Life Drawing for Beginners (20 page)

“How long should we spend on a detailed study?” Meg asked.

“Not too long, certainly no more than ten minutes.”

Packing up her things a few minutes later, watching her students pulling on jackets and gathering pages together, Audrey thought with pleasure of the slice of cheesecake that she’d bought on the way home from school, waiting for her now in the fridge at home.

Better not mention it to Irene.

As Zarek walked out the front door of the college a sudden downpour caught him unawares. He stepped back into the doorway, buttoning his jacket, hoping it wouldn’t last.

A car approached him. “Sit in,” Meg called, and Zarek’s heart sank. He’d rather get soaked—a hot shower when he got home would soon put things right—but how could he refuse without appearing rude? He opened the passenger door.

“Thank you,” he said, getting in and pulling it closed.

“You couldn’t walk home in this,” Meg said—and indeed the rain was coming down in sheets now. “Where do you live?”

Zarek told her. “Maybe,” he said, “it is far from you—you can put me anywhere.”

“Not at all,” Meg assured him. “Nowhere’s far really, in Carrickbawn.”

She drove out of the college and turned for the town center.

“So,” she said, “you’re enjoying the class?”

“Yes, I enjoy a lot. And you?”

“Oh yes, it’s good fun,” she said, “but I’m certainly no artist. Unlike you,” she added. “You’re definitely the star.”

Zarek demurred, turning to look out the window.

“Of course you are,” she went on. “I saw your homework when you were showing Audrey—who was that woman you drew? Those sketches were amazing.”

“My flat mate,” he told her.

“Girlfriend?”

Zarek glanced at her, but she was looking off to the right as they approached a junction. He was tempted to lie again, but reluctant to implicate Pilar.

“Good friend,” he said instead. That might be suitably ambiguous.

Meg made no reply. Zarek thought suddenly of her daughter, whose party he’d narrowly avoided. A safe topic, surely.

“You have more children?” he inquired.

“Nope—just the one.”

Silence fell as she negotiated a roundabout and approached a red traffic light directly afterwards. The rain lessened slightly but continued to fall steadily.

“I love being in the car when it’s raining,” Meg said, pulling away as the light turned green. “So cozy, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t sure what “cozy” meant, but thought it easier to agree. He calculated that his street was two minutes away.

“You can direct me when we get nearer.” She drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear stick, slightly faster than Zarek was comfortable with.

“James is a bit strange, isn’t he?” she said then, taking a hand off the gear stick to push her glasses farther up on her nose.

“Please?”

“Well, he talks to nobody, and then he disappears at break. You’d wonder why he signed up, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe,” Zarek suggested, “he like to draw.”

To his surprise, Meg burst out laughing. “Yes,” she said, “that must be it.” She drove through another roundabout. “Friend of mine lives down there,” she said, indicating a road off to the left. “Her husband left her last week, out of the blue. He’d been having an affair for years, apparently. She’s devastated, as you can imagine.”

Zarek was bemused. If he’d understood it correctly—and he thought he had—it seemed an incongruous piece of information to share with a near stranger, particularly when he didn’t know the unfortunate woman in question.

“Wouldn’t mind if my husband walked out,” Meg said then, turning to flash a smile in Zarek’s direction. “He’s not what you’d call an exciting man.”

“Next turn on left please,” Zarek said with relief. He had never been so happy to see his street appear.

As soon as Meg pulled in, Zarek leapt from the car. “Thank you,” he said, “is very kind of you. See you next week.”

“Maybe we’ll meet before then,” she said, “at the pool, on Thursday?”

“Maybe I work, I am not sure,” Zarek answered, easing the door closed. “Thank you,” he repeated, “have good birthday party.”

Backing away, waving and smiling as he willed her to move off. No doubt in his mind now, her interest in him was plain. As he took his door key from the pocket of his satchel he wondered briefly what her reaction would have been if he’d told her where his interest lay.

