Life Class (4 page)

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 for 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.

‘I suppose, like everything centrally funded, money without strings is a thing of the past.’

The tutor raised his dark brown eyes to her face. For the second time a memory was stirred – another occasion, a long time ago – but then it was gone. Dory shook her head and smiled slightly, puzzled by this recurring sense of
déjà vu
. The faint trace of a smile answered hers.

‘Bloody government!’ She turned to see who had spoken. It was the man who had just come back from the Caribbean. ‘They already take enough in taxes. And what’ve we got to show for it?’ Tanned from his sailing trip, he was aged around fifty, Dory estimated, and wasn’t bad-looking in a stocky, broad-featured way. Light brown, wavy hair, shot through with grey, was receding at his temples. But what she really noticed were his clothes. His tan leather moccasins and light chinos might not have stood out in a crowd, but that shirt … Even from a distance she could see that it was well made and in an enviable fabric. It didn’t shout designer, it murmured discreetly.

‘Isn’t there supposed to be a push towards adult learning?’ he went on.

‘Exactly, Michael,’ Fran agreed. ‘It’s something they keep banging on about.’ Ah, Michael the millionaire, Dory thought.

‘That’s part of the problem,’ the tutor continued. ‘Adult learning is a high priority. But without the spurious …’ He looked back towards Fran for a prompt.

‘Spurious half-arsed qualification?’

His eyes widened momentarily. ‘Without working towards a qualification of some sort, however half-arsed, I guess the class will lose its funding. A class of hobbyists cannot be supported.’

‘Hobbyists!’ Lennie exclaimed. ‘I’m a … a … professional. I’ve worked as a commercial artist all my life! It was bad enough when they removed the concession for the retired. We’re already paying hundreds of pounds a year for this class!’

‘The full
unsubsidised
cost would be …’ He shrugged. ‘Much more.’

‘Just because I’m not on benefits doesn’t mean I’m wealthy.’ Others voices joined in agreement with Lennie, the disgruntled rumble growing in volume. The tutor spread his hands in a placatory gesture.

‘Look, no one is going to throw you out or make you pay extra, but … I have to teach a structured course
and
prove it. The work needs to be kept, labelled, and dated so it can be related to the teaching scheme.’