‘Good, now we have a quorum,’ said Rose, on seeing him.
‘A what?’ Griff said, going to the coffee machine.
‘We’re having a meeting,’ she tells him.
‘Balls to that,’ he said, sitting down to drink his coffee, but Rose insisted that it was important, Teacher’s secretary had been told to expect them and he must go along with the deputation.
‘The art school is going to become a part of the polytechnic, see,’ she told him, taking him by the arm and dragging him along with the rest of the group.
‘So?’
‘So we lose our autonomy.’
‘Art-onomy,’ said McCready with a clever grin.
‘Ah. I see.’
The procession passed along the corridor and into Teacher’s office, where they found the Principal a little drunk, a little earlier than usual.
‘You’re soon at it, boss,’ Griff remarked.
‘Asseyez-vous, mes amis,’ Teacher smiled, spreading out his arms in welcome and spilling whisky onto the carpet. ‘You’ve heard we’re going to become part of the polytechnic, I take it? Join me in a celebratory drink, why don’t you?’
Rose sternly told him that the prospect is no cause for celebration, and he laughed; it was no celebration that he said embarking on, he said, but a wake.
‘A wake?’
‘A requiem for the job I’m about to lose.’
‘Oh come on you miserable little piss-pot!’ said Rose, snapping at his self pity. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic!’
‘It’s no melodrama, Rose, but fact. The first thing they do, when we merge, is swap Principal of the school of art for dean of faculty. You don’t think for a minute they’ll keep me on, do you?’ Teacher shook his head. ‘No chance, not with those pin-striped polytechnic pricks overseeing the appointment.’
‘You mean you’re going to have to apply for your own job?’ said McCready.
‘It’s already advertised,’ Teacher told them, tossing a newspaper onto the desk. No one bothered to look at it, not even to check what the salary was. ‘But sod applying for the job. It’s about time I was out of this fucking hole anyway.’
He lapsed into a miserable silence, as though considering his future, or regretting his wasted past.
‘This is going to cause problems for us as well, though,’ said McCready, as selfish as an artist should be. ‘Okay, you’re leaving. But what do we do?’
‘Forget it,’ Teacher advises. ‘Learn to live with it. There’s fuck all you can do. It’s a fait accompli.’
‘There’s nothing at all we can do?’
‘Not a fucking thing.’
He was wrong, though, there was one matter to be considered, one aspect of the future in which they might have a say.
‘The money in the student union fund,’ Rose reminded them. ‘Once the art school combines with the polytechnic then the two student unions will also merge. All our cash will go into a central fund.’
‘Do we have any cash?’ McCready asked her.
Rose nodded. ‘Enough not to want to give it away. Wisest thing to do is spend it before amalgamation takes place.’
‘Wisest thing,’ Teacher nodded.
‘But how? On what?’
Suggestions of paint or film or equipment for the art school were dismissed as too sensible, Teacher’s suggestion of crates of whisky not quite sensible enough.
‘What we could do, though,’ says Rose, ‘is have a bit of a do in college. We could call it an arts ball or something like that, just to make it seem official and organised.’
The general agreement was that this wasn’t a bad idea at all, and would make a nice farewell for Teacher too, if he really insisted that he was going.
Touched by the gesture, Teacher’s eyes became brightly moist. 'Oh! Mes enfants, mes amis!’ he said, smiling drunkenly into each of their faces.
Discreetly they withdrew, leaving him alone with his tears.
*
‘It should be quite a binge,’ said McCready to Griff, as they go upstairs to the studio. ‘A nice end to the term. You’ll be going, I take it?’
‘Sure,’ said Griff. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Well, we’ve not seen much of you over the past week or so. Not even at the house, let alone anywhere else. We thought you were sulking or avoiding us.’
We? McCready and I, the girl he had let fuck him? Griff was ready with his excuses, of being busy, of having work to do, but they weren’t needed, for as the two of them reached the studio they found the doors locked.
