The Art School Dance (63 page)

Oh, those blue
suburban skies! Such poetry!

'Virginia!'

The soles of
her shoes slapped noisily on the pavement as she came to a halt.
She was halfway down Bold Street, outside Gerald's art shop, and he
was standing in front of her, barring her way and looking
concerned.

Virginia
smiled when she recognised him, said, 'Good morning, Gerald.'

'What's wrong
with you?' he asked. 'You're not drunk before breakfast again, are
you?'

'No, I'm not.
I've been summonsed,' she said, staggering a little as she shook
her head but recovering herself to tell him that on the 'blah-blah'
day of the 'blah-blah' month, in the 'blah-blah' district of the
city she was accused of 'such-and-such'.'

Gerald pulled
her roughly into the shop. 'What is all this 'blah-blah, blah-blah'
nonsense?' he demanded.

'It's just
like a song when you read it,' she said. 'Here, you try.'

Gerald took
the summons from her and led her through the shop, down to the
basement and into the low-ceilinged workshop. There he forced a cup
of coffee on her, then glanced through the accusations which the
police had levelled.

They were all
unjustified, Virginia insisted, every single one of them.

'Drunken
driving-' Gerald began.

'I failed a
poxy breath test, that's all.'

'-driving with
undue care and attention-'

'That's a
lie.'

'-with no
current driving licence-'

'I've
misplaced it.'

'-and going
through lights on red.'

'That red is a
pigment of their imagination,' Virginia joked cleverly.

Gerald handed
back the summons. 'They'll crucify you.'

'Mind you, I'm
not sure if they have any imagination.'

'Virginia!'
Gerald snapped, his working day always too busy for him to exercise
much imagination. 'This lot is going to cost you a fortune!'

Virginia
shrugged. 'I'll start a counter-action against the police. I'll sue
them, take them to the cleaners. After all, what price can you put
on the night of unbridled ecstasy they deprived me of?'

'A night of
ecstasy with who?'

'Keith,'
Virginia said, when she was able to remember his name; glad that
she was able to remember, she repeated the name. 'Keith.'

'That
person?'

'Yes, and what
a person. If only I could find him again. I don't even know where
he lives, though. What can I do?'

As Virginia
sighed, Gerald huffed and swept from the basement, too disgusted
with her to beg her leave. She tried to follow but found the stairs
too steep, prompting her to wonder if she might indeed have been
drinking before breakfast. Tripping back down the two steps she had
managed to climb she spent the rest of the morning drinking
Gerald's coffee and appreciating his etchings and Russell Flint
prints.

The Russell
Flints weren't bad at a second glance, quite nice in fact. She also
noticed that they were rather pricey.

*

'Someone's
looking for you.'

Virginia gave
a weary sigh. 'I know. You told me and I've seen him. It was a
policeman.'

'No it
wasn't,' said Goomer.

'Dark uniform?
Shiny buttons?'

'I know what a
policeman looks like, thank you. And he wasn't a plain clothes man,
either. Not even Clouseau could come up with a disguise like
his.'

'Who was he,
then?' asked Virginia.

'I don't know,
even though I saw him this time.' Goomer described the visitor. 'He
was in his mid fifties I'd guess, dressed in a loud check suit that
George Melly might wear, spoke in a soft voice. The sort of bloke
I'd imagine Gerald married to, if Gerald was a woman.'

Virginia was
confused, in the dim light of the hallway she could not tell if
Goomer was being truthful or not.

'I need to
think,' she said. 'Can I come in for coffee?'

'No,' Goomer
replied.

'Why not?'

'Dean's
here.'

'So?'

'So you're
always being nasty to him.'

'I promise not
to be,' she said. 'Please, Goomer. I've nothing to make a drink
with in my place. I've sold the cooker and the electric
kettle.'

'The cooker
wasn't yours to sell.'

'I know.
Still... please?'

Goomer turned,
went into his room, left the door open for her to follow.

'It's
Virginia,' he warned Dean.

Dean was
squatting on the mattress, reading; he wore a baggy tee shirt which
just about covered his underpants.

'Hello
Virginia,' he greeted her cheerily. 'How's things?'

