Chapter Nine
'This bloke sounds like some kind of male nymphomaniac to me,' said Peter. 'What would you call him? A satyr?'
'Yes, insatiable,' Virginia agreed. 'Great, isn’t it?'
'He’ll sap your strength.'
'He can have my soul if he wants it. I’m not kidding, Peter, he’s absolutely bloody gorgeous. A perfect body. A face like you’ve never dreamed of.'
'And what about this wife of his?'
'He’s unhappy with her,' said Virginia, offering her only excuse.
'Like she’ll be unhappy with you, when she finds out what’s going on.'
Virginia shrugged; she knew that Peter disapproved, but imagined that it was out of envy that anyone could be so happy.
Who could not envy her? She had a beautiful man to love, in comfortable surroundings, a man who had money enough that she no longer needed to worry unduly about her own finances; Josh was well able to cover the expenses of any evenings out. These were not all that frequent, though. His wife’s career, whatever it was, kept her quite occupied, the house was free and Virginia was content to spend their time together there. The occasions when they went out were those times when his wife was at home; then they would go for a meal or to the cinema, or just for a drink, secure in the knowledge that they would not be caught for the only place Josh’s unadventurous wife went was the social club at her place of work.
'You’ll be found out,' Peter was sure.
Virginia was equally sure that they would not, and she grinned broadly. Old Gus, the ex-seaman, commented on her good mood. He would be sure to disapprove of her affair so she said nothing of the reason for her improved humour.
'I’m broke, there’s no work to be had and the bank manager hates me,' she said. 'Things can’t get much worse so why should I worry?'
Gus chuckled, admiring her spirit. 'Have a drink on me, then,' he invited.
'No, you’ve got me wrong, Gus,' Virginia said, grabbing the old man’s hand before any money could be placed on the bar. 'I wasn’t looking for pity or charity.'
'Now you’re sounding like that miserable old Filipino who lives round the corner,' he said, breaking free and paying for two drinks. He handed one to Virginia, his hand trembling and spilling beer. 'I’ve been broke too, love,' he continued, and his face became suddenly grave. 'So broke, in fact, that I’ve done things I was ashamed of. I remember New Orleans. I was so desperate...'
What he did when funds were getting low was to check the obituary column each day, looking for the better addresses, and then buy pencils in bulk and have them stamped with the name of the recently deceased. His good manners and soft words, when he called at the house of mourning with the goods the dead man was purported to have ordered, would be charming enough to persuade the widow of only days to buy the items in remembrance of her dearly departed husband’s last act.
'I’m so ashamed,' said Gus, shaking his head. 'The poor women would say they couldn’t understand why their husbands would want a gross of the things, but still they’d buy them.'
Virginia consoled the old man. 'They could afford it. You shouldn’t worry.'
'But you should worry,' Gus insisted. 'Never, ever, take advantage of someone’s misfortune like that. It’s a nasty thing to do, love, and don’t you forget it.'
Nasty things to do included hair-dryers stolen and then sold, cheques bounced and wives cheated, Jenny Wilson tripped up in the school playground eighteen years ago; Virginia recalled all her sins but just as quickly forgot them.
Perhaps it was the momentary guilt on her face which prompted Gus to say, 'But you’re alright, love. You’re a good girl.'
Virginia let the opinion stand uncorrected. Rather than upset people by being honest with them, by showing her true self, she always preferred to resort to silence, deceit or unashamed lies. In this, at least, in trying not to upset people, she was good. This was the fair way.
'It’s a kindness,' she told Peter, when Gus had gone. 'It would only upset him if I told him what I was really like. Any sin is justified if it keeps people happy.'
In Peter’s opinion this was a pitiful philosophy and he would entertain none of Virginia’s arguments. 'Come on, admit it, it’s wrong,' he said. 'Be reasonable.'
'But any reasonable person has to be unreasonable, Peter, since reasoned thought leads to nowhere except God. How can you reason for or against anything if reasoned thought gives you so many alternatives that all you can fall back on is blind faith?'
'I’ve heard all your arguments before, Virginia, ontologies and Cartesian doubts.'
