The Art School Dance

by Maria Blanca Alonso

  Rose let out a sob which sounded rehearsed, clutched a black lace handkerchief to her face as McCready turned and walked away, back towards college.

  ‘Is he taking the piss out of us?’ Griff asked Ceri, following. 'Please tell me he's just taking the piss out of us.'

  ‘Either that or he’s flipped completely. Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘I think it was quite moving, really quite a touching ceremony,’ said Rose, but is ignored.

  As they passed the two workmen one of them surreptitiously held out a cupped hand, as if expecting a gratuity.

  ‘Piss off,’ McCready told him. ‘It was only a chicken, not a close relative.’

  He’s definitely flipped, thought Griff, as the workman called after them, ‘No it wasn’t! It was a fluffy fucking toy, you fucking freak!’

  ‘Maybe,’ said McCready, ‘but it was a friend to me as well.’

  *

  From my bearing as I crossed the common room towards them, and the way I slumped in my seat, emotionally drained, Griff and Ceri could guess that I had been with McCready.

  ‘How’s he bearing up?’ Ceri asked me.

  ‘Deep in mourning. He’s talking about having a mass said for the bird.’

  ‘Very touching. There aren’t many people who can feel that deeply about a chicken. So what’s he doing now? Going over to the ‘Evening Telegraph’ to see about an obituary?’

  I smiled, could understand how some people lacked my patience with McCready. ‘No. He went off to see Ron, to tell him the news and apologise for the mess the bird used to make.’

  ‘Ron?’

  ‘Oh oh!’

  Ceri and Griff jumped to their feet, exchanging anxious looks.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘I think you’d better come,’ Griff told me, already running towards the lift.

  We could hear Ron’s cries as we get out on the fifth floor, hysterical screams of terror.

  ‘Let go! Get him off me! The boy’s gone crazy!’

  ‘What on earth’s happening?’ I asked.

  ‘Please! Help!’ Ron’s yelling.

  As we entered the studio McCready had the unfortunate cleaner at the narrow window, his head already outside to give him a view of the five floors to the ground which had him panic-stricken.

  ‘It’s been ‘take this down’ and ‘take that down’ and ‘the Principal’s going to hear about this’ all the fucking time!’ McCready was saying, pushing at Ron’s legs so that his trousers were bunched around his knees. ‘Well I’ve had enough! Killing my chicken is the last thing you’ll ever do!’

  ‘But I didn’t!’ Ron cried, as Griff, Ceri and I ran across to the window.

  ‘Liar! You hated her!’

  ‘McCready! For God’s sake!’ I said, tugging at his arm while Ceri and Griff pulled at his waist.

  It was fortunate that the window was too narrow for Ron’s body to fit through. Only his ears were damaged, bruised blue blotches appearing on the bright red membranes where they had chafed against the frame, although there was also a suggestion of shock in the tone of voice and the manner in which his body was twitching.

  ‘Let him be! He’ll go into cardiac arrest!’ said Ceri, managing to break McCready’s grip. He and Griff pulled him to the other side of the studio, where I tried my best to calm him.

  ‘That little bastard killed my chicken,’ McCready snarled, his chest heaving, as Ron gingerly extricated himself from the window. ‘It’s written all over his face and I hope he rots in hell!’

  On all fours, like something feral, Ron scampered across the floor, put a safe distance between himself and McCready before getting to his feet.

  ‘You’re for it this time, McCready!’ he said, shaking his fist, trembling more with fear than rage. ‘Really for it. The-’

  ‘If he says it one more time I’ll throttle the fucker!’ McCready threatened, straining against the arms which held him. ‘I swear it! If he says the Principal’s going to hear about this I’ll kill him!’

  Ron took a little hop backwards, then another, felt behind him for the door which was his escape from the studio, then said, ‘But he will! The Principal’s really going to hear about this! You’ve gone too far this time, McCready!’

  Chapter Six

  Barney had heard that the studio was being turned into a menagerie; he had to get back there, had to make his presence felt and was working late towards this end.

  It was close to midnight, his wife Julia had to protest, she called out from the bedroom, ‘Barney! Do you intend hammering away at that computer all night?’