'Miserable.
Confusing.'

'Ignore her,'
said Goomer, boiling the kettle and spooning coffee into mugs,
wearing his most disapproving expression. 'She's just feeling sorry
for herself.'

'Haven't I got
reason to?' she sulked.

'You've only
yourself to blame.'

She turned to
Dean, who gave her a sympathetic smile, told him that someone was
looking for her.

'I know.'

'And it isn't
a policeman.'

'No.'

'I hate it. I
feel like a fugitive, like everyone is against me.'

'If you were
nicer to people,' said Goomer, handing her a hot mug which scalded
her fingers. 'If you weren't so self-centred and selfish, then
people might love you a bit more.'

'It's not love
I'm after,' she said.

'No.' Goomer
sat on the mattress with Dean. 'Perhaps if that was all you asked
of people then you might be a little luckier.'

From Dean,
each time she looked at him, she sensed an unspoken sympathy, but
from Goomer she received only insult and criticism. And each time
she looked at Dean she felt Goomer shooting daggers at her, as if
it was his boyfriend's tempting thighs which drew her gaze, rather
than his subdued compassion. When her coffee was finished, and
realising that she would come no closer to learning who was looking
for her, Virginia rose to leave.

Dean bade her
'goodbye' as cheerily as he had greeted her, but from Goomer she
got only an undisguised 'good riddance'.

On the street
she regarded everyone with suspicion, even those pious people
walking to the cathedral for a midday service, and the cultured
crowds who were making for a lunchtime concert in the Bluecoat
Chambers. Worried by the looks which she suspected were directed at
her, she joined the flow of the latter, went with them into the
walled courtyard of the arts centre and found a place on a bench
which faced the sun.

Two young men
with classical guitars clutched to their chests like suckling
infants began to strum and tune, then broke into music as the crowd
hushed. To Virginia, suffering a manic confusion, the tunes they
produced were too melodic and precise. How could there be anything
melodic in a world where each morning jangled with cacophony? How
could anything be precisely ordered in a world where confusion was
heaped upon confusion?

Even before
the first break for polite applause she was on her feet and looking
for a way out. As she stood her foot caught a discarded beer can
-it wasn't hers, she hadn't put it there she wanted to tell the
crowd around her- and sent it clattering across the paved yard.
Hostile glances followed her as she went to the door to the
gallery. She found her way blocked by a standing crowd, turned and
passed before the musicians to leave by way of the studios and
craft centre. She wanted to leave with a curse for the people who
glowered, but she was too sober. Her exit took her to the alley at
the rear, away from the city centre, pointing the way to the
'Marlborough'.

It seemed like
a good idea to go there, but proved not to be.

'Someone's
looking for you,' Peter told her as soon as she entered the
bar.

Virginia
groaned. 'I know. A soft spoken bloke in a loud check suit.'

'No.'

'A policeman,
then?' Surely it had to be the policeman she had already seen.
'Dark uniform? Shiny buttons?'

'Wrong again,'
said Peter, with that smile he usually reserved for a victory at
backgammon.

'For Christ's
sake, Peter, give me a drink before you tell me anymore.'

Virginia's
hands were shaking as she paid her money and took her drink, her
throat was so constricted that she could barely swallow a drop of
beer. A policeman had been looking for her, and had found her...
fine. An older gent of the type that Gerald might marry if Gerald
was a woman was also in pursuit... a little confusing. But a third
person added to the hunt... that was downright worrying.

'Someone's
looking for me, then,' she said, when she had choked down half a
pint of beer. 'Who?'

'I don't
know,' said Peter.

'But you saw
him?'

'Her.'

'Her?'

'Yes. Her. She
came in about this time yesterday.'

Virginia
looked at the clock over the bar; it was a few minutes before
one.

'Then describe
her, quick,' she said. She wanted to know what the person looked
like, and then be away in case this person should call again at the
same time today.

'Youngish, a
fit looking piece. Sort of sporty, athletic, shortish blonde hair,
you know how I mean, short enough to be manageable when she has a
shower after squash.'

