McCready got to his feet and leant across the table to kiss me. ‘I’d better be getting back there, need to put my work up,’ he said. ‘You coming, Griff?’
Griff shook his head. ‘My stuff’s up, there’s nothing for me to do. I’ll be along in time for kick off.’
‘Don’t be late, remember there’s free booze.’
I watched him go from the canteen, said to Griff, ‘He’s bright as a button at the moment, has been ever since his London exhibition.’
‘You didn’t tell him what happened between us, then?’ Griff asks.
‘No I didn’t. Why? Did you want me to?’
‘No, of course not. Though in a way, yes.’
My smile was rather more tender than joyful, it played as much in my eyes as across my lips. ‘I doubt that he’d have minded, you know.’
‘Minded that we’d slept together? Don’t talk nonsense.’
‘It’s not nonsense. He’s fond of you, you’re a special friend of his.’
‘So special that he’d even share his girlfriend with me?’
As if to excuse the perversion of the idea, I said, ‘Anyway, he slept with Rose, didn’t he?’
‘Did he?’ asked Griff.
‘He wanted to, has done for a while. I’ve seen it in his eyes.’
Griff was silent for a while, then asked, ‘Could you love two people, Virginia?’
‘Don’t I already? And many more besides. McCready is a confusion of people.’
‘That’s not quite the same thing.’
‘No, perhaps not,’ I conceded.
Griff went up to the studio with me, while I finish one or two chores, and time and again I caught him looking at me as an artist would, as McCready never did, studying each contour and line of my face.
‘Contemplating another portrait of me?’ I asked with a smile.
‘You know I’m not.’
I blushed, say, ‘Come on, let’s go see my portrait hanging in the city gallery.’
‘I’d rather just stay here and look at you.’
‘That’s sweet,’ I said. ‘McCready can never say things like that.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t love you like I do,’ Griff suggested.
‘Don’t be silly, of course he does,’ I laughed, taking his arm. ‘Come on, let’s go see what the locals think of your work. You never know, you might get a commission.’
‘If I did, I wouldn’t accept it. I could never paint another portrait as good as yours.’
*
It was a few minutes after seven when we entered the art gallery; the invited guests were already there, with glasses of wine served by Teacher’s secretary. We took a glass apiece and joined the crowd which milled about the room, listening to the low murmur of opinions for some hint of approval.
Rose went past us cursing, snatching empty glasses from the tops of her sculptures. ‘Made them the wrong size, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘Fucking philistines think they’re tables or something!’
We laughed and walk over to the space McCready has claimed for his own; Ceri, also cursing, was standing before the single piece of work.
‘Will you look at that!’ he said to us, disgusted by the waste of space.
In the centre of the wall was a small aluminium frame in which the following message was printed, very neatly, probably courtesy of some obliging soul in the typography department:
WHEN A VISITOR (A) OBSERVES ANOTHER
VISITOR (B) OBSERVING THIS PAGE (C) THEN
THE CONDITIONS ARE FULFILLED BY WHICH
MY CONTRIBUTION TO THIS EXHIBITION EXISTS
‘You like it?’ McCready asked, swaggering across.
‘It’s another con trick,’ said Griff, but without any malevolence.
‘And a bit on the small side,’ thought Ceri, still annoyed that so much space should be lost to such an insignificant work.
‘Small is beautiful, Ceri.’
‘Small minded is what I call it,’ said Rose, running past again, her hands full of empty wine glasses.
‘She’s upset,’ Griff told McCready.
‘I can see that.’
We watched her dash across to Teacher, who was having a surprisingly sober chat with the Mayor and his wife.
‘Will you tell the cunts to stop it?’ she demanded, forcing her way into the company.
‘Rose, this is the Mayor-,’ Teacher began, extending his hand to make formal introductions.
‘The fuckers keep putting their drinks on my sculptures!’
‘That’s enough now, Rose. Just keep your voice down and mind the language.’
