by Allan, Gilli
‘This is all infuriatingly mysterious, Dory. You have business in London? It may take twenty-four hours? It’s so important you’re willing to let bygones be bygones?’
‘It’s none of your …’ Another sigh. ‘Look, if you’re so keen to see me there’s an easy answer. Come to life class. Otherwise we’ll get together soon. Promise.’
The call was cut off, the dialling tone interrupted by Fran’s name being shouted from upstairs. She replaced the phone in its cradle and walked to the bottom of the staircase. ‘What do you want?’ she called to her husband.
‘Come up here,’ he shouted. No please or would you mind, darling, she reflected as she ran up the stairs to find him. He was in the spare bedroom and had pulled everything out from under the bed. It was years of her life drawings – piles and piles of them – all over the floor.
‘What do you want done with these?’ he asked brusquely. ‘It’s getting ridiculous, we can’t hang on to everything. Can you go through them?’
‘And then what?’
‘Decide what you really want to keep and what can be thrown out.’
What I really want to keep? Fran looked at the piles of paper. He’d said it as if wanting to hang on to any of it would be unreasonable. But this was her life, this was all she’d done with her life, all she had to show for it. The clear implication was that he would be happy throwing the lot out was the ultimate rejection. How on earth could she make a choice about throwing bits of her life away? Tightening bands clamped around her chest. Her throat thickened, her eyes pricked.
Chapter Forty - Dominic
They’d not had this model before. She was gross. There was nothing about her that Dom could appreciate. There were rolls of fat on her fat, and dangly breasts that reached to the place her waist would have been if she’d had one. Impossible to imagine there was a skeleton or muscles in there. She might just as well have been wearing a huge, pink, droopy, tracksuit, or something. You couldn’t even see her bush – that’s if you’d wanted to. He couldn’t imagine anyone would. It was hidden by a pelmet of flesh.
The barn had the biggest area of open floor at the house, and the evening before the class, he and Stefan had laid an old bed sheet flat out on the floor. Then they’d crawled over it with rulers and black felt pens, marking out a grid as best they could on the yellowed cotton. They’d brought it with them this morning, and before the lesson started, he’d helped Stefan fix it to the classroom wall. Until the coffee break, the model, whose name was Fay, had been posing against this grid-patterned sheet. It was there to provide reference points, Stefan explained to the class, to help them measure out the figure. He’d also pulled up some bits of furniture, donkeys, tables, and chairs, in a random arrangement around the model.
‘Everything here is to provide context for the model. I don’t want to see the figure floating in a void. Think Giacometti …’ He grabbed one of the art books from the side and held it open towards the class. ‘As you can see here, the model is only a part of the whole. He is set within the space. I want to see that space. Nothing in life exists without context.’
In the second session of the morning, Stefan had asked Fay to lie on her side on the mattress, which he’d raised on a kind of platform of wooden blocks. She was still positioned with her back to the grid. The flesh, which hung in a curtain over the tops of her thighs when she was standing, was now slurped to one side. Dom saw, with disgust, that previously hidden part of her. Bush was the wrong word. She was virtually bald in that area, with just a few pubes straggled across it. Dom felt faintly sick.
Today, a stranger sat at the back of the classroom. He was a little bloke in an old man’s jacket, wearing heavy-rimmed glasses that were too big and made him look like a weird insect. This was the assessor, who’d come in to evaluate Stefan’s teaching. Every now and then he made notes on the clipboard on his lap. Dominic felt affronted on Stefan’s behalf that he should have to put up with being judged by this weasely little man. But Stefan seemed cool about it.
In fact, Stefan had been oddly light-hearted recently, ever since that evening when he’d gone out. Dom had been up on his return and when he asked him where he’d been, Stefan had just tapped the side of his nose. He’d obviously been drinking. Not that he was bladdered or anything, not even slightly, but there was a glint in his eye and he admitted he shouldn’t have driven. It was unusual behaviour for Stefan; he didn’t have much of a social life, and didn’t usually keep secrets – not that Dom was aware of, anyway. He knew it was stupid, but he felt a bit put out, as if he were being side-lined.
