The Art School Dance

by Maria Blanca Alonso

  McCready laughed. ‘And what do you know about art, Griff? You surely don’t class those sickly romantic nudes of yours as art, do you?’

  ‘Ha! At least I know which end of a brush to stick in the paint!’

  ‘So you need a brush and paint to produce a work of art, do you?’

  No, of course not, Griff had not intended to suggest this, but he was too annoyed for reasoned argument. ‘You know, McCready, your ideas nauseate me at times. They really turn my stomach.’

  ‘Which is just how your paintings affect the rest of us,’ McCready countered, looking at the latest nude study of Pam, all pastel pinks and greys, almost monochromatic.

  Incensed, Griff took a step forward, menacing. McCready did likewise, following a threatening choreography, and things might have turned nasty if Barney hadn’t entered the studio in time to understand what the argument was about.

  He inserted himself between them, quite delighted that his students should feel so strongly about their work, said, ‘Now, now lads. Constructive criticism, remember. It must always be constructive criticism in preference to brawling.’

  This from the man who had given a colleague a bloody nose and a black eye.

  ‘Well!’ Griff complained. ‘You just wait until you hear his latest idea!’

  ‘I did hear, as a matter of fact, and I think it’s quite interesting-’

  ‘Jee-sus! I might have known!’

  ‘-interesting if only because it poses the question as to what is a work of art.’

  Tempers subsided at Barney’s insistence, Griff and McCready were encouraged to sit down, which they did cautiously, as if their anger was escaping slowly from over-inflated bodies.

  Barney pulled one of Griff’s paintings from a stack by the wall. ‘Now take this painting-’

  ‘As far away as possible,’ McCready quipped.

  ‘Now, McCready!’ Barney cautioned.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Barney placed the canvas like a barrier between the two students, just in case tempers should flare again. ‘The painting. Look at it,’ he insisted. ‘Now if I say that it’s so many feet by so many feet, am I making a statement about an art object?’

  There was silence.

  ‘Come on!’ he pressed. ‘Well?’

  Griff said, ‘I’d like to think so.’

  McCready shrugged. ‘Can we make statements about anything in this world, art or otherwise?’ he asked, in accordance with his doctrine of eternal uncertainty; it was usually effective in evading an argument.

  ‘Can it?’ Barney asked.

  ‘Well,’ said McCready, and struggled to quote from past lectures, from books read and articles only vaguely remembered. Facts could only be stated about objects which were perceived, he recalled, and the only facts which could be stated were those which can be perceived. There was not much that his dim recollections could offer, but it was enough for Barney, who accepted what little was said and asked what conclusions could be drawn.

  ‘I suppose,’ McCready ventured, ‘that if we can make statements about ordinary objects then we can also make statements about art objects. After all, they’re nothing more than wood and paint and canvas and whatever.’

  ‘But is the object on which we slap the title ‘art’ the same as the work of art?’ Barney paused a moment, to let the two of them consider the question, then continued: ‘There’s a body of opinion which suggests that a work of art only has existence during those moments when it is recognised as such. An object is identified as art because of a process it undergoes, so that a urinal is a urinal until Duchamp signs it, bricks are bricks until they’re put on show at the Tate. Then these ordinary objects become art objects. Years previous to these processes occurring the bricks and the urinal were everyday objects, not considered art.’

  ‘But what happens when these objects become art?’ McCready asked. ‘Do they cease to function on an ordinary level? After all, you can still piss into Duchamp’s urinal.’

  ‘Best thing to do with it,’ Griff grumbled.

  ‘And what about the opposite case?’ McCready went on. ‘If you turn a Rembrandt into an ironing board, reversing the process, does that deny you the right to still consider it as a work of art?’

  Barney smiled.

  ‘Well?’ McCready pressed, and of course he received no reply, of course he returned home that night in a mood.

  Chapter Eight

  It was a fortnight later that people were invited to share in what McCready termed his first success, a couple of dozen students who went down to London in the college van, a couple of carloads of staff who followed after. It was a Friday, some of the tutors had homes or families or friends in London, so for them the trip served a two-fold purpose.

  The exhibition proved to be something of a disappointment to everyone but McCready, though there were people there of obvious culture there were none who were instantly recognisable, no celebrities, and the paintings which dotted McCready’s exhibited walls were almost as blank and featureless as the walls themselves. There were no Hockneys or Hamiltons on show.

  ‘So this is what sells in London?’ said Griff in disgust.

  ‘I suppose the work poses certain questions,’ said Barney, but even he spoke without conviction for once.

  It was a strange introduction to the commercial world of fine art for many of us. As many people were standing between the paintings, staring at the blank expanses of wall, as there were looking at the equally blank expanses of canvas which were enclosed by frames.

  ‘Precocious’, ‘enigmatic’ and ‘searching’ were among the opinions we heard voiced in hushed and reverential tones.