“You wouldn’t by any chance be going my way, would you?” Jackie asked, holding her rucksack over her head. “I normally walk home, but in this rain…”

He didn’t look as if it was the best thing that had happened to him all day, but he reached across to open the passenger door. “Hop in.”

She hopped in. “Thanks a million. I don’t live too far away, just along by the canal and then behind the hospital, about ten minutes. I hope it’s not out of your way.”

“No problem,” he said, putting an arm on the back of her seat as he swung around to reverse out of the space. “You don’t drive yourself then.”

“Actually I do, but I haven’t got a car. I’m still on a provisional license and the insurance would cripple me.”

“Aye, it’s very high down here.”

His accent was soft, not harsh like Belfast. “What part of the North are you from?” she asked.

He didn’t answer right away. He waited for a green Peugeot to move out of a space ahead of them, and Irene waved as she straightened up and drove off.

“Donegal,” he said. “Have you lived in Carrickbawn all your life?”

“Yes—I was planning to go to college in Dublin when I left school, but…my plans changed.”

He smelled nice. There were no rings on either of his hands. He drove slowly along by the canal.

“When did you move here?” she asked.

“Few months back,” he said. “How did you get roped in to sit for us?”

She laughed. “I answered an ad, and then I met Audrey, who persuaded me. I was a bit nervous at first—no, I was
very
nervous at first, you probably noticed—but I’m okay now. It’s right at the next lights,” she added.

Was it her imagination, or was he giving away as little information as possible? Were her questions so intrusive, or was he so reluctant to talk about himself that he felt the need to counter her inquiries as quickly as possible with a question of his own?

She felt something on the floor by her feet. She bent and picked up what appeared to be a child’s plastic hair band. Her heart sank as she placed it on the dashboard. “Someone will be looking for that.”

He glanced across. “My daughter…thanks.”

He had a daughter, so chances were he also had a wife or partner. Jackie waited until her road was approaching, and then she said, “Thanks very much, you can drop me anywhere here. I’m just around the next corner.”

He pulled in and waited in silence as she got out.

“Thanks again,” she said. “See you next week.”

“Aye,” he said, “you will,” and pulled the door closed.

She turned onto her road, listening to him driving off. So that was that. He hadn’t shown the slightest interest, because he was already happily attached. Par for the course, as far as her love life was concerned.

She reached Number 6 and opened the gate, rummaging in her bag for her key.

I
assume,” he said, “that you’re looking for work.”

She glanced up from her porridge. Surprised at him bringing it up, no doubt. Happy to take free bed and board for as long as it lasted, and let tomorrow go to hell.

“I am lookin’,” she said. “But nobody will give me a chance.”

“Where have you tried?”

She shrugged. “Everywhere. Anyplace I pass.”

“Shops?”

“Yeah, everywhere.”

“What about the hospital?”

She looked blankly at him. “The hospital?”

“They might be looking for cleaners.”

“Oh. Yeah,” she said, poking her spoon into the porridge. “I’ll try there.”

“Do you have a CV?”

Another blank look. “A what?”

He should have expected that. Of course she wouldn’t know what a CV was. How could she?

“You need some kind of a form, telling people what experience you’ve had, or what your strengths are…” But even as he spoke, he knew it was useless.

“I don’t have no experience,” she said.

“You never had a job?”

“No.”

He changed tack. “Did you do your Leaving Cert?”

She shook her head. “I left school at fourteen. I failed the Junior Cert.” She hesitated. “I missed lots of time—my family…” She trailed off.

Michael felt it wiser not to pursue that avenue. “And you never had any kind of a job, not even part-time?”

Another shake of her head.

Michael raised his eyes and regarded the kitchen ceiling. “Well, you’re certainly a challenge, but that’s not to say nobody will employ you. Have any of the places you’ve tried given you application forms?”

She shrugged again. “Forms aren’t no good to me. I told you I can’t read.”

“But you did get some.”

“Yeah.” Her expression was sullen. “I threw them away.”

