by Allan, Gilli
A couple of teenage girls pushed past them, clattering down the stairs ahead. Shrill giggles drifted back.
‘The building was originally a secondary school. It’s used as an annexe to the college now. But wouldn’t you know it, they plan to pull it down and cover the site with houses. As if there aren’t enough swallowing up the countryside. There’s an online petition you can sign. So, how did you enjoy the first session?’
‘It was so hard, Fran! I nearly walked out.’
‘You’ve got to battle past your demons. Despair and elation. Happens to us all.’
‘It wasn’t just the technical difficulty. You wouldn’t have known it from your angle but …’ Dory stopped speaking. Her eyes refocused.
‘But what?’ Fran prompted.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Dory said, clearly changing her mind. ‘It can wait. What were you saying?’ Dermot, the life model, passed them, taking the stairs two at a time and leaving a nicotine trail in his wake.
Everyone in the building had apparently broken for coffee simultaneously. While the two of them waited at the end of the slow-moving queue, Fran scanned the packed canteen. Its mainly youthful customers were noisily clustered around islands of tables. The new teacher wasn’t here to experience the bedlam. He needed to be told that their coffee break had always been delayed to miss the eleven o’clock rush.
Already sitting around a huddle of tables were most of the people from the life drawing group. Fran had hoped that a striking new member of the class would have joined them. Failing to spot the long-haired youth, she began the introductions.
‘Bill, Rachel, Lennie, Joyce, Liz, Mary, Michael … This is my sister, Dory. She’s just moved back from London.’ Fran sat down next to Bill, dragging up another chair. Dory said hello and asked to be forgiven if she took a while to remember names. The to and fro of conversation was soon re-established.
‘This new model’s good, isn’t he?’ Rachel was saying. ‘Keeps wonderfully still … there’s terrific definition to the muscles.’
‘Looks to me like he waxes,’ Fran said. ‘And did you notice the sheen on his skin? Wouldn’t be surprised if he oils himself as well. What was he expecting, a photoshoot for a muscle man mag?’
Down the table, Michael was holding forth to those around him about a sailing trip in the Caribbean. Typical, Fran thought. Always has to go one better than the rest of us. Ignoring him, she turned to Bill. ‘What’s happened to Sandy? I was so disappointed they’ve lumbered us with a new tutor!’
‘Sandy was a dear girl,’ Bill said, to a chorus of general agreement. ‘But she didn’t really push us, did she?’
‘Hardly a girl! She must have been as … older than me.’
‘You’re all girls to me.’
‘Oh, thank you, darling.’ As usual, Bill looked the typical conservative country gent in a shirt and tie under a mustard sweater, his neatly trimmed iron-grey hair brushed back from his large, florid face.
‘I haven’t seen much evidence this guy’s any more dynamic,’ Fran continued. ‘And he’s surly with it. He pretty much left us to our own devices.’
‘Perhaps he was just giving us our heads to get a view of the general standard.’
‘Asking for an accurate pencil drawing isn’t what I call giving us our heads!’
Bill nodded. ‘But it was the first item on his programme.’
Fran felt her jaw drop. ‘Programme? He gave me something when I first arrived but I was too busy catching up to look at it. Left it upstairs.’
Bill pulled some folded papers from the back pocket of his jumbo cords and smoothed them out on the table with age-freckled hands. They were photocopied from a handwritten timetable.
‘But this looks like a really basic Foundation Course!’ She picked up the stapled pages, hardly able to believe what she was reading. ‘And it’s for the rest of the year, never mind the rest of the term! Most of us have already done all this!’ She looked around at the rest of the table to answering nods and shrugs. ‘We’re doing this class for fun, we don’t need to faff around with An exploration of materials or Drawing the negative shapes. Rachel, you studied at the Slade with art luminaries of the Sixties, for God’s sake!’
‘It seems such a long time ago,’ Rachel smiled wistfully. ‘I was one of the few who didn’t make a name for themselves.’