  One by one, first Teacher and then others, people drifted away from the gallery to regroup in the nearest pub. It was as if by prior arrangement that we found ourselves there, as if the similar sickness of disillusionment with the capital affected us all at the same time; with the exception of those tutors such as Bobby, who had already made their homes there, it was generally agreed that London was not a nice place to live. For many of us students it would be necessary to move there after college, however, we knew this, both graphic designers and fine artists alike; London was the only place where artists, if they were ambitious, could hope to succeed. As McCready said, it was all very well believing that the work we did could be done anywhere, but there was only one place to market it and that was the capital. The statement was the cause of much dissent and discussion, there were purists like Griff who thought that art was much too precious to be ‘marketed’, like any other commodity, but the realistic point of view as proposed by McCready was perhaps the one that we all secretly knew to be true. To be able to afford to paint, once we left college, we would have to be able to sell the work we did.

  Bobby was the one the champion the capital, the most effusive in praising it. Perhaps this was on account of her being American, she saw it in a different light; for her it was not so much a city, like New York or Chicago, as a collection of villages, each a self-contained community.

  ‘I don’t think of myself as a Londoner,’ she said.

  ‘Because you’re not,’ Barney told her.

  ‘I’ve lived here as long as I’ve lived anywhere else, though. I’d have the right to call myself one if I chose to. I don’t, though. I see myself as cosmopolitan. That’s how the district is where I live.’

  Keen that everyone should see the place as she did, she issued an open invitation for everyone to join her at a party that night; it was being given by friends of hers, they wouldn’t mind a few unexpected guests and she could put people up for the night, she had couches aplenty and a spare bed or two.

  ‘How about it?’ she said. ‘See for yourselves that this place isn’t half as bad as you think. Not everyone in London is like those pretentious pricks in the gallery.’

  McCready wanted to take her up on the offer, stay overnight.

  ‘I can’t,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got too much work to do this weekend.’

  And Grif
f couldn’t stay either, he had to return the van to college first thing in the morning, so our party was split in two.

  ‘You stay if you like,’ I told McCready.

  ‘You wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not. Just as long as you behave yourself.’

  Rose was at his side, in her best black party outfit, and I thought of how McCready had described her on the night of Ceri’s party -an angel of death, was it?- saw her hover at his shoulder like a lamp-black succubus.

  ‘I’ll look after him, honey,’ Bobby promised. ‘You can trust me. He’ll be back to you intact tomorrow.’

  I wondered which of the two females he would be safest with.

  *

  The party-goers left with Bobby, those tutors who had come by car also got on their way, and of the dozen of us who’d travelled in the college van less than half were left. Outside the pub at closing time we decided that we were hungry. The only place we could find open was a late-night delicatessen, where we bought the makings of sandwiches -cheese, salami, pate- which were made up in the back of the van while Griff drove us out of the city.

  He was a little drunk, not out of control but a little too exhilarated to drive slowly; on the dual carriageway which led to the motorway no other vehicle passed us. Once on the motorway, his foot down on the accelerator and no need to change gear, he settled back in his seat and shared in the sandwiches. Beside him in the passenger seat I leant forward, my nose against the windscreen, gazing at the luminous ribbon of white which shot ahead like a stream of tracers, out of range of the headlights.

  I was looking ahead so that I could forget leaving McCready behind.

  ‘It’s an experience, isn’t it, driving at night?’ I said.

  ‘The best time,’ Griff agreed.

  ‘That’s the thing I’d enjoy most if I had a car, going off on my own at night, driving along dark deserted country roads and forgetting about everything else.’

  ‘Forgetting that the world’s a bit grubby in places, you mean?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Griff pushes cigarettes along the dashboard, asked me to light one for him and pass them around.

  Some miles on a road sign loomed out of the darkness, caught in the headlights, giving warning of a service area ahead, and Griff suggested we stop for coffee. He glanced over his shoulder, saw that most people in the back of the van were dozing, no one was in a hurry to get home, so pulled into the service area and switched off the engine. It took some time for the engine to die, as if it too was exhilarated by the night-time travelling.

  He went to the cafeteria while I went to the toilets, bought two coffees and was sitting by a window when I joined him, watching the intermittent traffic pass by. There were no more than a dozen people in a place which could seat a hundred and he looked around at them, his gaze switching from table to table.

  ‘Whenever I’m in a place like this I always start to think about everyone,’ he told me. ‘I want to know who they are, why they’re here, where they might be going and what they might be feeling.’

  And what might McCready be feeling at that moment, I wondered. What might he be thinking? Might he be thinking of me?

  ‘There always seems to be something sad about places like this, if you visit them at this time of night. It seems the people you see are the ones who’re always travelling, unsettled, a bit like the Wandering Jew.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘The Wandering Jew. It’s said he laughed at Christ when he was carrying the cross up to Calvary, more or less told him to get a move on, like a modern day heckler. Because of that he was to condemned to wander the earth until Christ returned.’

  ‘You seem fond of sad people and sorry tales,’ I smiled.

  ‘Perhaps I am.’

  Could this be why he was so fond of me?

  When we returned to the van the others were still sleeping, they stirred only slightly when Griff juggled the key in the ignition and pumped the engine back to life.

  ‘It’s about time they had this thing serviced,’ he remarked, as we coughed and juddered back onto the motorway.