‘See!’ Rose screamed, snatching a half empty glass from the Mayor’s wife as the woman was about to set it down on the nearest Minimal work; red wine spilled over the woman’s pearl coloured dress as Rose tried to explain. ‘The fuckers keep doing it all the time!’
A shiver shook the shoulder’s of the Mayor’s wife, as though the wine was cold.
‘You stupid cow!’ Teacher hissed, pushing Rose out of the way and turning his sickly smile on the whimpering woman. ‘I’m so sorry about that,’ he mewed, like a cat after affection. ‘It was just too stupid of the girl.’
‘I’m sure it couldn’t be helped,’ said the Mayor’s wife, doing her best to return the smile.
‘Yes, artistic temperament and all that, we should have realised they were her sculptures,’ said the Mayor, regarding his wife anxiously and anticipating the fury to come later. ‘Still, it’s time we were going in any case.’
‘So soon? Must you?’ said Teacher, grovelling in a manner we would never have thought possible.
‘Yes, we really must.’ The Mayor shook Teacher’s hand and followed his wife to the exit. ‘It’s been a very informative evening, thank you so much for inviting us, we look forward to the next occasion.’
‘Our privilege,’ said Teacher, escorting them from the room, all the while looking back over his shoulder to Rose.
‘Poor Teacher,’ I said.
‘Poor Rose,’ said McCready.
‘She’ll feel the lash of his tongue now,’ Griff was sure.
‘Rose!’ Teacher roared, returning to the gallery. ‘Where the fuck are you, Rose?’
Rose was wiping down the top of one of her sculptures with a wad of tissues, scrubbing away the scarlet rings left by the glasses. ‘Yes, Teach?’
‘You tit! You prat! You stupid bitch!’
‘I couldn’t help it,’ said Rose, backing away as Teacher moved menacingly forward. ‘Honest Teach, it wasn’t my fault. People kept putting their drinks down on my sculptures. What could I do?’
‘You shouldn’t have made them so fucking short for a start!’ he said, kicking one of his sculptures out of his way, shattering the plaster across the floor and scarring the polished wood. ‘In fact you shouldn’t have made such stupid fucking things in the first place!’
‘Here!’ cried a voice, one of the gallery’s attendants hurrying into the room. His voice was instantly recognisable, and the threat he made. ‘Just look at what you’ve done to my floor! The Principal is going to hear about this!’
‘Ron?’ said Teacher, turning slowly. ‘Is that you? They let you out already?’
Ron chuckled. ‘Mr Teacher? I didn’t recognise you.’
‘Well you do now, half wit.’
‘Yes, Mr Teacher.’
‘And if you want to leave this place with your teeth intact you’d better get out now,’ Teacher threatened, then swept his arm out to damn everyone, yelled, ‘Go on! All of you! Just piss off!’
In the rush for the door Rose was able to escape unseen, sheltered by Griff and Ceri and myself; we formed a scrum around her and took her to the top of the stairs. It was there that Ceri noticed the case of wine.
‘I don’t think they’ll be expecting any more visitors now,’ he said. ‘Seems a shame to waste all this stuff.’
We emptied the case and divided the bottles between us, left the gallery and cut across the city centre, laughing about the evening
even while we sympathised with Teacher.
‘Imagine letting a nutter like Ron loose in an art gallery,’ said Griff.
‘It’s always the insane who survive, coming up smelling of roses,’ said McCready, doing a cart-wheel along the pavement and sending loose change spilling from his pockets.
*
‘I’m no virgin, you know,’ Griff confided in me. ‘I mean that night we slept together I wasn’t.’
McCready had gone storming ahead, happily drunk; Ceri had fallen far behind, hobbling along on his crutches; the rest of our party was strewn like a slapdash caravan across the park.
It never occurred to me that Griff had been, but instead I told him that McCready was a virgin when I first slept with him, thinking that this information, perhaps offered unkindly, would be ammunition enough to distract Griff’s attentions from me.
‘I’ve slept with other girls before, of course,’ Griff continued, ‘but never with anyone like you.’