Yes, Peter had, and very often he had an answer for them. Rather than risk an argument which she might lose Virginia said that she would have to go.
*
It was early evening and Josh would be at home with his wife, pretending to be happy with her, and Virginia found herself with another night to waste. She tried to convince herself that she was content. This process -convincing herself that she was content- necessitated a further drink, of course, for contentment according to Virginia meant being free and having a degree of independence. And what was it that those people were denied who had neither freedom or independence? Why, the opportunity to drink whenever the urge came, without consultation or the permission of another. If only Virginia had been able to accept it, of course, what she mistook for freedom and independence was nothing other than loneliness; this, which she had at first encouraged, was now slowly becoming something to be accepted, to be carried like a cross or a monstrous placard which announced her remoteness and warned people away as if from some contagious disease.
Still. What the hell. She toured the town, not realising that she was frequenting bars where other lonely people stood in their singular ranks, restating dreams in the hope that they might become more real, speaking of past conquests and times enjoyed and refusing to admit to regrets for they were heroic folk who were masters of their own fates.
Virginia’s mood slumped without her knowing why; she could think of no reason why it should soar and dive like a demented roller-coaster. She blamed the weather, she blamed the drink, she blamed the people she overheard in the dismal places she visited, and by the time she reached the ‘Corkscrew’ she was in a vicious temper.
'Give us a can of Red Stripe, Coral,' she said, a demand rather than a request.
'Give me fifty quid first.'
Malfunction! The one place Virginia had told herself she must avoid was the ‘Corkscrew’, she had written a reminder on her bedroom window in chinagraph pencil that very morning, but drink had distracted her and she was left to pay the price.
'Fifty quid,' Coral repeated.
'Make it ten for the time being.'
'Fifty.'
'Twenty, then.'
It was the doctrine of eternal recurrence once again; everything was happening in the same tragic way that it had happened before. Virginia tried to reason with Coral; some more work had come along, necessitating an initial outlay but promising to pay dividends. Would Coral settle for twenty five pounds?
'It’s only until the end of the week, Coral. I promise.'
'This is the end of the week, Virginia.'
'Next week.'
Coral eventually softened and held out her hand for the twenty five pounds. 'The rest by next Saturday, though,' she cautioned. 'Otherwise I’ll have the men with the cricket bats out after you.'
Virginia smiled. Though Coral was big and burly she would never be so nasty, and with half the debt paid her mood was already mellowing. Her cheeks billowed around her half-contained smile.
'There are these two blokes coming down tonight,' she told Virginia.
'If their names are Tone and Trev you can forget it.'
'That bastard?' He was so easily dismissed. 'No, it’s not him and his puny mate. These are real lookers.'
'You can still forget it. After the last time I’ll find my own men, thank you very much. In fact I already have.'
'Really?' Coral showed interest; as she
leant against the bar a few of the weaker timbers creaked. 'Who?'
'Oh, you know him,' Virginia grinned smugly.
'It’s not Goomer. He’s turning the other way again, back to his own kind. I know that.'
'No, it’s not Goomer. It’s someone much closer to the ‘Corkscrew’, in fact.'
Still the clue did not help, so Virginia told her.
'Josh?' said Coral, and creased up with laughter, her large frame doubling up behind the bar.
'What’s the matter?' Virginia wanted to know. 'You’ve got to admit that Josh is a hunk, especially compared with some of the weeds you’ve introduced me to.'
'Oh yes, Josh is a hunk alright,' Coral agreed. Then, cryptically, she said, 'I just wonder if you’ll be able to cope, that’s all.'
Virginia was confused. 'Cope? With Josh?'
Coral crumpled, her laughter bringing her down to crack her chin on the bar.
Loopy, thought Virginia, and retreated to her favourite corner, the one where she had got smashed and sold her drawings for a drink at a time. She smiled at this memory and found herself slipping back, from one recollection to another, not quite as far back as childhood.
'Good evening, boys,' she heard Coral say, when the clock behind the bar had made innumerable tipsy spins, and she assumed that the two men mentioned earlier had arrived. She would not make up a foursome, she was determined of that, but curiosity made her get up out of her seat and take a step or two towards the bar. The two men Coral had greeted were Goomer and Dean.