McCready tried them. ‘Locked? At this time of the morning?’
‘But they’re never locked,’ said Griff.
‘You won’t get in!’ a voice cried out, Ron’s, from the other side of the doors. ‘You won’t get in cause I’ve nailed em up!’
‘Jesus! What’s wrong with him now?’ Griff wondered, and shouted out to the cleaner to open up, to stop acting like a pillock.
‘Let’s try the other doors,’ McCready suggested.
‘I’ve nailed them shut too!’ Ron told them, before either could move.
McCready gave the doors a kick. ‘Open them, Ron!’
‘No! I’m not letting you in my studio ever again! Building your dens and splashing you paint…’
‘Ron!’
‘…. your filthy naked women all over the place!’
McCready and Griff started pounding on the doors, telling Ron to stop prattling on like a senile old fool and let them in.
‘No!’
They moved away from the door to confer. Teacher would be too drunk to communicate with, they decided, so went upstairs to Barney’s room.
‘You’ve got to come,’ McCready told him. ‘Ron’s locked himself in the studio and we can’t get in.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’
‘Search us. You’d better come.’
They marched back downstairs, curious people following from other studios to see what the fuss was about.
‘See?’ said Griff, kicking the door.
Barney hammered on it with his fist. ‘Ron! This is Barney!’
‘Sod off!’
‘Ron! Open the bloody door this minute!’
‘Never!’
‘We’ll burst it open!’
‘I’ll burn the paintings!’
As if Barney cared about that. He sent someone for help; from Jim, Teacher, anyone they could find. Then, bracing himself, tucking his chin into his shoulder, he asked for support.
‘Right, men! Let’s have some weight against these doors!’
Shoulders were bruised as bodies hurled themselves against the doors, the wood straining and creaking.
‘I swear it!’ Ron screamed. ‘I’ll set fire to the lot!’
‘And again lads!’ Barney urged, and the doors finally burst open, spilling people into the studio.
Ron had built a wigwam of canvasses in the middle of the floor and was desperately trying to strike a match.
‘Grab him!’
They charged, four or five of them tackling Ron at the same time and bowling him along the studio floor.
‘Hold the nut there!’ said Barney.
Griff and McCready sat on Ron to stop him struggling.
‘Let me go!’ the cleaner cried. ‘You’re crazy!’
‘We’re crazy?’
‘Crazy, crazy, crazy art students,’ he jabbered, trying to kick them away, but soon tired and lay back, looking up at the ceiling, panting heavily.
When they finally thought it safe enough to get him to his feet, however, he exploded into action again, squirming free of the hands which held him and sprinting down the studio, straight into the arms of a police constable who Jim had just escorted in.
‘Trouble?’ asked the policeman.
‘Christ, Jim, there was no need to call the law,’ said Barney.
Jim shrugged.
‘The nutter tried to set fire to the place,’ Griff said, frantically retrieving his canvasses from the unlit
pyre in the middle of the floor.
‘They’re all crazy in this place, you know,’ Ron confided in the policeman. ‘Crazy, crazy, crazy art students.’
‘Yes, we know, so let’s get you away from them, eh?’ the policeman smiled, his arm around the cleaner’s shoulder. ‘Who’s in charge here?’
Fingers pointed to Barney, who was asked if he’d mind going along to explain what had happened.
‘Make a statement?’ said Barney.
‘Sort of. If you don’t mind.’
‘Jesus,’ he swore. ‘If I must.’
It was afternoon before Barney got back to college, and as soon as he entered the building there was Edith Billington, demanding to know why he was taken away by the police.
‘Adultery, was it?’ she smirked. ‘Is that why they took you away?’
‘I wasn’t taken away,’ he pointed out. ‘I went willingly, to make a statement.’
‘A confession. Admitting your infidelity?’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Barney sighed. ‘Nothing happened in your precious lounge, Edith. Nothing was soiled, not your furniture, not our reputations. Everything is as clean as ever it was.’