  Yes, a service did seem in order, for the van became increasingly sluggish; it choked and hiccoughed from time to time, then seemed to lose heart totally when we were still four or five miles from home. It died slowly and with dignity, coming to a gentle halt by the roadside. Griff was no mechanic, had no idea what was wrong, so there was nothing for us to do but walk. He roused the others, locked the van, and we all began the trudge home. Soon Griff and I were at the rear of the group, walking less briskly and falling further behind.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ I asked him, for he was wearing only a thin denim jacket over his tee shirt, and above us the stars dotting the sky seemed to twinkle with amusement, as if they held some portent of what was to happen.

  Griff said no, he was fine, but he gave a shiver of the involuntary kind, as prompted by inspired music or a poetic phrase. A second shiver came soon after, travelling his body and shaking itself out at the shoulders like those rhythmic ripples with which a mongrel might throw off a damp chill after an icy swim. I took him by the arm and snuggled close, wondering if McCready might be doing something similar. It should have been an innocent gesture, but it made me glow; and Griff too, I supposed, to feel our bodies so close together. In this manner we walked along, following the unlit road through shadowy trees, towards the unseen city.

  ‘Your hand’s like ice,’ I told him, and tugged it into the pocket of my coat, squeezing his fingers and making them nervous, like frightened little children which had once picked noses and squeezed spots.

  Suddenly headlights blazed behind from deep in the night, made fun of our shadows and sent them flickering like funfair reflections at our feet. Griff stuck out a thumb and the car came to a halt beside us, its tyres kissing the kerb. I was hoping for a car with only one occupant, so Griff and I could break free of each other and sit one in the front, one in the back; though it was me who had first drawn Griff to my side I was beginning to find the contact of our bodies unsettling. As the courtesy light came on in the car, though, I saw the driver stretch across, in front of the silent person in the passenger seat, to ask where we were going.

  Griff told the driver, who said he was heading our way, and we got into the back seat. Though the car was not small I sat close beside Griff, felt the warmth of his body again, and of my own, an animal warmth which misted the windows like a teenage passion. Smelling the leather upholstery and hearing the hiss of the tyres on the road I felt a comfortable security within the vehicle; again there was the hypnotic streamer of white markings stabbing away into the darkness, there were no street lights on that ghostly approach to the city, no houses or landmarks save the trees which were all the same in night’s anonymity. In addition, though, I felt a strange sense of foreboding and vague suggestions of nightmare in the gloom. I drew closer still to Griff, worried that even then McCready could be drawing closer still to Rose. And would she be as warm to him as Griff was to me?

  When the hush was broken by Griff’s voice it did nothing to lift the gloom which hung like threatening weather. He told the driver he could drop us there, just ahead, at the junction. We stepped out by the park, a twenty minute walk from home, and waved our thanks at the bloodshot tail lights as they receded, leaving us once again at the mercy of the night and its shivering insinuations.

  Feet weary with the dust of town and country were once more cajoled into action, stepping left then right in a mindless military manner. It seemed to me that I had been so long without sleep, with so many plodding steps behind, that I had forgotten how to feel tired; I might have yawned if only someone could have demonstrated how it was done, thought that stretching the jaws to their limit was the way but could not be sure. Under cover of such distractions crept the first sinful thought, a sly suggestion which came up from the rear to tickle the genitals and assault the self control. I had Griff’s hand in mine and was holding him close to me. A rosary of
prayers went through my mind, but prayer could not quieten the passions, no number of masses or Novenas would be able to quell the temptations I felt.

  I moved my hand in Griff’s in what could only be read as affection, soft and caressing, and the touch was like sandpaper against my skin scouring away my conscience layer by feathery layer. Nothing was said and it seemed that the sound of our rasping fingers echoed about the street, announcing our unspoken intentions. We paused once, to light cigarettes which became fierce red fireflies dancing before our faces, not bright enough to illuminate my thoughts but vivid enough to make my cheeks burn with shame.

  But why shame? Would McCready feel any? Did he ever?

  We walked on to the house, in the brown brick shell of which were our separate rooms, and I unlocked the door.

  And then, at the door to Griff’s flat, I left him, bade him goodnight and carried on up the stairs.

  I set the kettle to boil, watched it for what seemed many minutes, and the gas barely agitated the water, as if the watched kettle was peeved by my attention to it. I went through to the bedroom, took off my clothes and put on my dressing gown, returned to the kitchen where the blue flame of the gas seemed to cringe and wither before me. Money for the meter, I tricked myself into believing that the gas pressure was weak and I needed money for the meter, and as I went back downstairs I imagined that my dressing gown was rustling like a tree in a storm. There was no one to hear, but I felt like an intruder. At the door of Griff’s room I stopped, knocked, waited.

  Griff was also in a dressing gown, much like mine, short and loosely tied at the waist, and he had no questions to put when I asked if I might come in but invited me forward with a gesture of the hand. We sat side by side on the couch, I notice that the room was tidier than usual with Ceri in hospital still, I wondered for a moment where McCready might be.

  ‘Yes?’ Griff then said, but still expected no answer, for we both seemed to realise that there were no appropriate words. He stretched out his arm, along the back of the couch and around my shoulders, as if he was Vitruvian man and I am his woman.