He spat a khaki-brown mouthful of chicken pate into his glass and scowled at the people who stared; this was his way, when he was drunk, to be disgusting and aggressive.
In the stylish manner which a certain class of people have, conversations were picked up again so easily, like tatty little scraps which were found in the gutter. That same class of people were used to pate and had grown up with it, but McCready hadn’t; he still cherished memories of salmon spread and beef paste and the sore thumbs he got from trying to prise the lids off the chunky white jars.
‘The wine’s fucking awful too!’ he grumbled.
‘McCready!’ I hissed, out of embarrassment and annoyance, and Griff crossed over to us, thinking to distract McCready before he realised that it was Riesling he was drinking and not Sweet Australian White.
‘It’s alright, Virginia,’ he said. ‘I’ll get him out of here. You stay and make his apologies.’
Again?
Griff smiles at me, as if I should be grateful for the favour. McCready looked at me, but could think of nothing to say.
‘Go on, I’ll see you later in college,’ I told him, with no hint of emotion.
‘I….’
‘Come on, McCready,’ Griff urged. ‘Let’s you and me leave these sherry sippers and get ourselves a proper drink.’
Griff sounded drunk himself, though everyone but McCready could guess that he was not; he was laying it on, persuading McCready to leave, and he grinned and winked at people as they walked to the door, his arm around his friend’s shoulder to show that everything was under control.
So clever, I thought, so noble, so annoyingly interfering.
*
Barney, who had been standing close by when McCready threw his tantrum, showed neither disgust nor delight with his student’s behaviour; it was an outburst of emotion, an exhibition of feeling, and so was not worthy of analysis. It was left to his wife, who I had never met before but who now introduced herself, to offer her opinions and commiserations.
‘It’s the artistic temperament,’ she advised me, resting her fingertips as delicately as she could on my arm. ‘Barney’s just the same at times.’
Barney scowled, refusing to accept that temperament could ever be related to his art.
The hand which had been on mine now rested on his with the same reassurance. ‘It’s alright, dear, I won’t embarrass you,’ she said. ‘I’m just pointing out to Virginia here that all you artists have your moods.’
‘I realise that,’ I said. ‘I suppose I have my moments too.’
Though for the life of me I couldn’t remember any as extreme as McCready’s.
‘We all do, but we weather through, eh?’ said Barney’s wife.
‘We try to,’ I agreed, smiling, though I resented the camaraderie which was being taken for granted, the ‘all girls together’ intimacy.
‘McCready seems like a nice enough young man.’
‘You don’t know him,’ Barney pointed out.
‘But I’ve heard enough about him from you,’ his wife said, and turned to me. ‘If he’s been able to put up with my husband and his fanciful notions of art for so long then he can’t be all bad. Any mood is understandable when a person has been in contact with my husband for too long.’
Barney groaned, then excused the sound as a sign of hunger and walked off, heading for the kitchen.
‘You see?’ his wife smiled. ‘He’s no better than McCready. No worse, either. They all demand patience of us.’ She checked on the direction her husband had taken, satisfied herself as to his whereabouts, reminded me again. ‘It’s patience that’s required of us. Remember that.’
To keep my man happy I was to understand his moods, and I understood his moods because keeping him happy was my prime concern? Was it duty, then, rather than love? I wondered what it was that Barney’s wife felt, thanked her for her ill-received advice and stood with her in silence, surveying the crowd until her husband returned.
‘Bobby’s here,’ Barney told his wife. ‘Let’s mingle.’
‘Your Yankee colleague? Where?’ she asked, straining her neck to see over the mass of heads. ‘I must meet her.’
‘Why?’
To see if she’s as bad as you make her out to be.’ She asked me, ‘Do you know here, Virginia? Is she like Barney says?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ I answered.
‘She is, believe me,’ Barney insisted.
‘Well I think I’ll make up my own mind,’ his wife said, determined.
‘If you must,’ Barney shrugged, and the three of us waited as Bobby approached.