Michael turned back to the last sandwich, forcing himself to breathe deeply.
Patience
, he told himself as he spread butter.
Shouting at her will get you nowhere
. By the time he’d wrapped the sandwich in tinfoil he felt marginally calmer.

“Go back to wherever gave you a form,” he said. “Tell them you’re very sorry but you spilled a cup of tea over it, and please can you have another one. Be polite, say please. Bring them back here and I’ll help you to fill them out.”

She nodded. “Thank you.” But her thanks were automatic; her face showed no gratitude. Probably, he felt, because even she could see that the possibility of anyone giving her employment was so remote as to hardly exist.

“Five minutes,” he said, leaving the room. A given now that the child would start the day in the shop, that the three of them would walk there together. Upstairs he packed up the dried swabs for posting at lunchtime, trying to ignore the fact that the subject of what would become of the boy if she did manage to get work hadn’t been broached by either of them.

It was such a nice morning, fresh and clear after last night’s rain, that Audrey decided to leave the moped at home and walk to work. She called Dolly in from the garden, pulled on her jacket, and headed off.

Autumn was in the air, a hint of crispness, an advance warning of the frost she’d surely see on the lawn in a few weeks. But today the sky was blue, the breeze not too strong. The leaves were just beginning to turn, a few early droppers dancing along on the path in front of her, rusty orange and yellow and red. A perfect autumn morning. She walked along the familiar paths, smiling at fellow pedestrians like she always did, her thoughts on the day ahead.

The closer she got to Carrickbawn’s main street, the busier her surroundings became. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry: the young sharply dressed man talking rapidly on his mobile phone; the woman pulling a dark blue suitcase behind her, heels clicking sharply on the pavement; the older man up ahead with a small leather rucksack on his back; a slight young woman by his side holding the hand of a little boy, both of them trotting briskly to match the man’s pace. Everyone rushing along, places to be, things to do.

At length Audrey turned off the main street and into the lane that connected it with the road that led eventually to the secondary school where she worked. Quieter here, nothing much happening at this early hour. She glanced in the few shop windows—​balls of wool piled into pyramids, brightly dressed mannequins, bathroom tiles in various shapes and colors. A selection of birdcages with twittering occupants in the window of the pet shop; no pet carrier, no new four-legged animal to replace the one Audrey had bought.

She recalled seeing Dolly for the first time, pressing her palms to the window, watching the little pup yapping soundlessly on the other side of the glass. Now, not even three weeks later, it was hard to remember a time when Dolly didn’t live with her. For all the challenges the little dog presented, Audrey had no regrets about acting on her impulse of that morning. The unconditional love Dolly showered on her was worth any amount of frayed blind cords or ruined dahlias.

She passed a young woman sitting on a bench by a bus stop—​the same one, Audrey thought, who’d been walking ahead of her a few minutes before. There was something familiar about her, but Audrey couldn’t think where they might have met. She smiled at the woman as she passed.

“D’you have the time?” No answering smile on the pinched face. Her shoulders hunched as though she were cold.

Audrey pushed up her sleeve. “Five past nine.”

The woman nodded and Audrey walked on. It wasn’t until she’d almost reached the gates of the secondary school that she remembered.

Picking flowers in the park just a few days ago, accompanied by a little boy.

“Think I’ll go back to that gym,” the mechanic said.

His wife glanced up. “You’re going to become a member?”

“Not a full one. They have this casual membership thing where you can pay for ten sessions and use them whenever you want.”

She looked surprised. “Never heard of that before. Thought you’d have to sign up for at least six months.”

“Yeah, must be the recession—probably not getting the usual membership. I think it’s a good idea.”

“Mm.” She smiled. “Maybe I’ll come too.”

“Yeah,” he said, returning her smile. “Maybe you should.”

Another beat passed.

“Might go on Friday,” he said. “Start the weekend off with a bang—I mean a workout.”

“Very funny,” she said, still smiling.

He sat unmoving for another scatter of seconds. “Is this going to take long more?” he asked eventually.

“Done.” She held up her sketch pad, and he regarded her attempt to draw his hands.