Edith laughed mockingly. ‘You and Bobby were just listening to music, were you?’
‘Yes.’
Her head pecked sharply forward. ‘But there was no music playing when I went into the room.’
‘It had just finished.’
‘Ha!’ Edith snapped her head back. ‘And why was the door locked?’
Barney couldn’t remember.
‘Oh, go screw yourself,’ he said, and she smiled as she turned, as though a victory has been won. Recognising the danger in that smile, he grabbed her by the arm. ‘I’m warning you, Edith, you start spreading any evil gossip and I’ll-‘
Edith shook herself free. ‘Punch me on the nose, like you did Walter? It’s alright, Barney, there’s no need for that. Your sordid secret is safe with me.’
Chapter Eleven
‘You see, Griff, we learn how to live before we learn how to think, we’re burdened with life and then to find a reason why we should continue with it. Now that’s fucking cruel, if you ask me,’ said Teacher, as a middle aged woman in an unseasonably heavy suit frowned at his language. He paid her no attention, continued: ‘In the minds of most people the only purpose in life is to pass it on. The procreation kick, I call it. The propagation of the species. I won’t have it, though. Shit, Griff, the village idiot and his retarded sister are just as capable of procreation as the poet and the artist. More so, probably, since that mindless fucking is usually all they have the brains for.’
The middle aged woman drank down her bitter lemon, blew her nose in a lace trimmed handkerchief and left, clucking at Teacher’s profanities as she passed. There were many other such people in the ‘Golden Cross’, office workers and people in smart suits out to lunch, but Teacher and Griff were too deep in conversation to worry about offending them.
Griff, willing to accept that procreation was not enough, was eager to know if the more experienced man had found anything more worthwhile, more purposeful.
‘Not as yet,’ Teacher admitted.
‘What about art?’
Teacher smiled. ‘Since I’m reputed to be an artist, or was at one time, that should be enough. But no, I’m not too sure anymore.’
‘That’s a fine thing to admit to one of your students,’ said Griff. ‘I’m supposed to have some conviction about what I do. You’re supposed to encourage me.’
‘Sorry, Griff, but we’re all plagued by doubt from time to time, there isn’t one of us who doesn’t suffer from a lack of conviction on occasion.’
‘Does that have to stop us being happy, though?’
‘Ah, now you’re getting sidetracked,’ Teacher smiled. ‘I don’t think happiness goes with creativity. It’s something of a perversion, to my way of thinking, the only thing art can bring is a dull contentment.’
While contentment might not be a thing which concerned a person like McCready, who had said that the choice between happiness, misery and genius was no choice at all, to Griff it was becoming increasingly important. Especially so since his night with me. He was coming to believe that his life could be content with a person like me.
‘How about you?’ asked Teacher. ‘Are you happy doing what you’re doing?’
‘Happy with my art? Yes, I think so.’
‘Be honest now.’
‘Well maybe happy is the wrong word, though I can’t think of a better one at the moment. It’s sometimes like a duty, but even that’s not exactly right. I never had to get involved with art but I wanted to, it was my choice. Now, though, it seems more like an obligation than a vocation, a compulsion perhaps, and sometimes painful. Though there are times when I get satisfaction and want to work, there are other times when I just carry on despite myself.’
‘Right,’ Teacher nodded his understanding, ‘you have to carry on even when you don’t want to. That’s how the true artist is, there’s always something driving him and he might never even find out what that is.’
‘Does that mean my work’s good?’ Griff asked hopefully.
‘I didn’t say that,’ Teacher grinned. ‘It’s honest, though, and that in itself is a novelty these days.’
‘But things are so confusing at times, Teach. It’s just the same with Barney and his philosophies. I don’t want to get screwed up with his ontological arguments and logical positivisms, not the way McCready does, but I just can’t help it. I find myself forced to think about these things. It’s like walking past a road accident and being compelled to look.’
‘Quite.’