  The artist was one who employed reason to contain emotion, so Barney would insist, one who tempered expression with the careful exercise of logic; Barney trained young people to be artists, he knew what he was talking about and dared anyone to challenge him. The one problem as far as his wife was concerned was that reason seemed to have gained the upper hand, and once reason was taken to excess it became unreasonable. It was unreasonable of Barney to work at such a late hour, unfortunate that his work, fired by reason, was no longer the quiet whisper of sable against canvas but the annoying rattle of fingers on computer keys. Unfortunate, was it? No! It was bloody inconsiderate! And since the baby had come he would insist on having his study upstairs, in one of the spare rooms, arguing that he needed to be away from her cries during the daytime. What he failed to appreciate, though, was that he then became instrumental in causing their daughter’s cries when he felt the need to work at night.

  ‘Please!’ Julia begged, but if sleep was her concern then she would have been wise to remain silent, for her loud protestations, answered by a louder reply from her husband, were enough to wake the baby; in a room between the bedroom and the study a tiny tummy heaved and Dee joined in the argument, perhaps not as raucous as the two adults but just as insistent.

  Annoyingly so.

  ‘The baby’s crying!’ Barney complained.

  ‘I know she is!’ said Julia, and she knew, too, that she would have to be the one to deal with the infant. The cries were just as distracting as Barney’s two-finger tapping on the keyboard, that halting dance which made her want to scream and tell him, over his shoulder, that it was there, the key he was looking for, just beneath the little finger which he could never quite manage to bring into use.

  With a weary sigh she swung her legs from the bed, the action fluid because she was tired and moved as if through a dream. Her figure was trim despite the recent pregnancy -not that Barney would notice- her complexion fresh, unaffected by subsequent sleepless nights; this she noted as she ran a hand across her face, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and as she caught a glimpse of herself in the wardrobe mirror, gliding from the room with the silk of her nightgown billowing behind. She was still not wholly sure if she was dreaming or not, that the baby’s cries were a part of her nightmare, but as she neared the nursery door there was little that was dreamlike or imaginary about the noise; Barney could argue all he liked about what was real and what was not, but there was no escaping the fact that the baby was awake and would remain in that state until she was comforted.

  She leant into the cot and picked up the sweating straining bundle.

  ‘DidDaddydoitden?’ she says, juggling the baby over her shoulder. ‘Eh? Did Daddy do it to Dee with his noisy typing? Dere, dere, dere.’

  The cries, punctuated by sniffs and sobs, would only die down gradually, so Julia took her daughter through to the study.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded of her husband.

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Do you intend beating the hell out of that keyboard all night? ‘Cause if you do then the baby and me might as well go downstairs. We’ll stand more chance of getting to sleep on the sofa.’

  ‘This is important,’ said Barney, his back still to her so that all she could see of him were his shoulders and the tight wad of black curls which brushed his collar. ‘I have to get this ready for the morning and I’m stuck for somew
here to go after Cartesian doubt.’

  ‘I could think of a place or two,’ said Julia acidly, but there was no response. She peered over his shoulder, read snatches of what he had written. ‘Now why do you have to ‘God damn’ the students’ Catholic upbringing?’ she asked. ‘Anyone would think you’re a Fascist bigot instead of a free-thinking artist.’

  ‘There are too many of the buggers, that’s why. They’re the worst of the lot, absolutely intractable. You can’t have a Catholic art student, Julia, it’s a contradiction in terms. You have to beat the faith out of them before you stand even a ghost of a chance of turning them into artists.’

  Julia waltzed the baby around the room, dizzying her to stop the last of her cries, swept past the tiers of books which lined the walls; the standard art texts were the dustiest, the histories of the Renaissance and the coffee table tomes on Impressionism which had lain untouched for so many years; the well-thumbed volumes were now those which dealt with modern aesthetics and philosophy.

  ‘Why can’t you just let the poor sods paint?’ she asked, as she completed her circuit of the room. ‘That’s what they were expecting to do, after all.’ She thought of how peaceful life had been when Barney had painted, rather than simply thought noisily about the activity. ‘Jesus, Barney, why don’t you pick up a paintbrush again, do what you used to do, instead of screwing everyone up with your abstract considerations and keeping us awake night after night with your bloody typing?’