There was no
one of the description Peter gave to be seen prowling the side
streets and back alleys which Virginia took from the 'Marlborough',
nor anyone of that description to be seen in the 'Corkscrew' when
Coral told her, with a delighted smile, that there was someone
looking for her.

'Youngish, fit
looking woman, sort of sporty,' Virginia said, repeating the
description Peter had given her.

'No.'

Virginia
thumped the bar so hard that she felt her knuckles crunch against
each other, wailed loudly enough to startle the diners at the far
end of the room.

He was a
policeman, then? Or a George Melly lookalike?

'No,' Coral
grinned.

'What did he
look like, then?' Virginia begged.

'He?'

'It was a
woman?'

'Both. One of
each.'

'Please,
Coral, stop the torment and tell me! Put me out of my misery!'

'A merciful
death, is that what you want? Yes, you might prefer that, because
one of them, the male of the species, is Gerald. He reckons you've
stolen a print from his shop.'

'Me?'

'No use trying
to deny it, Virginia. Gerald's got a photographic memory, his mind
is like a catalogue and he knows there's a print missing.'

Right, Gerald
was after her. There was one devil that she knew. And the other? A
Mafia hit-man? A member of the Spanish Inquisition? Simon
Wiesenthal?

'It's your
landlady,' Coral told her.

'Her?' said
Virginia. 'How did she know to find me here?'

'Gerald told
her. That's how spiteful he is. He was looking for you at your
flat, found the landlady aggrieved about what you've done to her
property and shopped you.'

Virginia
sobbed, she wanted a shoulder to cry on and looked around the bar,
asked, 'Where's Josh today?'

Josh would
comfort her, in his company she would forget her confusion.

'He's
finished,' said Coral.

'Finished? But
he was only due to start a half hour ago.'

'I mean
finished as in finished, stopped work, taken early retirement.'

'But why?'

It seemed that
Coral was considering an answer, she 'ho-hummed' and scratched her
head, but then customers began to demand her services and she was
distracted.

Inadvisedly
Virginia wandered off, not waiting for an explanation._

Chapter
Eleven

When Virginia
left the wine-bar she went to the post office, to the row of
telephones there to call Josh. It would be safe to do so, the wife
he was so unhappy with would be at work. There was no answer. She
tried again an hour later, and at frequent intervals throughout the
afternoon, but each time without any luck.

Where was he,
if not at work and not at home?

Virginia made
her last call at a few minutes to five, again in vain. It would be
risky to try again, if she did find Josh at home after five there
was also the danger that his wife might be there. There was nothing
to do, then, but return to the ‘Corkscrew’ and demand an
explanation from Coral.

She was
mumbling and cursing, asking why life had to be so riddled with
problems, her head sunk on her chest as she trudged down the steps
into the bar.

'You’d better
run, Virginia!' Coral cried out.

Virginia
looked up as she stepped from the last stair.

'RUN, I
SAID!'

There was a
blur of a figure hurrying from the far end of the room, a sweeping
arm sent glasses crashing angrily from the bar and Virginia turned
to leap back up the stairs. At the top she pulled the door shut
behind her to give her precious seconds to effect an escape.

From who?

Sod the whys
and wherefores! Virginia sensed a life -hers!- in danger, there was
the sharp metallic taste of panic in her mouth, and she sprinted
across the road without regard for the traffic. She dashed down the
first alley, Matthew Street, where the sculpture of ‘FOUR LADS WHO
SHOOK THE WORLD’ looked down impassively at her, switched
directions once more, then again, sprinting along Stanley Street
where the sculpture of Eleanor Rigby sat looking lost and
forlorn.

Jesus! Bloody
Beatles everywhere! And how could a person feel lonely when there
was someone chasing behind with murder in mind? Easy, perhaps, if
that fugitive felt that there was not a soul in the world to
protect her!

Virginia
thought of doubling back to the ‘Corkscrew’ and hiding behind
Coral, whose bulk might offer some protection, but she had
zig-zagged in the panic of her flight that she was disorientated,
uncertain of the safest way back. Her heart pounded, her body
poured with sweat and she was gasping for breath. Now, just moving
at a trot, she saw a public house ahead, noisy and crowded. She
needed to rest, she needed the security of a throng milling about
her, so she entered.