“Fantastic,” he said.

W
hen Jack woke up in the morning,’” Michael read, “‘he couldn’t believe his eyes—just outside his bedroom window was a giant beanstalk, reaching all the way to the sky.’”

Barry studied the picture, sucking absently on his thumb. Michael remembered Ethan, sweet smelling and pajama-clad, curled up in bed as Michael read, making the same moist rhythmic noise as this boy.

Barry reached out and touched the beanstalk with a small finger. His nails could do with a clip, and a scrub.

“Beanstalk,” Michael said. “It grew from the magic beans the man gave him.”

Barry’s finger trailed the beanstalk’s length.

“It’s very long, isn’t it? Look how it goes right up to the clouds.”

The previous night he’d remembered the fairy-tale collection that Valerie had gotten from someone for her fourth birthday. Shabbier now, of course, but still more or less intact. Six books, nested together in a little cardboard folder at the bottom of Michael’s wardrobe, because they hadn’t fit into the suitcase with the other books.

Not surprisingly, Barry didn’t seem to have come across Jack and the Beanstalk before.

He took his thumb from his mouth. “Where’s his mammy?” Little more than a whisper.

“Still asleep,” Michael said. “She doesn’t know anything about the beanstalk. She’ll get a big surprise when she wakes up, won’t she?”

A nod, thumb slipping back in.

Their fourth morning together in the shop, the child still with far too little to say, but each day inching towards a fraction more communication. Michael imagined the kind of life he’d endured up to this: traipsing the streets with his mother when they weren’t holed up in some hovel, or sitting on the ground beside her as she held out a paper cup. No interaction with other children, no stimulation beyond one tattered book that she couldn’t even read to him.

“‘Jack jumped out of bed and dressed quickly. He ran outside and began to climb the beanstalk.’”

It wasn’t ideal. They had to stop every time a customer came in. There wasn’t much room behind the counter, the light wasn’t great for reading, and they had only a single chair and a step stool for sitting on, but they did the best they could.

“‘Up and up and up he went, all the way to the top.’”

The girl came at lunchtime if it was dry and took Barry away for the afternoon, and Michael didn’t see them again until seven. He wondered again if there was any possibility of someone giving her a job. She was presentable enough now, with regular showers and clean clothes, but she was still illiterate with no qualifications and no experience. If someone like her came looking for work from him he wouldn’t be long sending her packing.

She should still try, though. If she managed to get a few application forms he’d make some attempt to fill them in, and a CV might help if he could somehow magic one up out of thin air. She could hand it in at the job center, and someone might be desperate enough to take her on. Unlikely, but not impossible.

The shop door opened. Michael handed the book to Barry and got to his feet—and saw, with a jolt of surprise, his daughter crossing the floor towards him.

“Hello,” she said. The same wary look on her face that he got now whenever they met, a flick of a smile, gone as quickly as it had come. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled properly at him. She held a white envelope.

“I just dropped by to give—” She spotted Barry and stopped. “Who’s this?” Half smiling at the child.

Michael was completely thrown. It happened so rarely, the possibility of her visiting the shop while Barry was here hadn’t even crossed his mind. He hadn’t worked out what to say, he had nothing ready.

“His name is Barry,” he said, his mind racing, taking a few steps away from the boy. His tone conversational, not wanting to alarm his charge. “I’m looking after him for someone.”

She stared at him. “
You’re
babysitting? Who for?”

“His mother,” he replied, in the same careful voice. “You don’t know her.”

She shot another glance at the child, whose attention, thankfully, had returned to the book.

“It’s just temporary,” Michael said. “Just for a short while.”

“It’s weird,” she said. “It’s not like you.”

“It’s no big deal,” he replied. “It’s nobody you know.”

But it was a big deal, or it might be. He had to tell her, now that she’d seen the boy. She was Ethan’s sister, she had a right to know.

“What?” she asked, watching his face. “What are you not telling me?”

He stepped away from the counter and beckoned her out of earshot of the boy. She followed him into the aisle, her expression becoming increasingly wary.