  His answer came pat, as if by rote, it had been formulated years before and never varied.

  ‘Painting is a redundant activity,’ he replied.

  ‘That’s bloody marvellous, that is, coming from a man who’s paid to teach people to paint.’

  Barney sat back from the keyboard, his hands folded across his lap.

  ‘I am not paid to teach people to paint, Julia. I am paid to teach people to think. Art is a thinking process, not an acting process.’

  ‘Don’t start lecturing me,’ she warned him.

  ‘I'm not.’

  ‘Talking to me as if I was one of your students.’

  ‘I'm trying to explain.’

  ‘Yes, but some other time. Not now. It’s late.’

  ‘I thought you’d be able to understand,’ her husband huffed. ‘I thought you’d be able to help by taking an interest in what I’m doing, but all you’re doing is disturbing my train of thought. You and her.’

  ‘The one you’re referring to as ‘her’ is your daughter, your only child. Her name is Dee, not ‘her’, and since she came along the only thing I’ve come to understand is how much hard work motherhood is. I don’t have the time to be an academic anymore, nor the strength, nor the inclination.’

  ‘Hush, Julia, I’m thinking,’ said Barney, hunched forward again, poised over the desk and ready to attack the keys.

  ‘Well do us both a favour and try to think a little more quietly,’ Julia said, walking towards the door, the baby’s head now resting more heavily against her shoulder.

  ‘I’m coming back, you bastards,’ Barney chuckled to himself, reading through what he had written and imagining how his students would react. ‘This is really going to fuck you up, have your minds in torment.’

  *

  Barney was a wiry man, with tightly knitted black curls and a permanently knotted brow, a little on the short side but always with the air about him that he’s ready to sort someone out. The long-haired slobs in the painting studio were his favourite targets, and he didn’t just mean the girls, either; females were generally to be discounted, in fact, for they either wept or whimpered or ran when he approached, were incapable of taking strong criticism. No, it was the likes of Griff, who wanted to do paintings which were like pop songs -‘immediate and accessible’- and Ceri, who threw paint about the studio and thought it was expressive. These were the ones he was after. He didn’t want just any long-haired pillocks smoking hash and flinging paint about the place, not unless they could justify themselves.

  And what justification was there for the sight that met him in the studio, when he returned from his spell of paternity?

  None that he could think of.

  ‘Tits and bums!’ he cried, staggering about the studio like a shocked maiden aunt, gingerly touching the raw sienna breasts and vivid pink vaginas. ‘Tits and fucking bums! What’re they doing here?’

  ‘It was Walter’s idea,’ someone told him.

  ‘Screw Walter! Get the bloody things down!’ he roared in disgust. ‘And you,’ he said to Pam, ‘get your fucking clothes on!’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Just get dressed and get out!’ he snarled, and stormed from the studio.

  There was just enough time for the paintings to be cleared and then Walter made a rather more ceremonious entrance, bowing and scraping and all but genuflecting as he ushered a bleary-eyed Principal before him.

  ‘Breasts and buttocks,’ he was saying, ‘that’s what it’s all about. Breasts and buttocks. You master those and-’

  Walter stopped short when he noticed that there was a marked absence of these particular appendages about the place. As tall as he was it took only a couple of quick strides for him to reach the centre of the floor.

  ‘They’ve gone!’ he exclaimed, looking about in consternation. ‘Where have all the paintings gone?’

  ‘Barney told us to take them down,’ he was informed.

  ‘To hell with Barney!’ he said, turning and running from the studio, leaving Teacher confused, tired and hungover in the doorway.

  Up a narrow flight of stairs, Walter reached Barney’s room and burst in on him.

  ‘Not so noisy, Walter, I’m working,’ said Barney, his fingers tapping away at another keyboard.

  ‘But the students aren’t!’

  ‘No. They’d be getter off playing with themselves than doing crap like that. It’s purely masturbatory.’

  Walter fumed. ‘But I asked them to do that- that work!’

  ‘Yes, Walter. Who else but you?’ With an exasperated sigh, Barney added, ‘Bloody paintings.’

  ‘Bloody paintings?’ Walter echoed. ‘Bloody paintings? But this is a bloody art school! They’re supposed to do bloody paintings!’