They left the ‘Golden Cross’ and walked by the magistrates court, along the ancient cobbled alley where there were no morbidly compelling sights to sully the day. The sky was clear, the sun was high and to their left the interior of the cathedral was a blaze of stained glass colour. They make their way to the municipal art gallery where the students were setting up their end of term exhibition.
On the steps of the gallery they found Rose struggling with a plaster column, a trolley on the pavement holding a half dozen more, each about four feet in height. They gave her a hand to carry them up to the first floor gallery.
‘You’ve certainly gone to a lot of trouble, Rose,’ Teacher congratulated her, as they watch her arrange the columns about the room. ‘This isn’t your final degree show, you know. It’s nothing more than a dress rehearsal.’
‘If a thing’s worth doing at all, then it’s worth doing well,’ said Rose.
‘Very laudable. So what’s going on top of them?
‘On top?’
‘Yes. On top. They are just for displaying the work, aren’t they?’
‘Shit no!’ said Rose, offended. ‘These are the work!’
‘Oh,’ said Teacher, with a worried glance to Griff as Rose stepped back, studied the arrangement of the columns, then muttered something to herself and changed them around. ‘You think things will go okay tonight?’ he asked Griff nervously/
‘I’m sure they will.’
‘I bloody well hope so,’ Teacher prayed, for though he still held little hope of retaining his post as Principal he was nonetheless anxious to create a good impression with the dignitaries who would be attending the opening night, the Mayor and his wife, the bigwigs from the polytechnic and the university.
He looked about the room anxiously.
Ceri, out of hospital now but on crutches, was directing the moving of one of his larger canvasses. As this was about to be rested against the vacant wall at the end of the room McCready came in, hurried over and pinned up a slip of paper on which was printed his name.
‘That’s my spot,’ he told Ceri.
Ceri looked at the blank expanse of wall. ‘All thirty feet of it? Come on, McCready, don’t be greedy, you’ll only fill it up with silly bloody trees and the like.’
‘I don’t want it all, just that bit,’ said McCready, pointing to the area covere
d by the A4 sheet of paper.
‘Just that?’
‘Just that.’
‘Well can’t you move it to one side, then? It’s going to break up my work.’
‘No can do, Ceri,’ said McCready. ‘I need that centre spot for impact.’
Ceri grumbled and swore and persuaded his helpers to hump his work back to the other end of the room.
To Griff McCready said, ‘I’m getting to like that portrait of Virginia, you know. It’s not half bad.’
This the portrait Griff had finally got around to doing, following the night we spent together, and which now hung on the gallery wall, the centrepiece of his exhibition. Griff thanked McCready for the compliment, knowing that the reason the portrait was good was because there was love involved, a passion which McCready would never know.
‘Coming for an early tea?’ McCready asked. ‘Then we can get back for the grand opening?’
‘It’s not going to be all that grand.’
‘Still, it’ll be a lark.’
They went back to the college, got there just as the canteen opened. Joan was a little abrupt with them, as she had been with everyone since Ron’s dismissal, but they paid her no attention.
‘It’s turning out to be a great end of term, don’t you think?’ said McCready as they ate. ‘My exhibition, our exhibition, the art school dance to wind it all up.’
‘Great,’ agreed Griff.
'That doesn’t sound too enthusiastic. There’s nothing wrong, is there?’
No, Griff told him, there was nothing wrong. Nothing he would admit to, that is. Not even a hatred of McCready anymore. It was just a simple wish that McCready wasn’t there, did not exist, had never happened.
*
I joined Griff and McCready at their table, just as they were finishing their meal.
‘So how are things going with the exhibition?’ I asked.
‘Just perfect,’ said McCready. ‘I’ve got the best spot for my work, right in the middle, it’ll hit people as soon as they walk in. And Griff, he’s given pride of place to your portrait.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said, my smile one that Griff might see as complementing the sadness of my portrait. ‘I’ll be along to see it,’ I promised. ‘In a while, though, I’ve one or two things to finish upstairs.’
The Art School Dance Page 29