‘But you don’t need to be told that “Form does not exist without a balance of light and shade”.’ Fran was fond of Rachel. International fame as a painter might have eluded her, but she’d had modest local success. Like Bill, she was well beyond retirement age but looked more typically the artist. Today she was wearing a flowing garment in purple velvet, over baggy, tie-dye trousers. Her silvery hair, habitually rinsed with blonde, was held up in looping swirls with crocodile clips and slides. She still took the trouble to apply make-up to a face that had evidently once been beautiful.
‘He doesn’t know our backgrounds, Fran dear. Perhaps we ought to give him a break. This is his first day. He has to find his feet with us as much as we do with him.’
‘Exactly! So what’s the point of … whatever his name is … drawing this up,’ she waved the sheets, ‘before he’s assessed the class? Come on, guys, someone support me? Who’s going to join me in a class mutiny?’
Having sat silently since her introduction, Dory put her coffee down with a clunk. ‘Fran, we’re not all old hands! I am a novice. And if I survive beyond today I’m quite happy to be starting at …’
‘Don’t forget who’s in the majority here,’ Fran cut in. After all, what did she know? ‘Allowances have to be made for the newcomers, but we can’t have the tail wagging the dog. That’s not democracy!’ She turned away from her sister and looked around the canteen. ‘Does anyone know the new lad’s name? I thought he might have joined another table, but I can’t see him.’
Joyce shuddered. ‘He’s a bit scary if you ask me. That hair! The metal in his face! And what on earth was that ghoulish insignia on his chest?’
Chapter Five - Dominic
If he’d gone down to the canteen with the rest of them, they’d have expected him to join their table, or worse, talk to him. He hadn’t expected to make friends here. He didn’t make friends easily, but it was a mind-set thing. He’d hoped the class would be made up of young people. Better to stay up here alone. Besides, he was still in pain and finding it uncomfortable to sit down.
The sinks in the classroom were fairly clean, but handwritten notices propped behind the taps warned against the disposal of paint down the plugholes. He wondered how long before they’d get clogged and disgusting, like at … His shoulders hunched up, his hands thrust deeper into his jeans’ pockets. Why did he get this sick churning in his gut whenever school crept into his thoughts? OK, so he’d bunked off probably more than he’d turned up, but how had they punished him? Exclusion. What a joke! Anyway, that was all in the past.
Amid the many drawing pins, some with ragged corners of paper still attached, a few randomly spaced paintings remained on the plasterboard walls. Easy to understand why they’d been abandoned. He’d’ve been ashamed to own up to any of them. The work surface was crowded with cartons, art books, and flat packs of paper. Dom rummaged through the paints. Squeezy bottles of tempera, sides dribbled with primary colours, stood alongside stubbier containers of acrylic. In another tray, the paint was in different sized tubes – a tumbled heap of gouache, acrylic, and oil. A few looked brand new but most were squeezed and twisted, dry pigment scabbed around the screw caps. Then there were boxes of worn and broken charcoal, chalks, pastels, pencils and graphite sticks, plastic palettes, paint-stained rags, and hedgehog-stiff paintbrushes.
He loved everything he looked at. The smells, the atmosphere, the potential in this room. A feeling he couldn’t identify welled through him. What was it? His throat thickened. He pulled a can out of his backpack; a swig of Coke would clear the annoying lump in his throat.
But after walking around and looking at the others’ work, his
mood plummeted. Why was he here? He might as well return to the city and do what he was good at. Earlier, at the newsagent, he’d managed to buy some smokes after all. He’d done nothing to make the woman frightened but he’d seen fear in her eyes and had known she wouldn’t refuse. He lit up, then plugged the smart phone into his ears and fiddled with the controls. The reassuring thump of a heavy baseline, overlaid with a guitar riff, filled his head. As he drew in deeply, he enjoyed the slight scorch in his mouth, in his lungs. Out of the window he could see down into the playground of the primary school next door. Children ran around playing tag, or clambered over the brightly coloured apparatus. He kind of envied them.