The lesson was hard. For a start, the model repelled him and he wasn’t used to measuring and analysing proportions in such a systematic way. He spent most of the lesson drawing the grid. He mapped it out with great care, putting in the reference points where the body interrupted the background lines and squares. By the end of the morning, he had two drawings where the figure was minimally indicated, leaving her like an amorphous vacancy against the meticulously drawn grid and the careful perspective of the furniture that surrounded her. Oddly, everyone in the class, including Stefan, was complimentary about his approach. They said how ‘unusual’ it was, and ‘interesting’, even ‘novel’. He laughed inside. All he’d been doing was trying not to look at the model.
Stefan had a few words with the weasel, then everyone gradually packed up and drifted off. The only people still in the room were Stefan, him, and the blonde woman, Dory. She was taking her time putting her stuff away. She sprayed her drawings thoroughly with fixative then slid them into a clear plastic portfolio. She put her pencils into a tin, and her rubber and retractable craft knife into a zip-up pencil case. These she slotted into the pockets of her art bag. Now that she’d apparently finished sorting her own things out, Dom was impatient for her to go so he could have a laugh with Stefan about the hippopotamus. But instead, Dory went over and helped Stefan unpin the gridded sheet.
Who did she think she was? She was acting like she was a friend of theirs!
Now, she sauntered over to him and looked at his drawings again. ‘I really like them,’ she said. ‘All context, no model. Very left-field.’
‘Cheers, yeah … thanks.’ OK, she wasn’t too bad, he privately admitted. She wasn’t as bad as that other woman, Fran, who’d not turned up again today. He and Dory had talked now and then, and she’d behaved like he was just another normal member of the class. The others were always kind of on edge with him, trying to score points or make jokes about the way he looked. Or worse, they tried to pretend they were interested in his music. Even so, just because he thought Dory was all right, didn’t mean he wanted her to hang out with them.
‘OK, Dom?’ Stefan said eventually, when the tables and chairs were pushed back, the easels roughly stacked together. ‘I’ve something to sort out in the office.’ Stefan looked at Dory with raised eyebrows, then back at him. ‘Look, sorry to put you on the spot, Dom, but Dory works at the STI clinic …’
It took a moment to comprehend what Stefan had done to him. His brain buzzed, a hot, red mist blanked everything out. It cleared almost immediately, replaced by outrage. This was out of order! How could Stefan do this to him? Dom stared at Dory, aghast. She was smiling a snide, condescending smile.
‘Fuck! I’m not … This is a set up!’ Tricked and betrayed, he was within a beat of running out of the class.
As if reading his mind, she touched his arm. ‘Please don’t go.’ He flinched. ‘I can see this is a shock. You must feel ganged up on. You know why Stefan didn’t warn you, though, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t. Shit! I thought he was my friend!’
‘It’s because he is your friend. He’s known I work in the Sexual Health Department at the hospital for ages. He’s become so concerned about you that he came to me to ask for help. Do you think that was easy for him? Do you think it’s the action of someone who doesn’t care about you?’
Dom knew Stefan cared. It didn’t make it easier.
‘Plea
se believe me. He didn’t want to offend or embarrass you, but he guessed that if he’d warned you, you wouldn’t have agreed to talk to me.’
‘Too right!’ The furious shame, which had flamed his cheeks, was cooling and dissipating, but he was still angry. ‘It’s fucking nothing to do with you!’ he said, still unable to look her in the face. ‘Or anyone else!’
‘I agree,’ she said, which surprised him. He looked up. ‘But you can’t expect the people who love you to stand by and do nothing. At the end of the day, the only person’s business it is, is yours … yours and your sexual partner’s, of course.’
Dom laughed humourlessly. ‘Well, that’s all right then. I haven’t had one for months.’
‘That’s good. How many months? Would you mind telling me?’
Dom thought about it, totting it up in his head. He shrugged and looked out of the window. ‘Since January.’
‘I think you should get yourself retested, don’t you?’
‘What’s the point if I’ve got … there’s no cure, is there?’