‘No, of course not, we’re all of us individuals,’ I said, wondering if I could have been so wanton in my love-making, so abandoned, that I had made such an impression on him.
Like a blind man blundering about an unfamiliar room, barking his shins on unexpected obstacles, Griff stumbled bruisingly from one tack to another, trying to speak whatever it was that was on his mind.
‘I’d never treat you like McCready does,’ he now said. ‘Never.’
‘And how does McCready treat me?’ I was interested to know.
‘With neglect.’
I laughed. ‘Like I’m a pet he got for Christmas and now he’s tired of cleaning my litter tray?’
‘What future have you got with him?’
‘Who cares about the future?’ I said, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘If I’m happy today then that’s all that matters. I’m certainly not looking beyond my college days, and when I do it’ll be to plan for a career, not a family and some lifelong commitment.’
Optimistically, as if this offered some hope for him, Griff asked, ‘So you don’t love McCready that much?’
‘That all depends on your definition of love, Griff. If it means forever and ever amen, then no, maybe I don’t. If it means enjoying his company and wanting to go to bed with him, then there’s no one in the world I love more at the moment.’
Griff sulked, I thought he was going to cry, he looked like a groom who had been jilted on his wedding day.
‘For goodness sake, Griff,’ I sighed.
It was then that he said it, offered the admission that I dreaded to hear. ‘But Virginia, I love you.’
McCready had warned me that Griff did, long ago, had taken great delight in telling me, and perhaps it was to spite McCready that I took Griff’s arm. We walked close together, our bodies touching, as we had done on one previous occasion.
‘Oh Griff,’ I sighed again.
He smiled, a little boy lost who was unable to handle adult emotions.
And was it to spite McCready that I went to bed with Griff a second time? Or was it therapy for Griff? I didn’t know.
Whatever. While McCready and the others partied on the stolen wine upstairs, in the attic flat, Griff and I lay downstairs in his bed. He would have called it making love, but it wasn’t. It’s nothing more than a quick fuck, rushed before Ceri could hobble his way up the high street and catch us at it. It served little purpose. If it was indeed to spite McCready then it was of no consequence unless he learned of what had happened; if it was to be therapy for Griff then it failed, for the euphoria of the act quite quickly gave way to further depression and tantrums on a par with the best of McCready’s.
*
It was the following morning, when those fine artists who were sober enough and brave enough gathered in the painting studio for the customary end of term assessment of their work. Barney, conducting the assessment, had been at the exhibition the previous night and must have had a skinful, for he was in a particularly venomous mood.
‘Right,’ he said to the students assembled in a semi-circle before him, going quickly from one to the other as if it was a game of clock golf. ‘We’ll begin with McCready, who I have now come to see relies too much on lucky inspirations and not enough on reasoned industry, move on to Ceri who’s not done much work but thinks he’s excused on account of the fact that he broke his leg. That’s no excuse, Ceri. Don’t get so pissed in future and you might fare a little better. You are not Jackson Pollock. I know how much you admire then man, but that’s no reason to end up like him.’
‘Famous?’ said Ceri.
‘Dead,’ said Barney, and shook his head sadly. ‘Grow up a bit, Ceri. That’s the best advice I can give you.’ He moved on. ‘Rose, your sensory deprivation centre does nothing for me-’
‘But that’s the whole idea of the thing,’ she protested.
‘-and as for those stupid plaster casts, all they succeeded in doing was upsetting Teacher. You’re lucky you didn’t end up in a plaster cast yourself.’
He moved on, systematically destroying the work of everyone present.
‘What about my work?’ asks Griff, when Barney eventually fell silent. ‘Haven’t you got anything to say about my work?’
Barney looked at the notes he had been consulting, then flung them in the air. ‘Fucking hell, Griff! Need I say more?’
‘That’s it? That’s all you can offer? Well thanks a lot!’ said Griff, standing and ready to leave.