Sensing he was being watched, he turned and saw that Stefan had come back into the room. Despite being old, at least forty, he was a cool-looking guy. He was saying something. Dominic pulled out the earpieces.
‘What?’
‘You’re not allowed to smoke inside. Sorry.’
‘There’s no one in here.’
‘Doesn’t matter. You still have to leave the building.’
No point in arguing. It was other people’s rules. He squeezed the end of the fag, dropped it into his pocket, and picked up the bag of crisps.
‘You don’t want a coffee? … Ah, I see you brought your own supplies. I’m not bothering either. I’ve work to do.’ Stefan raised the file with a resigned shrug, but continued to look at him. ‘Is that new?’ he asked.
‘Got it yesterday.’
‘Thought it looked different. What happened to the other one?’
Not wanting an interrogation about it, he said, ‘Updated version. It’s a smart phone as well as an MP3 player. It’s a camera, video, Bluetooth, Wi-
Fi …’
Stefan pulled that look that usually cracked him up – like he was some outdated old fart and the modern world was beyond him. ‘But you look fed up.’
There was stuff Dom could admit. The gang of tossers who’d caught him on his own the other night. How they’d taunted him – Fucking Mosher – and forced him into a laundry room. Dominic sighed. He wasn’t a Mosher. He wasn’t a Goth. He despised labels. But it wasn’t worth getting into any of that now.
‘It’s just … depressing.’ Stefan raised enquiring eyebrows. ‘Everyone here …’ Dom gestured to the work on the easels around the room ‘… is so good!’
‘And?’
‘And I’m shit. I shouldn’t be here. How can’t you see I’m not good enough?’
‘It doesn’t matter what anyone else has done.
You’re here to learn how to see, not to show off the natural talent you were born with.’
‘Yeah, but …’ Dominic gulped back the frustration and sudden sense of helplessness. After putting the file of papers on the work surface, Stefan came over and perched on the corner of the metal-legged table beside him. He clutched his hand to his face, drawing it down slowly over mouth and bearded chin as if seeking inspiration.
‘Don’t confuse skill with art,’ he began after a moment, looking up at Dominic sideways. ‘Having a facility for getting proportions right, for capturing a likeness, is not the same thing as producing art. Being good at art doesn’t make you an artist.’
Dom frowned, struggling to understand. ‘But if being good isn’t important … how do you … how does anyone judge?’
‘Don’t get me wrong, it helps, but it’s not the be all and end all. I’m sorry, it’s not an easy concept. I’ve had to grapple with it myself over the years. I believe it comes down to this; those most consumed with a passion to improve, who struggle, who are never satisfied, constantly striving for something better … they’re the real artists.’
Dom wondered if he fitted this template. Maybe. Art had been the one thing he always desperately wanted to do. But …
‘You look confused.’
Confused? It wasn’t confusion. It was disappointment. Was Stefan saying that it was the wrong route for him, that fulfilment would always be out of reach?
‘Put simply, if you’re serious about art, about being an artist, you should look at it as a journey, not a destination. Don’t worry,’ he went on, as if picking up on the wobble in his confidence. ‘It can be a thrilling and rewarding journey. And I can teach you perspective, proportion, colour theory, I can even teach you technique, but the rest is up to you. Hey … come on, mate.’ He stood up and laid his hand on Dom’s arm, giving it a brief squeeze before moving to the end of the mattress and lifting it. ‘Give me a hand getting this into the corner before the others come back?’
Dominic walked slowly to the other end of the mattress. Had he been given good or bad news? Stefan looked up at him with a half smile.
‘It’s what’s inside you, burning away, that counts. If you’ve got that flame, you’ve a chance of making it. If you haven’t, you may only ever be an also-ran. But art will fill your life with interest. Isn’t it better to have a star to follow, even if you never catch up with it, than to fritter your life away on quick fixes and transient pleasures?’