I was quite impressed, then, by the social graces and polite airs of Barney’s wife; she was friendly without being fawning and this seemed to bring out the best in Bobby, whose manner was equally smooth. So smooth, in fact, that it could be imagined that all Barney’s accounts of her had been no more than fabrications.
‘Bobby, this is Julia my wife. Julia, Bobby,’ said Barney, introducing the two women, and this was all he was permitted to say, for then he was cast aside while they became acquainted. Only occasionally would one or the other bring him into the conversation, letting slip some reference to college or an opinion of some member of staff who was at the gathering. To all intents and purposes he might not have been there.
‘Another drink, Virginia?’ he said to me.
‘Thanks,’ I agreed, and walked through to the kitchen with him.
Edith was there, prim in a floral summer dress, and her wicked smile seemed quite out of character.
‘Too much for you to take, is it?’ she said to him.
‘What?’ he asked, pouring drinks for the two of us.
‘Your wife and your mistress together, comparing notes.’
Barney looked at me and I tactfully turned my head, smiling, it had nothing to do with me. Then he said, ‘Oh piss off Edith.’
‘Men!’ Edith grinned delightedly, turning on her heels and flouncing off.
‘And what does she know about men?’ Barney grumbled, glaring after her. ‘I doubt she’s ever had one.’ He passed me my glass of wine, said, ‘You know, Virginia, I feel like getting really smashed tonight. Not so smashed that I make a fool of myself, like McCready. Just pleasantly pissed.’
I could understand how he felt, stayed in his company because he was not about to offer advice, as his wife had done, nor comment further on McCready’s behaviour, as others might. Despite all rumours to the contrary he was simple uncomplicated company.
Some time later his wife returned.
‘Do you know, Barney, Bobby’s not at all like you said she was. She’s certainly a lot nicer than you made her out to be. It just goes to show how you can misunderstand people.’
‘She’s mellowed of late,’ said Barney.
‘Just the sort of colleague you need,’ his wife continued. ‘In fact, I’d go so far as to say that she’s just the right sort of mistress for you too, if you needed one.’ Barney spluttered over his drink as his wife said to me, ‘And I sometimes think that a mistress is exactly what my husband needs.’
Barney thumped his chest, killing the choking spasms which shook him. ‘You think I need a mistress?’
‘Well if you don’t need one, you’re certainly getting to the age where a man usually takes one.’
Barney laughed, bravely I thought, said, ‘So you want me to have an affair with Bobby?’
‘Well taking a mistress would prove that you’re normal. But no, perhaps not Bobby. A man should never have an affair with a friend of his wife’s. That’s peeing on your own doorstep.’
‘Bobby’s suddenly a friend of yours, is she? But you’ve only just met.’
‘I know that, yes, but I really do believe that we could become good friends. In fact we’ve already agreed to go over to Stratford together next weekend. A fondness of Shakespeare’s just one thing that we’ve found we have in common.’
The Bobby I knew and the Julia I had just met seemed poles apart, and Barney was obviou
sly of the same opinion.
‘You really think you could have anything in common with that woman after all I’ve told you about her?’ he asked.
‘I know you’ve been exaggerating now,’ she said. ‘By the way, are you going on to college later for the party?’
‘I was thinking about it,’ Barney said, a little hesitantly, as if not sure whether his wife would let him.
‘Good. Then I think you might take Bobby with you. And Virginia too, of course. You are going, aren’t you Virginia?’ she asked me.
I returned the nod as Barney asked, ‘Why?’
‘Because the poor girl’s chap has gone on without her. You could do with a lift into town, couldn’t you Virginia?’
‘Really, it’s not necessary,’ I said.
‘Nonsense. Barney’s only going to give you a lift, you don’t have to dance with him,’ his wife laughed.
‘Why Bobby?’ Barney meant.
‘Because-’ his wife said, and that was all, for Bobby then rejoined us, having obviously spent some time in the bathroom doing things to her face.
‘Okay?’ she asked.