‘Very well then Griff, if you really want me to be honest, all I can say is that your work’s so outdated that it’s positively petrified. It’s sugary, sentimental, so full of schmaltz that it makes me want to puke.’
‘You mean it talks about feelings?’
‘I mean it talks double Dutch. It says nothing to me, Griff, and that’s an end to it as far as I’m concerned.’
‘What you mean is that you can’t understand it,’ Griff accused Barney. ‘There’s no room for feeling in your life, is there? And that’s what we’re talking about here, not sentiment, but feeling, compassion, emotion.’
‘It’s all been done,’ said Barney.
‘And it can’t be done again? Don’t you think that there’ll always be people who feel and love and cry?’
‘No doubt there will, but there’s no room for them in art.’
‘No!’ said Griff, backing towards the door. ‘What you mean is there’s no place for these things in your life! There’s no place for them there because there’s no soul there! You’re a fucking desert, Barney! An emotional desert! All I can say is God help your poor fucking family!’
Chapter Twelve
If Griff was insanely in love with me, his emotions in turmoil, then McCready was for the moment intemperately ignorant of me, his drunkenness escalating as the end of term drew closer.
There were lots of excuses for getting drunk during that last week of term, little reason to do any work. Those friends who were our contemporaries would not be seen for another three months, they would all disperse, some to work and grub for money while others might roam the continent with a backpack; those older friends who were in their final year we might never see again, there were goodbyes to say to them, boozy ones.
‘No, I’m not drunk,’ McCready said, before I could ask him, though he had been drinking, and I could only hope that he hadn’t supped so much as to make him troublesome or moody.
We were going to a small party at Edith Billington’s, before moving on to the art school dance, and I was keen that he should behave himself.
I was at the wardrobe, searching for something to wear.
‘Do you think this is alright?’ I asked, wriggling into a long white dress, its hem of crocheted lace reaching down to my calves. I took a straw bonnet from the top of the wardrobe and held it on my head, my other hand resting on my hip. I had once posed just like this, in just the same outfit, beside my oil lamp, while McCready took a photograph of me, the soft light throwing my face into chiaroscuro shadows. I supposed that the memory had escaped him, tho
ugh; most probably the photograph was lost, forgotten like the oil lamp.
‘Perfect,’ he said.
The dress had a Victorian look about it, the material had the texture of untreated canvas, and the scalloped collar, which should have been fastened to the neck, I had left open at the front. Walking along the street to Edith’s house -her house just far enough away from ours to make it a middle class home rather than a student’s in-between place- the sun was low, had not quite set, and its rays hit my bared neck, making my skin glow like sand on a beach.
McCready surprised me by saying that I looked beautiful. ‘Gold skin, pale hair, white dress. It’s all too much.’
‘You must be drunk!’ I laughed.
Edith’s house is a bit of a mess, she had only just moved in, but once she had greeted us and taken us on a brief tour I was able to see the potential of the place, appreciate the plans she had for it.
‘It’ll look quite nice when it’s finished, won’t it?’ I said to McCready.
‘It will,’ he said. ‘The sort of place we could one day end up with.’
Could we? Was he divining what the future might hold for us? It was not what I expected of him; it was more what he might expect of me. I was the female, after all, the practical one more able to bring dreams to fulfilment. The notion disturbed me for some reason, I gave McCready an encouraging smile -yes, dreams are fine, but not just at the moment please- and wandered off, spoke to some other people about other matters, behaved as one should at such a party.
There was much discussion about culture and Cocteau and Jean Luc Goddard, it was that sort of gathering, genuine interest sometimes spoiled by pretentiousness, and though I was not all that much taken with it myself I was not quite so troubled as McCready was. He sidled unsteadily up to Edith as she was telling someone about the pate she had served to us. Okay, it was a wonder that the woman could be so lyrical about pate, and it was only with an effort that I could keep the interested smile on my face…. but still… McCready….
‘Balls to your pate and get me some meat paste!’ he blurted out, at the top of his voice, and a dozen different conversations came to an abrupt halt.
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