Life Drawing for Beginners Read online

  “Please, what is primary?”

  “A school for young children. I teach the youngest of all, Junior Infants. My students are all four- and five-year-olds.”

  “Ah yes—you are lady who say, ‘Welcome to my school, please enjoy your stay.’”

  Fiona laughed. “I suppose so, except that it’s not really my school—I just work there.”

  Zarek nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I make small joke.”

  In Ireland, nobody got his jokes.

  —————

  “What do you think of Zarek?”

  Jackie looked at Audrey. “I hope you’re not trying to matchmake.”

  “Oh come on—he’s lovely. And he’s just about your age.”

  Jackie turned to regard Zarek, who’d just been approached by Meg. “Ah no, he’s a bit too pretty for me…and anyway, it looks like someone else might be interested.” She scanned the rest of the lobby, which also contained students from other classes. “I see James has disappeared again.”

  “Has he?” Audrey asked, hoping her face wasn’t going pink, but suspecting it might be. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  —————

  “Personal trainer,” Irene said. “It’s actually my husband’s gym—I was working there when I met him.”

  Fiona’s eyes widened. “He owns a gym? Lucky you—he must be well off.”

  Irene was half amused, half annoyed. The woman wouldn’t know how to be tactful if her life depended on it. “Actually,” Irene told her, “I didn’t marry him for his money.”

  The smile slid from Fiona’s face. “Oh no, I didn’t mean—”

  “My family owns Happy Shopper.”

  Fiona’s mouth dropped open. “The supermarket chain?”

  “Yup.” Irene took another sip of the horribly strong tea. “I believe the expression is ‘filthy rich.’ If anyone was a gold digger, it was my husband. So what do you do?”

  “I’m a primary school teacher,” Fiona said faintly. “I teach Junior Infants.”

  “How nice.” Irene wondered how many more minutes of break were left.

  —————

  “I take some life drawing classes in Poland,” Zarek said. “In the university in my town.”

  “Thought so,” Meg replied. “You’re definitely not a beginner. So what other talents have you got?”

  “Please?”

  “What do you like to do, when you’re not working?”

  “Well, I like listen to music, and sometime DVD watch, and I like also to swim.”

  “Swim? You go to the pool here?”

  “Yes, I go sometime, on Thursday in the night. If I no have to work.”

  “Thursday,” Meg repeated. “I go there sometimes too. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

  —————

  Jackie wandered outside, needing to move around after sitting and lying still for most of the past hour. Thankfully there had been no sign of the protesting couple this evening—presumably they felt they’d made their point last week. Jackie had had visions of them bursting into the room, calling her all sorts of names, and throwing a blanket over her.

  She walked briskly around the car park, enjoying the feeling of her muscles stretching themselves. As she approached a black Volkswagen she saw that there was a man sitting in the driver’s seat. He seemed to be on the phone.

  By the time she recognized him it was too late to swing around, so she pretended not to notice him as she walked past, but there was no way he could have missed her. She hoped he didn’t think she’d gone looking for him.

  Which of course she hadn’t.

  —————

  Had she seen him? She gave no sign that she had. It didn’t matter anyway, he was entitled to spend the break as he wanted.

  “The frog climbed up the wall and—”

  “Frogs can’t climb walls,” Charlie said.

  “This one could, he was a magic frog. So he climbed up the wall and jumped onto the windowsill and looked in at the princess.”

  The model had turned back towards the doorway. Break must be nearly over.

  “He decided that such a beautiful princess would never love an ugly frog like him, so he hopped back down and lived sadly ever after in his pond.”

  “Is that the end?”

  “It sure is. Don’t forget to brush your teeth. Hugs and kisses.”

  Shame you couldn’t change the endings as easily in real life. He hung up and got out of the car.

  —————

  “I let you off last week because it was your first,” Audrey said, “but now that you’ve all settled in, it’s time for a little homework.”

  “Homework?” Irene repeated. “You’re not serious.”

  Audrey smiled, not at all put out. It was an evening class; no big deal if they chose to ignore her homework. “It won’t take long, and it would be good to do a little bit of drawing during the week—like anything, the more you practice, the better you’ll become.”

  “So what should we do?” Meg asked.

  “Just find a subject and get them to sit for you. I want you to try doing a few short poses, like we did at the start. Four minutes maximum for each pose, no longer.”

  “Do they have to be, er, naked?” Fiona asked, and a titter went around the room.

  “If it’s in the privacy of your own home, why not?” Irene suggested. “Could get interesting.”

  More laughter.

  “No, not at all,” Audrey put in hastily. “Fully clothed is fine—​and if you can get a few different subjects, even better. Just put them in fairly uncomplicated poses, and remember that all you’re trying to get down on paper is the overall shape that they make. Forget about details, we’ll concentrate on them later.”

  The students began to gather their things. Jackie went off to get dressed. Audrey unplugged the fan heater and packed it into her basket.

  “Excuse?”

  She looked up to find Zarek standing by her side. “Yes?”

  “You want we draw at home?”

  Lord, she’d forgotten to make sure he understood. “Sorry, Zarek—yes, I would like you to try doing some drawing at home. Do you have someone who would sit for you? A friend maybe?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I have two friend in my flat.”

  Sharing a flat with two others. It didn’t tell her much; one of them could be a girlfriend. She hadn’t gotten to chatting with Zarek at the break yet, he was still very much an unknown to her.