“Valerie,” he said quietly, “I’d rather not have this conversation here. It’s complicated, and this isn’t the time or place to go into it. Why don’t I give you a call this evening?”

She didn’t move. “Just tell me now,” she said. “What’s going on?”

Michael glanced back at Barry, whose head was still bent over the book. Her book. He turned to face her again. “It’s complicated,” he repeated.

“I’ve plenty of time,” she said.

He remembered how stubborn she could be. He rubbed his face, hunting for the right words.
Just tell her, don’t make a big thing of it
.

“His mother came to me out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago,” he said quietly. “She told me that she’d been…with Ethan, and that the boy was his.”

Valerie stared at him, her mouth dropping open. “He’s
Ethan’s
?” Her head swung back towards the boy.

“He might be, I don’t know,” Michael said quickly. “It’s only her word I have.”

“But why is he here now?” she demanded. “Where’s his mother?”

“She’s…looking for work,” he said. “She can’t do that with a child in tow.”

“Looking for
work
?” Valerie’s frown deepened. “How long has this been going on?”

“Not long,” he said, “I told you, a week or two.”

“Where are they living? How did she find you? Why did she wait till now to make herself known?”

“They’re staying with me,” he told her shortly. “She came because they were being evicted from—”

“They’re
staying
with you? They’re
living
with you?” Her voice rose in disbelief, and Michael glanced again in Barry’s direction, but the boy didn’t react. “You took them
in
, without even checking out their story?”

“I
am
checking it out,” Michael told her, his impatience beginning to rise. “We’ve done a paternity test, and I’m—”

“You’ve done a
paternity
test,” she repeated incredulously. “You’ve taken in two strangers to live with you, and you’ve done a paternity test. Had you any intention of telling me about all of this?”

Keep calm
, he told himself,
nothing to be gained by losing your cool
. “Of course I would have told you, but I thought I should wait until the test results came through, in case it wasn’t true. I’m doing the best I can here. I couldn’t leave them on—”

“Doing the best you can?” She shook her head angrily. “You’re giving bed and board to two people you don’t know from Adam, after throwing your only son onto the street at sixteen—”

“For God’s sake,” Michael said impatiently, “not this again. I had no—”

“You’re showing a boy you didn’t know existed up to a few weeks ago more attention than Ethan or I ever got from you. You failed as a father so you thought you’d try your hand at being a grandfather, is that it?”

“Valerie,” Michael said tightly, “please, you need to understand—”

“
Jesus
,” she breathed, “you didn’t even try to contradict me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake—of
course
I gave you attention, I did as much as any father could do.”

“Until our mother died maybe—and then you switched off, and dumped us on Pauline.” Her face hard as she flung the words at him. “No wonder Ethan went astray.”

Michael felt the anger hot inside him. “You can’t possibly blame me for that—I had this shop to run, I had to get help. What was I expected to do, send you to an orphanage?”

“Maybe you should have, maybe we’d have been better off.” She tossed the envelope she held onto the counter and turned abruptly and strode towards the door.

“Valerie,” Michael called, “don’t leave like this, please—”

The door banged behind her. He stood immobile, shoulders hunched, chest tight. He took a breath and then another. He returned to the counter and picked up the envelope.

The front was blank. He slid a finger under the flap and pulled out the card.
Happy birthday
, he read, above a painting of a sailboat.

Best wishes
, she’d written inside,
from Valerie
.

His birthday. He’d completely forgotten it.

After turning on the oven she typed the text.

He’d see they weren’t making any special arrangement, that there was no dinner on offer this time. Let him take it or leave it. Jackie pressed
send
and off it went.

She took flour and castor sugar from the press, eggs and margarine from the fridge. She brought a mixing bowl to the table and switched on the radio. She loved having Thursdays off, when most people were working. She usually made a batch of buns on Thursday, and topped them with the coconut icing that Eoin liked. She weighed flour and tipped it into the bowl, and let her mind wander.

