The Art School Dance

by Maria Blanca Alonso

  ‘Come on, Griff, time we left,’ Teacher decided, hiding the bottle under his coat.

  On the staircase they met the librarian and the whisky-soaked girl; the librarian greeted Teacher and explained what has happened.

  ‘Well we didn’t see anything untoward,’ Teacher told the librarian, ‘we were so deep in discussion. I’m sure you'll weed out the culprit, though. Let me have his name and I’ll reprimand him most soundly.’

  ‘He must have been able to smell the booze,’ said Griff, when they were safely outside the library.

  ‘Maybe, but my exalted station is my safeguard,’ said Teacher. ‘It scares the shit out of people. I’m untouchable, there’s bugger all they can do to me.’

  ‘Is that right?’ asked Griff, thinking how dangerously the Principal is tempting providence.

  *

  Later, Griff was with Ceri and Rose in the canteen, filling his stomach with food to soak up the whisky, when McCready joined them. He came with a carrier bag in his hand, which he set on the table; he was silent, contemplative, he looked at the Formica top rather than at his friends and never even greeted them with so much as an ‘hello’.

  ‘Is there something wrong, Mac?’ Griff asked, sincerely hoping that there was.

  McCready nodded sadly. ‘It’s the chicken. It’s dead.’

  ‘Dead? What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. I found it with its head caught in a roll of chicken wire, its neck broken.’

  ‘Foul play suspected?’ Griff smirked.

  Ceri grimaced at the unfortunate joke. Rose, predictably acquainted with the etiquette of bereavement, told Griff not to be so heartless.

  ‘It might have been an accident,’ McCready mused. ‘There again, it might not.’

  ‘Surely it was,’ said Ceri. ‘Who’d want to get rid of your chicken?’

  ‘Ron never liked the idea of me keeping it in the studio. He was always complaining about it.’

  ‘But he’d never do something like that. He’s too stupid to be evil.’

  ‘Who knows?’ said McCready, with a forlorn shrug of the shoulders, and there was a respectful moment of silence, after which those with an appetite returned to their meals.

  ‘So what’ll you do with the body, Mac?’ asked Ceri, shovelling food into his mouth.

  ‘I’d become quite fond of the silly thing,’ McCready smiled. ‘I did think of having it stuffed. Taxidermy-wise,’ he added, knowing that there was another weak joke there, scowling as he saw the amused glint in Griff’s eye.

  ‘An expensive business,’ Ceri told him.

  ‘Yes, I imagine so. I’ll just have to bury it, I suppose, give it a decent send-off. Will you two help?’

  Ceri and Griff were hesitant, it seemed like an eccentric thing to do, but Rose prompted them into agreeing, her only involvement with funerals in recent months having been to gaze uninvited from a distance at those of strangers.

  ‘Okay, I guess so,’ said Ceri. ‘Where’s the bird?’

  McCready pointed to his package on the table. ‘There, in the bag.’

  ‘In that? Jesus Christ, McCready! We’re having our lunch and you slap a rotting carcass on the table?’ Ceri pushed the bag away in disgust. ‘Shift it!’

  McCready took the bag and placed it on the floor beneath his chair. ‘But you will help me bury it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, we will,’ says Griff, with an impatient sigh.

  ‘Later this afternoon, when the place is quiet? I’ll meet you downstairs?’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ Ceri promised.

  McCready huffed and heaved his shoulders and looked thoroughly dejected.

  ‘Aren’t you having any lunch?’ Rose asked him, her own appetite having improved markedly on learning of a death in the family.

  ‘I don’t feel all that hungry,’ he told her.

  ‘You really need to eat something. Go on, at least get yourself a sandwich.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed, and went over to the serving bay.

  While he was away they tried to sympathise, recalling how they’d each felt when favourite pets died, quoted fathers burying budgies and cats in back gardens, but the comparison was a little too tenuous for all but Rose to be able to relate with McCready’s grief. They were all older now, for one thing, and more able to cope with bereavement.

  ‘A chicken can’t really be considered a pet,’ said Ceri.

  ‘Except in the case of someone as eccentric as McCready,’ said Griff.