  ‘Bugger off, Walter. Stick with the ladies’ evening class where your talents might be appreciated.’

  This was the final insult for Walter; he strode purposefully across the floor, spuns Barney around in his swivel chair and pulled him to his feet by the lapels. Surprised that he had such strength in him, and that his anger could be roused to such a fierce pitch, he looked in wonderment at Barney’s face suddenly raised to the level of his own. It was in this moment of hesitation -what do I do next, now that I’ve yanked him up here?- that Barney’s hand flicked out and the knuckles rapped him hard on the bridge of the nose.

  ‘You-!’ Walter cried, letting Barney drop back into his seat, and clamped a hand to his nose which was already beginning to pump blood.

  ‘You really are a nuisance, you know that, Walter?’ said Barney. ‘All the noise, all the aggravation. How am I supposed to work with you up here?’

  He gathered together his papers and walked from his study, no longer the private sanctum it was supposed to be. At the bottom on the stairs, outside the studio, Teacher fell into step beside him and they reached the lift together.

  ‘You’ve upset Walter,’ said the Principal.

  ‘More than you know, Teach.’

  The bell pinged and the lift doors opened. They stepped inside.

  ‘Where to? Which floor?’ asked Teacher.

  ‘I’ll try the library, see if it’s quiet enough in there to work. It’s like a madhouse up here sometimes.’

  ‘Don’t I know it?’ Teacher pressed the button for the first floor. ‘Don’t you think we could make an effort to make life more peaceful, Barney? Couldn’t we reach a compromise or two?’

  ‘Are you thinking about me and Walter?’

  ‘Well ideally I’d like everyone to be happy; you and Walter
, Edith and Bobby, Ron, Joan, everyone. But yes, I’d settle for peace between you and Walter to begin with. A little harmony in the studio would be nice, it would be lovely to see the two of you working in tandem.’

  Barney nodded his agreement. ‘It just so happens I’ve been dwelling on that very matter while I’ve been off, the reorganisation of the fine art department. What I plan is that Walter should take over the foundation course, he’ll like all the young girls there, and any vocational courses, and of course the ladies’ evening classes.’

  ‘Will he?’

  ‘He’ll love it,’ Barney assured Teacher. ‘He always gets in there first for the ladies’ evening classes. Now me-’ The doors parted at the first floor and Barney pulled Teacher out after him. ‘-me, all I want is first year fine art. This year, next year, the year after. Just first year fine art. What I want is to get the new intake before anyone else can.’

  ‘But in three years time you’d have the whole fine art course under your wing.’

  ‘So?’ Barney could see no problem there. ‘They’re wasted on Walter, Teach. You saw the crap he had them doing up there.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I didn’t, Barney. By the time I got to the studio you’d got rid of all their work.’

  ‘Then you were spared. You should thank me.’

  ‘Thanks, Barney,’ said Teacher uncertainly.

  *

  The morning after Barney’s attack on Walter there were photocopies -bloodstains and all- of a typewritten sheet tacked to the notice boards, and a whole festival of balloons and streamers filling the painting studio.

  ‘Looks like Christmas has come early,’ McCready remarked, bursting one of the balloons with the tip of his cigarette. ‘What’s this all about, Griff?’

  ‘Here, read it,’ Griff told him, taking down one of the typed sheets and handing it to him.

  McCready read:

  ‘‘The project. Draw, with as much precision as your limited talents will permit, one balloon and the accompanying section of streamer, using nothing other than an HB pencil. You are to devise instrumentation which will measure the deflation of the balloon over the following fourteen days. Should a balloon burst or fall down you will not replace it but will indicate the event in your drawing. You will not, however, precipitate such an occurrence in order to ease your boredom. You will consider the fact that the balloon is transparent, but only in so far that it will furnish you with information concerning the inner and outer surfaces of the balloon; you will not consider any object other than the balloon. Consider line and tone, but not colour. For the purpose of this project you will forget inventiveness, originality, creativity and anything remotely resembling a tit or bum; there are no sexual connotations to be found in the shape of a balloon. You may consider mindlessness, miniscule and microscopic variation, rechauffe…’ What the fuck is rechauffe?’ McCready asks Griff.