Three life drawing classes down, three to go. She wouldn’t be sorry when they were over. Whatever Audrey might say about all bodies being beautiful, Jackie was still very conscious of her less beautiful parts. And holding a pose for longer than three or four minutes wasn’t as easy as it looked—if it wasn’t an itch it was pins and needles, or a muscle spasm, waiting to torture her.

She added sugar to the bowl and stirred it through the flour. The money would come in handy, though; she’d already put a deposit on the Wii console in the toy shop. Eoin would be thrilled.

She cracked eggs into the mixture, and cut the margarine into cubes. She plugged in the electric beater and worked it through the ingredients, watching as they came together into a creamy, gloopy mix.

Shame about James being attached, but she’d get over it. She filled a bun tray with paper cases and dolloped spoonfuls of the mixture into them. Nothing to distract her now, though, from the tedium of sitting still for as long as Audrey dictated.

Zarek didn’t interest her, too much of a pretty boy. She’d never gone for the Colin Farrells or Brad Pitts, preferred more rugged features on a man. Give her Harvey Keitel any day. And anyway, she didn’t think she could handle the language barrier that would go along with dating Zarek, always having to think of the easiest way to say something.

It was funny that Audrey kept trying to match them up, but she was completely wasting her time—and Zarek showed as little interest in her as Jackie felt for him.

But just three more nights and it would all be over. And who knew—maybe Charlie’s father would turn out to be a pleasant surprise.

She opened the oven door and slid the tray inside. Talk about clutching at straws.

“You’re good at cookin’,” she said. “I’m useless.”

Michael poured white sauce onto his chicken. “Did your mother never teach you?”

Her face immediately closed. “No.” She cut up Barry’s chicken. “She never cooked nothin’, she hadn’t a clue.”

“Or any of your family? What about your father?”

As soon as the question was out, he recalled her insinuations about her father. He willed his words unsaid, but of course it was too late.

Her mouth twisted. “Him? He couldn’t hot up a tin of beans. He was a waste of space.” She reached for the salt, and added far too much to both their plates. Michael held his tongue.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. A mother who didn’t cook, a father who might have interfered with her. Was it so surprising that she’d turned to drugs?

“My granny cooked,” she said then in a different voice.

“Did she live with you?”

“Yeah, but she died.” She bent her head over her plate, not looking at him.

A week ago they’d come to him, seven nights already spent under his roof. He couldn’t truly say he was unhappy with the arrangement. They were easy, a lot easier than he’d been expecting. He made no allowances when he cooked dinner, and they ate whatever he put in front of them, more or less. Barry balked at some of the vegetables—presumably, Michael assumed, because he’d never come across them before—but the girl generally persuaded him to give them a go.

She cleaned up after each meal. She washed the dishes, she swept the kitchen floor, she wiped down the table. And the bathroom was always tidy—towels hanging on the rail, no puddles, no hairs in the plughole. Somewhere along the way she’d learned how to do things right. Maybe that had been down to the grandmother.

And much to his relief, they hadn’t attempted to come into the sitting room after dinner since the night he’d invited them in himself. Once she’d tidied up they went straight upstairs, and he didn’t see them again until breakfast time.

Not that he’d mind too much, he supposed. They hadn’t unduly bothered him, that one time.

They ate in silence for a few minutes,

“My daughter called into the shop this morning,” Michael told her then. “She wasn’t too pleased to find the boy there.”

Her fork stilled on the way to her mouth. “Did you tell her about us stayin’ here?”

“I did.”

“Does she want you to put us out?”

“It’s not up to her,” he said shortly. “You’ll leave when I say so, and not before.”

She laid her fork down, the food on it uneaten. “When the test comes back,” she said, “you’ll see that I wasn’t tellin’ no lies.”

Michael regarded her pinched face, hair held off her face with a cheap plastic band. “Maybe so.”

She made no attempt to resume eating. “But what’ll you do if the test says that Ethan is the dad? Will you still kick us out an’ send us back on the streets?”