  ‘I mean, you can’t cuddle it.’

  ‘McCready did.’

  ‘The nut.’

  It was as they were discussing McCready that I came looking for him.

  ‘He’s getting something to eat,’ Rose told me, gesturing towards the entrance of the serving bay.

  ‘No he’s not, I’ve just come from there,’ I said, laying my tray on the table as evidence. I sat down and began to eat.

  ‘Then he’s run off. He mustn’t be able to face any food after all.’

  ‘Why not? Is he ill?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know about physically,’ said Griff, ‘but he’s certainly got a touch of what Teacher would call mal-de-tete.’

  ‘More so than usual today,’ Ceri added.

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  They told me of the demise of the chicken, and of McCready’s reaction, Griff describing his present state as almost catatonic.

  I was sorry to hear of the loss, said, ‘I suppose it’s my fault in a way for not letting him keep the bird at the flat.’

  ‘Thank God you didn’t, we’d have had it crowing us awake at dawn every day,’ said Ceri.

  ‘Cocks crow,’ Rose reminded him. ‘Not chickens.’

  ‘Well, whatever its habits we wouldn’t have wanted that bird about the place.’

  I had rested my knife and fork by the plate for a moment, pausing to dwell on the bad news and its ramifications. Now I returned to my meal, saying, ‘Still, he’ll get over it.’

  ‘Will he?’ asked Rose, not so sure. ‘Aren’t you worried about him?’

  ‘No, not at all. You get used to his strange ways.’

  ‘Though how you put up with them I don’t know,’ said Griff. ‘Just what is it you see in the nutter?’

  That same question again.

  ‘All eccentrics are a bit innocent,’ I said, gazing into the distance and smiling fondly. ‘I suppose that’s what I love about him, his innocence.’

  Griff frowned, innocence being one trait he had never associated with McCready.

  ‘So he’s going to give the bird a decent burial, is he?’ I remarked, with just a hint of an amused grin. ‘Is that where he’s gone now, perhaps?’

  ‘No. We’re helping him do that later,’ Ceri told me.

  ‘So what’s he done with the corpse in the meantime? Is it lying in state?’

  ‘He’s left it behind,’ Griff then noticed, seeing the carrier bag still on the floor and picking it up. ‘Here it is.’

  ‘Ugh!’

  Suddenly I didn’t feel hungry anymore. I persuaded Rose to go across to the pub with me, to have a drink and wash away the taste of putrefaction.

  ‘Just pretend it’s a wake,’ I encouraged her.

  *

  It was mid afternoon when Ceri and Griff returned to the canteen with the dead chicken.

  ‘Why are we bringing it back here?’ asked Griff.

  ‘It seems a waste to throw it away so I thought we’d give it to Joan, a little goodwill gesture to make our peace with her. I’ve plucked it,’ said Ceri, ‘it’s a freshly killed bird, and you know how she’s always going on about fresh food rather than frozen.’

  ‘One bird? What’s she going to do with that? And a few loaves and fishes to feed the five thousand? And what about McCready? He’s expecting to bury it, remember.’

  ‘Questions, questions, questions. Do you think I haven’t thought of everything? I’ve got something for him to bury, a soft toy I found in textiles.
It’s stuffed with scrap from sculpture to give it weight. He’ll never notice the difference.’

  ‘Unless he sees it.’

  ‘No danger of that. It’s tied up in a sack and he’ll never think of looking inside, he’ll be too stricken with grief. Now come on,’ Ceri urged, pushing Griff along before him, ‘let’s get rid of the thing then we can help McCready bury his cuddly toy.’

  The canteen was deserted, the tables freshly wiped down, everywhere as spotless as Joan liked it to be. They went into the serving bay, find the shutters pulled down so passed through the door which leads to the kitchen. Apart from the gentle bubbling of pans, in which the evening’s food was being prepared, all is quiet, seemingly empty; then they caught sight of Ron at one of the sinks, feverishly scrubbing at his overalls.

  ‘Ron? What are you up to?’ Ceri asked.

  Ron started, not having heard them enter, and turned around; his face was covered with fine red scratches and he began to stutter, not quite sure how to explain what he was doing.