Still in pain from his encounter, Dom wondered how the other man saw his life. There hadn’t been much pleasure involved. They’d been rough, but it wasn’t what they did that bothered him so much, it wasn’t like it was unusual. It was the fact they’d jeered at him afterwards, as if to convince themselves they’d only done it to humiliate him, not because they’d wanted to. Not getting paid for it was the least of his problems. He’d seen a knife and now felt lucky only to have lost some money and possessions. There was nothing for it. He wasn’t a prisoner, though sometimes it felt like it. Somehow he’d make it on his own. Another week, let alone another year in the care home, being patronised by social workers and weighed down by stupid rules, would do his head in. The door opened.
Chapter Six - Dory
Though first back from coffee, Dory saw she wasn’t alone. The tutor and young student stood close in murmured conversation. As the rest of the coffee-breakers piled back into the room, the youth peeled away from his position by the tutor and returned to his easel. Joyce’s comment prompted Dory to look for the logo on his black sweatshirt – a skull, crowned with a circlet of barbed wire. She liked his bravado. Despite the intimidating uniform and the multiple piercings in his pale face, he was an under-nourished waif, and none too clean at that. Almost as though aware of her scrutiny he flicked back his long, dark hair and squared his shoulders. The tutor picked up a file of papers and cleared his throat.
‘Not everyone was here on time so I’ll introduce myself again and run through your names for the register.’
‘Register?’ Fran whispered. ‘God! This is like going back to school !’
‘Do you think I’ll get my knuckles rapped for being late?’ Dory asked. Her sister shrugged theatrically. Moments passed as, mouth clamped, the man scanned the room. The hubbub of chatting and laughter died away.
‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘All this is as new to me as it is to you.’
Several dissenting voices piped up. ‘No. Not to me,’ followed by, ‘I’ve been doing this class with Sandy for years’.
The man frowned and looked back at the file of papers in his hands. ‘Sandira Benfield is no longer an employee of the college.’
‘She didn’t say anything to us,’ Fran said. ‘She’s not been fired, has she?’
‘I’m sorry.’ The tutor looked up. ‘I don’t know the woman or why she left. You’ll just have to put up with me.’ He looked from face to face. ‘Who else has done this life class before?’ At the many raised hands, he shook his head, as if impossible to count, or maybe to believe. ‘Can those of you who are new to the class put your hands up?’
Dory, plus one other woman, and the youth, were the only ones to raise their hands.
‘Then it looks like most of us are here under something of a misapprehension … including me. This is supposed to be a three-year OCN class, which awards credits.’
‘Credits?’ Fran challenged. ‘What the hell? We just want to draw and paint for fun, not f
or some spurious, half-arsed qualification!’
The tutor looked towards her and his already frowning brows lowered further.
‘As part of its ACET provision, the LEA –’
‘Will you stop talking to us in bloody acronyms and initials?’ Fran objected again. ‘It’s like some kind of secret bloody code!’
‘The Local Education Authority provides Adult Continuing Education and Training. If you achieve three Open College Network credits you’re entitled to apply for a place on an art access course, leading to the foundation year of a degree course.’
‘Most of us have got art degrees!’
The tutor shook his head slightly. ‘Did anyone read the prospectus?’
Only two hands went up this time. Not Dory’s. She’d been enrolled by her sister and had never seen a prospectus.
‘Like we said, ah … um?’ A tall, slightly stooped man spoke. Despite his dress – a tailored leather jacket, black polo neck, and jeans – he appeared the oldest there. A mane of silver hair and heavy-framed glasses accentuated the skull beneath the face.
‘Most of the class have been coming for years. We just sign on automatically at the end of the previous term. We don’t need to read the … um … prospectus. It’s always been a … a …’
‘A recreational class.’ Bill supplied.
‘I’m not interested in gaining … er … er …’
Again, Bill finished Lennie’s sentence. ‘Qualifications.’
Stefan leaned back against the wall units and with a deepening frown, looked down at the documents he held.
‘The reality is that the Local Authority has to account to central government for the money it spends.’ There was a grumbling murmur. Suddenly sorry for the man, whose expression was growing increasingly pained, Dory spoke up.
