderer?' the policeman smiled. 'Del Shannon, was it? Or
Dion?' he tried to remember, and sang a snatch of the song.

The policeman
was old enough to remember the lyrics and jovial enough to attempt
the song. His broad smile and easy manner unnerved Virginia, who
suspected that she might still be dreaming. She pinched herself,
then cried out with pain.

'Ow!'

'Yes?' said
the policeman.

'How can I
help you?'

The policeman
searched through the pockets of his uniform, during which time
Virginia, remembering that she wore only a short nightie, was able
to pull a bathrobe around her.

'Ah, here we
are,' said the policeman, producing an envelope. 'I called to give
you this.' He handed over the envelope, explained, 'We don't like
posting to this neighbourhood, prefer to deliver things by hand.
Mail keeps going missing, or so residents claim.'

Virginia
examined the envelope, front and back.

'It's a
summons, a motoring offence, I believe,' the policeman went on,
still smiling, still friendly; he might have been doing Virginia a
favour by delivering it.

He waited, but
Virginia did not open the envelope, simply said, 'Thanks.'

'That's okay,
no trouble.' The policeman looked around the room, saw the
photographs and drawings of Josh taped to the wall above the bed
and took a stride towards them. 'Very nice, very nice indeed,' he
said. 'You're an artist, are you?'

'I am.'

'And would
this be your bloke?'

'He is,' said
Virginia proudly.

'Mm, a good
looking chap,' the policeman responded, as suspiciously as if he
was regarding incriminating evidence. 'Anyway, must be off,' he
said, turning and offering a joke of a salute as he walked to the
door, the raised finger seeming so sarcastic, under the
circumstances, that Virginia shook two of her own at the retreating
back.

She closed the
door after him and sat on the edge of the bed.

'Summons'
sounded like a singular thing, but when she ripped open the
envelope sheets of material came unfolding out. She had enough
there for a full morning's reading and the room was cold, so she
decided that she would look through the pages outdoors, in the hope
that the sunshine might make the contents a little more cheerful.
Through the opened window she took deep breaths of fresh air to
steady herself, then clambered down the rope ladder and fought her
way through the overgrown garden.

The sky was
clear, the river sparkled in the distance and she decided that she
would wait until she saw the first good looking man of the day
before she looked at the summons again. It seemed that handsome men
were in unusually short supply that morning, she was at the top of
Bold Street, on the edge of the city centre, before she encountered
a creature of any charm at all and was able to look once more at
her summons. Walking leisurely, jarring people, she unfolded the
sheets of paper and read of her crimes, was reminded that on the
'blah-blah' day of the 'blah-blah' month, in the 'blah-blah'
district of the city, she had been apprehended on suspicion of
'such-and-such'.

And of
'such-and-such' and 'such-and-such'.

The
accusations ran like a song, the stilted constabulary lyrics a
mesmerising rhyme which was repeated almost exactly on each page.
The only variations were those inserted into the appropriate spaces
on the typewritten sheets, accounts of each separate transgression,
and the cumulative effect was to make her feel giddy, forcing her
to break into a skipping dance as she sang each sheet to herself.
It might have been a letter of commendation that she held, rather
than a condemnation of her behaviour, and to add a final touch of
poignancy to the song cycle she noticed that the last of her
supposed offences had taken place on Penny Lane.