  Ceri and Griff stepped closer to examine the marks on his face.

  ‘Who tried to claw your eyes out, Ron? Getting too fresh with Joan, eh, and she turned on you?’

  Ron continued to stammer, he was too incoherent to make any sense. Griff took the overalls from him, to see why they were in such an urgent need of a wash, and found that they were covered with drops of some chalky white substance.

  ‘What’s this, Ron? Quick-setting dandruff?’

  ‘It’s… it’s…’

  Ceri looked, then laughed wickedly. ‘It’s chicken shit, that’s what it is. It was no middle aged bird from the canteen he’s tangling with, it was one of the feathered kind. You wicked little bastard, Ron! It was you who killed McCready’s chicken, wasn’t it?’

  ‘N-no.’

  ‘Yes it was, you malevolent little moron.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Ron blurted. ‘Didn’t mean to! I was only trying to shut it up!’

  ‘Well you certainly did that alright,’ said Ceri, tossing back the overalls. ‘What do you reckon McCready’ll do when he finds out?’ he asked Griff.

  Griff made a cut-throat action from ear to ear. ‘He’s very upset. He’s capable of anything.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean to hurt it!’ said Ron in panic. ‘I just wanted to stop the noise!’

  ‘You’re in trouble, Ron,’ Ceri said, taking a step forward, and quoted the cleaner’s favourite lament. ‘The Principal’s going to hear about this.’

  ‘Get away from me, you crazy Welshman!’

  ‘Listen here, worm,’ Ceri threatened, still advancing, ‘you’re going to be a bit more respectful to this crazy Welshman from now on, otherwise McCready’s going to find out who did his chicken in.’

  ‘Get away! Get away!’ Ron screamed, and his cries brought Joan running in to see the burly young Celt threatening the cowed old cleaner.

  ‘You leave him alone!’ she said. ‘Haven’t you made him suffer enough?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You. If you hadn’t got him drunk he wouldn't have fallen into the rose bushes on the lawn. Just look at the mess he’s made of his face.’

  ‘Rose bushes?’ Ceri smiled at Ron. ‘That’s what gave you those scratches, eh?’

  ‘Yes!’ Joan insisted.

  ‘And it was me who got you drunk, Ron?’

  ‘Or perhaps it was the Principal, Mr Teacher,’ Ron now decided, his embarrassment making the scars burn all the brighter. ‘Yes, now I come to think of it, it was Mr Teacher.’

  ‘Don’t talk rot!’ scoffed Joan. ‘You drinking with the Principal? Poppycock! It was these two and their mate. Aren’t they always the ones? Now get out of here, the pair of you.’

  ‘But we came along here to do you a favour, sort of apologise for past indiscretions,’ said Ceri.

  ‘You’ve come to do me a favour?’ Joan laughed. ‘I don’t believe that for one minute. What favours are you in a position to do me?’

  ‘A gift, a chicken,’ Ceri said, producing the bird from the bag with the same flourish that a magician might produce a rabbit from a hat. He gave Ron a cold hard look, warning him to hold his tongue, said, ‘A friend from the market passed it on to me. It’s a fresh chicken with all the bits intact, beak and feet and all. I know you don’t like frozen stuff, so when the bird came my way I thought you’d be the one to appreciate it.’

  Joan was naturally suspicious. ‘What’s it got?’ she asked.

  ‘I told you: head, beak, feet, the lot.’

  ‘Diseases, I mean.’

  ‘None. I promise.’

  ‘And what do you think I’m going to do with just one chicken? It won’t go far among a couple of hundred students.’

  ‘You could keep it for yourself,’ he suggested, ‘or perhaps put it to one side for Teacher. You know how partial he is to a bit of chicken.’

  It was the thought of treating Teacher, who she was very fond of despite his eccentricities and occasional lapses, which finally persuaded Joan; she accepted the bird as a gift, as a peace offering.

  ‘See? Every cloud has a silver lining,’ said Ceri to Griff, as they went from the canteen to the basement. ‘Our peace made with Joan, and at no cost to ourselves.’