'You’re surely not taking these two out?' she said.
'If only.' Coral gave Goomer a welcoming smile. 'But no, I’m not.'
Virginia made a quick assessment of the choices she faced. Knowing Coral, it was inevitable that the two expected would be pretty low in the stakes as regards looks and personality, less attractive than Goomer and Dean. This was no condemnation, of course, for Goomer was always quite the handsome one, and Dean, well, at least his eyebrows had started to grow back. It would always prove to be a risk, though, agreeing to join one of Coral’s foursomes, and Virginia thought she would be safer with the devils she knew.
'Let me buy the two of you a drink,' she said, quickly coming to the decision that the company of Goomer and his boyfriend would be preferable to that of any who might come later.
'Short of a drinking partner, are you?' Goomer unkindly asked.
'My boyfriend is out with his wife tonight,' she boasted, ignoring the fresh burst of laughter which this brought from Coral.
'And my boyfriend is by my side. As long as you bear that in mind.'
Goomer’s hand clasped Dean’s, raising it to his lips to kiss it. Whether the gesture was intended to frighten her away or merely serve as a caution, Virginia could not say. Whatever the reason behind it, she paid for the drinks, buying her way into their company.
They sat down at Coral’s request, to save her more conservative customers the embarrassment of seeing two males so intimate.
'Don’t you have any insults for me tonight, Virginia?' Dean asked.
He had noticed the others?
His smile, less stupid than any of his previous expressions, suggested that he must have. Something about him had altered, he seemed to be more aware, and he talked not of his weight -still quite plainly just a fraction over ten stones- and his diet but of going to college, of expanding his mind rather than reducing his weight. He seemed to age as he spoke of basic qualifications needed before he could begin to study seriously, psychology he hoped, not sociology which he had considered at one time, for he did not want to help people, merely to understand them. Understanding was what was lacking in the world, he believed; if people had understanding then they would not need help, they would be more together and in control.
Virginia was stunned and Goomer was smiling.
'What have you done to the boy?' she asked Goomer, but he did not answer.
It was Dean who again spoke up. 'We all have potential, if only we knew it. That’s why I want to know what makes people tick, move, do what they do. They have potential but they aren’t aware of it, and I want to know why.' He paused, then remembered Virginia’s question to Goomer. 'What has he done to me?' He smiled and Kissed Goomer on the cheek. 'Understood me, that’s all. That’s all that is needed.'
'What I need is another drink,' said Virginia, dazed and thirsty.
'Let me get it,' said Dean, sliding out from behind the table and going to the bar.
'And what about you, Goomer,' said Virginia. 'You’re very quiet tonight. What have you got to say for yourself?'
He shrugged. 'We tend to take it in turns, Dean and I, him doing all the talking one day and me the next. No interruptions that way. Today I’m resting.'
'But what have you done to him. He’s so... different.'
'It was just understanding, as he says. I recognised something in him that you overlooked, that night in the ‘Phil’.'
'What?'
'You’ll recognise it when you meet it, Virginia. If you ever do meet it.'
He edged along the seat to make room for Dean and the affection he demonstrated in such simple things as taking a glass from him, or offering him a cigarette, was noticeably more sincere than all the teasing caresses Virginia had ever received. She studied Dean intently, but whatever it was he possessed, this special ‘something’ which she had overlooked, still evaded her. All she could note was that he was becoming more physically attractive, more charmingly natural. That, surely, had been one thing that Goomer had done for him, given him a basic instruction in how to be beautiful. Old songs of lost opportunities came back to Virginia, she remembered old friends who had grown more beautiful without her and wondered if what Goomer recognised in Dean was what she had always missed in those boyfriends she had cast aside, this potential.
'Are you listening, Virginia?'
Dean had been speaking to her.
'Sorry,' she said. 'What was that?'
'I said that Goomer thinks you’re only motivated by drink and lust.'
'A gulping gullet and a grubby groin were the precise words I used,' said Goomer.
'You’re misjudging me, as always.'