‘No. But if you have been infected with the HIV virus, you need to find out as early as possible. The retroviral drug regimen available can prolong healthy, productive life, keeping AIDS at bay for many, many years. But Dom … you may not have an HIV infection. No one can tell just by looking at you. And virtually every other sexually transmitted infection is curable. But there can be extremely unpleasant and serious complications if they’re left untreated. Please come in to the clinic. I’m sure I can wangle you an almost-immediate appointment. The other thing … I can’t promise, but I think I can get your HIV results within a day.’
They continued to talk. Gradually, strangely, he began to relax. He realised that it was actually easier talking to her about this stuff than it had been talking to Stefan.
‘It’s because I’m not close to you,’ she suggested. ‘How did you and Stefan meet? I’ve often wondered.’
When Dom thought about this, it always amused him. He recalled how appalled Stefan had been, and gave a half-chuckle.
‘We’re an odd pair, you mean.’
‘I wouldn’t say that, but …’
‘A couple of years ago I answered an ad in the paper for a male model. Me and my mates thought it was, like, for something else, you know? You know how I was making money? I told them at your clinic.’
‘Not mine. I just work in the lab. I spend most of my time looking through a microscope.’
This sounded interesting. ‘Cool,’ he said, seeing her now as a scientist rather than an interfering doctor.
‘I add my findings to the patients’ notes,’ Dory said. ‘To be honest, even if I wanted to, I don’t have the time to spend reading case histories. But I know what you’re talking about. Stefan was naïve to have put an ad like that in the paper.’
Dom nodded. ‘He never even thought about how it could be taken the wrong way. To be fair, I never realised I could make money just stripping off and standing there. My mates dared me to answer it. I phoned him up and he asked me round to Kitesnest. It still cracks me up when I think about it. He was horrified when I came onto him. But that’s what I thought he was after.’
‘Horrified?
‘I mean he was surprised … like, very surprised. And a bit embarrassed. It wasn’t what he expected. What really shocked him was that at my age I was earning money like that.’
‘What happened? It could have been a very short interview.’
‘After we both realised we had, like, different agendas, he made some tea and got out the biscuits. I was surprised. It was funny, but in a nice way. Like something an old granny might have done. Well … not my Gran! But, you know, in films and that. Then I thought, hell, OK. Why not? And anyway I was interested. I’d never met a real artist. I really enjoyed art at school. And, like, I’d seen paintings of nudes and sculptures and that, but hadn’t thought about artists using models. So we had a chat.’
‘And a cup of tea,’ she repeated, like it was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.
‘Yeah. And he asked about my life, how I’d ended up doing what I was doing. After that I said I’d model for him. That’s how it started. I went there to pose for him and he paid me. We had to keep quiet about it. I wasn’t sixteen yet. I didn’t even tell my mates. And Stefan isn’t so innocent he doesn’t know he could get into trouble.’
‘And your friendship?’
‘He had this particular set of sculptures he wanted to do about a boy who flew too close to the sun. It’s based on an old story?’
‘The legend of Icarus.’
‘Yeah. That’s what our friendship grew out of, the legend of Icarus.’
‘And you live together now?’
‘Now, we do, but not then. I used to stay sometimes and he let me leave my stuff there ’cause it was safer. He always made it so easy for me to crash there. Living at Kitesnest all the time, just kind of crept up on me.’ Dom paused, thinking about the man who had opened his home to him. ‘The thing is, Stefan has never … like … judged me.’
‘And, forgive me, there’s …’ She blushed. ‘Never been anything more to your relationship?’
‘D’you mean sex?’ Dom was surprised, but when he thought about it, why wouldn’t an outsider think that?
Chapter Forty-one - Stefan
On Monday, they arrived at the clinic at 8.40. This time he accompanied Dom inside. Dory promised she would have prepared the staff, and had obviously kept her word. Despite their lack of an appointment, the woman at the reception desk, whom Dory told him was a triage nurse, seemed to be expecting Dominic. And within moments of their arrival, Dory had appeared from the back of the clinic. Stefan had spent the weekend trying to maintain and bolster Dom’s confidence. But it wasn’t until he saw Dory’s smiling face as she came towards them that he realised the level of stress he’d been under.