  *

  McCready was waiting with Rose at the rear of the college, by the sculpture department.

  He noticed immediately that the bag which held the chicken was different.

  ‘It’s hessian on the outside and oilcloth inside,’ Ceri explained to him. ‘Hard wearing, waterproof, it’ll help preserve the body, keep away the worms and maggots.’

  ‘That’s a nice thought,’ McCready smiled. ‘Thanks, Ceri. You too, Griff.’

  Griff coughed, to hide his embarrassment; no matter how he might regard McCready he still felt uneasy with the deception.

  ‘No problem, it’s the least we could do,’ said Ceri. ‘Right. Where are we going to inter the bird?’

  ‘I thought over there,’ McCready said, pointing to a spot some fifty yards away where the new ring road was under construction.

  ‘A good idea, it’ll save us having to dig,’ said Ceri, leading the way.

  ‘And there’ll be reinforced concrete when they’ve finished, a tomb as solid as any in the Valley of Kings.’

  Rose nodded approvingly, envisaging the wonder and majesty of it all.

  They walked across the college car park, then a brief tract of wasteland to where the construction work was in progress. Two labourers saw them approach, but paid little attention.

  ‘Do you think you could explain to them?’ McCready said. ‘I don’t think I could.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ said Griff impatiently; he really couldn’t believe he was going along with the charade.

  ‘Please?’

  Ceri dragged Griff over to speak to the workmen, explained that their friend’s chicken has just passed away and would they mind very much if he dropped it into the hole they had excavated.

  ‘You’re having us on,’ said one.

  ‘No we’re not,’ Ceri assured him. ‘He was very fond of it, see.’

  ‘A chicken?’

  ‘Yes, and he can’t just dump it in a dustbin. There’s nowhere else he can bury it, not around here.’

  The two workmen looked uncertainly at each other, then the spokesman said, ‘Let’s have a look in the sack first. It might be a bomb or something. There’s lots of folk against this ring road being built, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know if we can do that,’ said Griff, knowing what the sack contained, but Ceri nodded, went to McCready and returned with the sack.

  ‘But that’s a fucking-’

  ‘Fucking fine specimen,’ said Ceri loudly, drowning out the workman’s voice as they looked into the sack to see a stuffed velvet rabbit where the chicken should have been. ‘You can see that, can’t you?’ he urged.

  ‘It’s a fucking toy,’ the workman muttered to his mate, dipping his hand into the sack. ‘And stuffed with scrap iron, by the feel of i
t.’

  ‘Yes, but he doesn’t need to know that, does he?’ Ceri whispered. ‘Just humour him, eh? It can’t do any harm.’

  The workmen conferred, finally agreed. Ceri knotted the neck of the sack, called McCready over and handed it to him. ‘Go ahead,’ he told him. ‘They’ve said it’s okay.’

  McCready thanked the confused men, walked to the hole they had dug and lay down on the ground with his hand holding the sack over the edge.

  ‘McCready? What the hell are you doing?’ Griff asked, his embarrassment beginning to mount.

  ‘We don’t want it to fall further than it has to, do we? I can’t just chuck it in.’

  ‘But the bloody thing’s dead!’

  ‘Still-’ said McCready, and let the sack fall; it hit the bottom of the hole with a soft thud, he stood and whispered in Griff’s ear.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Griff responded, to the hushed request.

  ‘Please?’ McCready pleaded.

  Blushing, Griff turned to the workmen, coughed to clear his throat. ‘Er, sorry to trouble you again but do you think you could give him a moment alone with his thoughts?’

  He smiled apologetically, turned to Ceri and Rose and shrugged helplessly.

  ‘Fucking nutters,’ one workman grumbled to the other.

  ‘Art students, are they?’

  ‘From that place over the way?’

  But they retired a reverent number of yards and McCready was left at the makeshift graveside with his fellow mourners.

  ‘Do you want to say a few words, Mac?’ Rose suggested.

  Ceri winked at Griff; Griff glowered at Rose, thinking that the whole affair had already gone far enough.

  McCready thought long and hard, then said in a choking voice, ‘Roost in peace, old friend.’