'But they’re important to you?' asked Dean. 'Your groin and your gullet?'
'Not all-important. There’s something which takes precedence, I’m sure, but I can’t chase after that, whatever it is, if the other two are frustrated. I need peace of mind first before I can think about any deeper purpose.”
'But then don’t you become preoccupied with these baser things to the exclusion of the finer ones.'
'No.'
'Come off it, Virginia,' said Goomer. 'All your adult life has been spent getting pissed, playing with yourself or trying to play with someone else. Don’t try to kid me that there’s ever been anything more noble on your mind.'
'Shut up,' she told him. 'I thought you were giving your mouth a rest today.'
'Now she’s reacting the way any guilty soul would,' Goomer smiled at Dean.
'Precisely the impression I get,' Dean agreed.
Stupid bastard. And he had been much more acceptable when he was stupid.
*
The weekend itched, it scratched and clawed at Virginia’s temper, the weekend being Sunday, her day of rest when everywhere was shut and the pubs were restricted to ridiculous hours. Despite having been drunk the previous night she was awake early to see Sunday rise in all its glory from behind the cathedral. She stared at the ceiling, watched it become brighter, nothing to do but wish she could sleep again. And it was not even conscience which kept her awake, for the night before had offered no simple sinful pleasures to make her feel guilty. She had shared drinks with Goomer and Dean, staying with them for as long as she could suffer their comments and opinions, most of which were critical of her. Curiosity helped her bear their jibes, curiosity over the change in Dean, how it had been contrived, and a fascination with his constantly unfolding beauty, so much of a surprise and so unexpected when she remembered back t
o their first encounter.
The obvious affection between the two men had been too much for her to take, however, a persistent reminder that neither of them were for her, and eventually the sight of them flirting openly before her became a teasing thing, the drone of the adverse opinions an annoyance. She had moved on, then, alone, calling at various places on her meandering way home, sometimes looking at boys and young men and sometimes longing after their touch but always gulping down the drinks to deaden the senses and chase away the greedy cravings. If drink could be said to be a sinful pleasure, then it was the only one of the night, but she would argue that for once it had been no pleasure at all; she had been drinking merely to sleep, she had partaken of nothing of which she could feel guilty.
Josh? He was still sleeping in his wife’s arms, no doubt, so there was no guilt on that count. It was just Sunday keeping her awake. Sunday, bloody Sunday. The film was recalled, and with it memories, a whole series of them which flicked before her eyes like filing cards with worn edges, but this is all they now were, memories. She blinked and erased them, wiped them from the ‘tabula rasa’ of the ceiling she was staring at; the sounds they made came jangling long after, though, echoing about the Sunday morning silence of her room.
Sunday morning silence? The bloody bells were starting now, clanging out a cacophony. Next would come the Boys Brigade or the British Legion or whoever’s turn it was to process about the streets that weekend. There was always someone, every Sunday, prancing and posturing, and she leapt from her bed before the buglers could pucker up or anyone could rattle a tambourine, threw on some clothes, unfurled the rope ladder and slipped out of the window.
After beating her way through the garden and yanking back the rusted bolt on the gate Virginia went to the corner of the street, to a point where she had a clear view down to the Pier Head. Squinting at the Liver Building clock she guessed that it was five minutes past eleven. She hoped that it was five minutes past eleven; at least this would give her only fifty five minutes to wait until opening time. She walked down Mount Street, past the Institute -’Charles Dickens gave readings here’- and towards the deserted city centre. The Liver Building slipped from view as she made her way along the city streets, wondering why they always had to be laid out at right angles, wishing there were a few acute or obtuse junctions to break up the monotony but left only with the feeling that she was an ant creeping across a Mondrian painting -’Liverpool Boogie Woogie’- imprisoned by the rigid geometry. When the two tethered Liver birds came momentarily into view she saw that her eyesight had not failed her; it was now eleven thirty. She made an about-turn, regimented by the landscape and programmed by her impulses, and returned the way she had come, left, right, left, right, regulating her pace to ensure that her arrival at her destination coincided with the big hand and the little hand meeting at opening time.
The Art School Dance Page 43