‘It’s all settled,’ Barney’s wife told her. ‘I’ll take a taxi home and Barney will drive you into college. And Virginia too.’
‘Please-’ I protested, but was ignored.
‘Well, the babysitter will be wanting to get off,’ Barney’s wife said, consulting her watch, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Bye darling.’
‘Erm…’
‘And I’ll see you next weekend,’ she said to Bobby.
‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it.’
‘And you, Virginia, don’t forget what I said about patience.’
‘I won’t,’ I promised.
Barney looked quite confused as he watched his wife walk away, saying her goodbyes to other people as she went.
Bobby nudged him. ‘Should we move on too?’
‘What?’
‘Should we join the rest at the art school dance?’
‘Oh. Right,’ said Barney. ‘But tell me, Bobby, how did you manage to make such a good impression on my wife?’
‘Charm.’
‘And why?’
Bobby grinned at me as she led the way out to Barney’s car. ‘Why what better way to start an affair than to make friends with the wife first? Eh Virginia?’
*
The second floor of the art school is bright and raucous, like a funfair on the on the quiet edge of the city with lights flashing as though bulbs were popping in time to the music. As the three of us approached the entrance we had to sidestep the chicken bones, dodge the debris of the buffet which was being thrown from the windows.
‘Here Barney, catch this!’ someone shouted from above, and a whole fried chicken burst on the ground at our feet.
‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ he asked Bobby.
‘I’m sure,’ she said, with an ambivalent glint in her eye.
There was a porter at the door, cuddling a glass and a litre bottle of wine, stationed there to keep out undesirables. We walked past him, climbing over bodies in grotesque embraces, made our way upstairs, feet slipping on greasy chicken skins and tripping over outstretched limbs. The crowd swamped us as we got to the second floor, someone presented me with a drink, people were talking and people were shouting, twisting like tortured reptiles in competition with the music. A plastic glass of beer flew through the air, turning with topspin and spilling over the girl who was dancing before Ceri. Her hair was suddenly damp over her shoulders, her blouse wet and shrinking against her body.
‘Take it off!’ he ordered, trembling on his crutches, and she began to unbutton the blouse, peeling it away like a sensual second skin. He licked at her neck, her bared breasts, her stomach, crouching lower until his crutches slipped beneath him and he was on his knees, soaked by the beer which she was wringing from her garment.
Griff came staggering closer, trying to get a better view, and lost his footing in the pool she had made, falling to the floor laughing, slipping every time he tried to get up.
‘You’re pissed,’ Ceri told him, taking his mouth from a sticky nipple as he force fed Griff more beer.
‘Degenerates,’ Edith Billington sniffed, still looking cool in her floral summer dress, and stepped over their bodies to speak with Teacher, who at that moment was in charge of the music. ‘Haven’t you got any Satie or Stravinsky?’ she asked, her voice a high pitched screech.
‘Don’t be daft, Edith,’ he told her, spitting whisky, and she snorted and moved away.
‘You can really let go with Stravinsky,’ she said, and it was plain that even she was not quite as together as usual, weaving as she did between objects which weren’t actually there.
I made my bruising way through the crowd, crossed the room, stopped at the door to the canteen. There, on the tables, I saw row upon row of crisp brown chickens, a banquet rather than a buffet, the food which made an occasion of the evening, an excuse for the drink. And amid them all was McCready, his head resting on a table, cradled in his arms, while Rose sat at his side, looking even more funereal than ever.
‘Look at all the fucking things,’ he was saying. ‘Burnt brown carcasses. You remember my chicken, Rose?’
He looked up and I’ll swear I saw tears in his eyes.
‘We buried it,’ Rose nodded.
‘Under the ring road. Tons of concrete and hard core on top of it.’
‘Never mind,’ she said, her voice soft and soothing, her hand on his shoulder, fingers creeping beneath the curls at his neck
Ceri hobbled past me, into the canteen, picked up a chicken and took a bite out of it.