‘Hi,’ she said, as they gripped hands. ‘I am so glad you came.’ Her reassurance was directed at Dom too. She laid her hand on his shoulder. Dom’s complexion was bleached of colour, his blue eyes dark with apprehension. Hard not to sympathise, Stefan thought, recalling his description of the procedure first time around. If roles were reversed, he would be ashen. He saw Dory’s encouraging squeeze to Dom’s shoulder. For a moment he feared she would say something to the boy about not worrying. He knew Dom would not appreciate meaningless platitudes at a time like this. But she said nothing, just nodded and continued to maintain an encouraging smile. He might have kissed her if they hadn’t had an audience.
The paperwork was dealt with quickly. Dory led Dom away and Stefan sat down to wait. Less than fifteen minutes later, she was back in the reception area. Stefan stood up again.
‘You’ve got it?’ he silently mouthed at her and Dory patted her leather satchel bag, which was slung diagonally across her body. ‘That was quick.’
‘They’ll be a while yet, but I want to catch the 9.30 straight-through London train. Give me a call when you’ve got the initial results.’ She turned away, reaching for the door handle.
‘Dory.’ Stefan touched her arm and she turned back. ‘Thank you. I … we … really appreciate it.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ Dory said. He watched her run down the steps and to her car. It wasn’t until it was out of sight that he returned to the bench and picked up the magazine from the top of the pile on the low table. For some moments he held it open on his lap, but though his eyes were directed towards its pages, nothing made the journey to his brain. Stefan closed the magazine, shut his eyes, and exhaled slowly.
Was this unremitting anxiety what you had to go through as a parent? The face of his own father – his heavy scowl, his clamped mouth – swam into his brain. Stefan had grown up with the sense he’d always failed, always disappointed the old man. Ladislav had had other plans for his son, envisaging him a right-thinking academic. And what had he got? A left-leaning artist. But perhaps he’d misjudged his father. Maybe anger was his way of coping with anxiety. In a harsh world, h
e couldn’t see a place for his wishy-washy, bleeding-heart artist son. All he could think to do was to angrily shout that he was a fool, as if by temper and sheer volume he could knock his son into a shape that would fit the future as he saw it.
Stefan opened his eyes, clicking back to the present as someone else came into the clinic. Looking at the cover of the magazine on his lap he saw that it was one of those lifestyle magazines Dory had talked about. Dory? He smiled at the memory of that evening. She’d listened to his worries about Dom, and she, in her turn, had told him about the crisis in her sister’s family. He hadn’t quite followed it all, apart from the bit about Dory’s niece in Thailand, but he’d understood that Fran had been an inattentive mother. All in all, it had been a far more companionable evening than anticipated, marred only by his histrionic tantrum when, feeling harried and corralled, he’d walked out of the flat. She must have thought him a petulant fool. Thank God he’d come to his senses and gone back.
Looked at with a cool head, the work she’d done on promotion and marketing was impressive. And she’d done it all unasked, without looking for any pay back. He was touched by her generosity. Almost without comprehending how or why, and with no expectation of it happening, Dory had become a real friend. Without her, he very much doubted he would be sitting here waiting for Dom. How on earth could he ever show his gratitude? If only …
Chapter Forty-two - Dory
‘What a coincidence!’ were almost his first words when she’d called Malcolm. ‘There’s something important I wanted to tell you, but it can wait till we see you. Next Monday isn’t good for Gabriella; her mother’s staying. How about the Monday after?’
After the dash to Painchester station, and the even more frantic circuit around its environs to find a space in which she could legally park, the prospect of the two-hour journey through the countryside felt like a luxury and a reward. Thinking of their phone conversation more than a week ago, she wondered again what was so important that it had inspired Malcolm to adopt an almost laughably ham-serious tone. Perhaps they’d set the date? Did they really believe the announcement of their wedding would give her a moment’s angst? Did they think she still cared? The idea of Gabriella adopting an air of synthetic sympathy as she imparted this mournful news to her fiancé’s grieving ex made Dory feel slightly sick.