‘Ceri!’ said Rose, as it it was some sacrilege he was about, as if it was the Holy Eucharist he was taking a piece from.
‘Put that chicken down!’ McCready told him.
‘Fuck off,’ Ceri grinned, white meat at the corners of his smile like a mouthful of feathers.
‘I said put it down!’ McCready repeated, and throws a chicken at Ceri.
Ceri caught the bird full on with a swing of his crutch, peppering the walls and ceiling with fragments of flesh and bone. A second chicken he struck just at his feet, a perfect cover drive, sending the carcass sliding along the floor, back to McCready.
‘Great!’ McCready beamed, switching so quickly from anger to delight, like a child distracted by a new game. He pushed all the tables against one wall while Ceri pulled a rubbish bin into the centre of the floor.
‘Here's the wicket, there's four runs for the windows and six for the far wall,’ said Ceri, laying down the rules of the game, and McCready bowled a chicken at him.
Ceri struck it, but it disintegrated before it could reach either boundary, and as McCready ducked and spun on his heels he finally caught sight of me.
‘Virginia! You be wicket keeper!’
Patience and understanding? Were these what was needed? It seemed to me that the qualities McCready demanded of me were those of a nursery teacher. I turned and left, felt the breeze of a full toss go flying over my head as I opened the door. There was manic laughter behind me, ahead the ‘Rite of Spring’ thumping like an express train, and my only escape was a quick left turn into the toilets, there to find Bobby and Barney banging away on the floor, Barney trying to whisper unqualified sweet nothings into Bobby’s ear while she squirmed away on the cold tiled floor, her skirt up to her waist and her knickers down to her ankles.
‘Hi there again honey!’ Bobby smiled over Barney’s shoulder, and I would have preferred a more feminine embarrassment for once, a more predictable blush.
As it is Bobby just lay there like a Barney's very own wanking machine.
‘Go away, there’s a dear,’ Barney grunted, which is a little better, but even he didn’t bother to break his stroke, just kept pumping away, pushing Bobby closer and closer to the wall.
‘Dirty bastards,’ I muttered, and went into a cubicle. There was an unopened bottle of wine cooling in the toil
et; I removed it, did what I needed to do, then left, taking the bottle with me. Bobby was halfway up the wall by this time, hugging Barney to her.
The music met me like a hammer again, a heavy beat which seemed to make the windows bow, and then there was a screech and boos and applause as the music system fell to the floor. I had to get away from the noise for a while, I needed some peace, and upstairs in one of the studios was the only place I could hope to find it. I climbed the stairs, hearing the din behind me growing fainter until, on the fifth floor, it could barely be heard. In the painting studio I flicked a single switch, which illuminated one corner and gave me enough light to see by, searched around for a palette knife and dug the cork out of the bottle. It was not until I sat down that I realised I was in Griff’s workplace, not until I lifted the bottle to my lips that I saw my image all about me, in pencil and charcoal, in pastels and paint. He had made his cubicle like a shrine, from the single drawing I had posed for he had conjured a lifetime gallery of portraits.
And in each one I saw an inexplicable sadness, a whole blue period of misery. Was this how Griff saw me? Was this how I was? And all because of McCready?
*
Downstairs, it seemed that the music had grown even louder, tracks changing continually, sad songs, logical songs, clashing classical songs of joy which had people jumping when I entered the room, making cymbal sounds with anything which came to hand.
Griff was beating his head with a drinks tray.
‘Some party, eh?’ he said.
I gave a non-committal shrug and sat on a window ledge, feeling a cold breeze through the open window freeze my dress to my flesh. Ceri came over to us, back bowed like a sleuth, eyes flitting back and forth.
‘Have you seen her?’ he asked.
‘Who?’
‘The girl whose tits taste of brown-bitter,’ he said, and then burst out laughing. ‘Ha! That’s what I’ll call em! One brown and one bitter!’
‘I think she wandered off with Walter,’ Griff told him.
The Art School Dance Page 31