  But she still had hopes of him for Jackie, whom she was pretty sure was single. Not that Audrey would dream of trying to manipulate anything, but it didn’t hurt to keep an eye open, did it?

  When he’d left, Audrey put on her jacket and walked through the empty classroom to the door. She switched off the horrible fluorescent lights and made her way up the corridor to where Vincent was sweeping the lobby floor.

  “So how’s it coming along?” he asked. “Settling into it, are you?”

  “Oh yes, I’m enjoying it,” she told him. “And I think the students are too.”

  She was glad she’d gone for the evening classes, nice to have something to look forward to on Tuesday evenings. And it seemed that the group was gelling—apart from James, of course. Definitely the dark horse of the class—and if that was what he wanted, there wasn’t a thing she could do.

  Plenty of time though, Audrey the optimist pointed out. Only two classes gone, four more to go. You never knew what might happen. She said good night to Vincent and stepped out, buttoning her jacket against the lashing rain.

  —————

  So loud the rain sounded on the roof of the shed—but miraculously there seemed to be only one place where it was actually coming in, and they could avoid that by moving nearer to the other end.

  Carmel had put plenty of newspapers underneath them, but her hips still had bruises in the morning. They slept in their clothes, and used their jackets for blankets. She’d gotten two pillows in the charity shop for thirty cent
s. One smelled of cats, and was lumpy.

  But it didn’t matter, none of it mattered. She had Barry, whose warm little body curled up into hers as he slept. She loved him so fiercely it terrified her. What if she couldn’t always look after him, what if someone tried to hurt him and Carmel couldn’t stop them? What if some drunken monster like her father found him?

  She pushed the thought away, she refused to let it grow. Nothing like that would happen. Things would get better, she had to believe that. Something would come along—no, it wouldn’t come along, she’d have to find it. But she would find it, she’d never give up, no matter how many people told her to get lost.

  She stroked Barry’s head softly and listened to the rain thumping on the roof.

  Wednesday

  Jackie’s phone beeped as she brought the empty cereal bowls to the sink. She fished it out of her pocket and read Private Number. She opened the message and the words appeared on the screen:

  Tnks for invite, Charlie away next wknd—J Sullivan

  He’d gotten her note on Monday, two days ago. It had been very polite and not at all pushy. Jackie had suggested that Charlie come to play with Eoin on the following Sunday. She’d offered to collect Charlie and drop her home again, she’d said they’d give her dinner. Nothing that he could possibly take offense at.

  And this was his response. No mention of possible alternatives, no number so she could get back to him. Clearly he wasn’t interested in his daughter making any friends in her new home. Poor girl, with a dead mother and a father who didn’t seem to give a damn.

  Jackie deleted the message as Eoin walked into the kitchen with his schoolbag. She’d say nothing, she’d wait until he asked again and then she’d tell him Charlie’s dad was too busy. What else could she do?

  “Did you get your PE gear?” she asked. “I left it on the chair on the landing.”

  “Forgot.” He disappeared again.

  J Sullivan. He couldn’t even be bothered to write his full name.

  —————

  “I’ve come to apologize,” she said as soon as the customer before her had left the shop. “I was rude to you the last time I was in here.” The pink in her cheeks almost matching the little circles that dotted her white blouse.

  She was the last person Michael had expected to see in the shop again. He was bemused that she felt it necessary to apologize. Her conscience was clearly a lot more active than his.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ve been called worse. You may have noticed I’m an antisocial bastard. Excuse my French,” he added, thinking she was probably the type who didn’t appreciate bad language.

  He didn’t think he was being funny, but to his surprise her features relaxed, and he fancied he saw the ghost of a smile cross her face. He thought a smile was probably easy enough to coax from her, if you wanted to. He remembered the ice cream cone in the park, and decided she was probably predisposed to being happy.

  He wondered what that felt like.

  “Well,” she said, turning towards the door, “that’s really all I wanted to say.”

  “How’s the dog settling in?” He had no idea where the question came from.

  “Getting a little easier to manage, thank you.” She paused. “I asked the vet for advice, and he was very helpful.”

  The significance of the remark didn’t escape Michael, but he sensed no malice in it. He didn’t think she was trying to make him feel bad—or maybe she was, a little, but not in a nasty way. Just giving him a gentle nudge.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said. “They can be a bit tricky at the start. Dogs, I mean,” he added, “not vets.”

  No harm to coax another smile from her. Had a pleasant effect on her face, causing two small dimples to crease her cheeks. Smiling suited her a lot more than frowning—but maybe that was true of everyone.

  “Well,” she said, “good-bye then.”

  “Good-bye.” It occurred to him as she walked out that it was the first civil conversation they’d had—and quite possibly the last. He didn’t imagine she’d be in again, now that she’d said her piece and was coping with the dog.

  He put her from his mind and began making out a pet food order.

  —————

  James squeezed toothpaste onto Charlie’s brush and handed it to her. “Up and down, remember, not sideways.”

  Charlie took the brush and began to scrub. It had been Frances who’d taught her to brush her teeth, Frances who’d cut her nails when they got too long, Frances who’d washed her hair and bathed her, and bought new pajamas when the old ones didn’t fit anymore.

  The first time James had taken Charlie to get new shoes, he hadn’t had a clue what size her feet were. How would he explain his ignorance to a shop assistant? Would she think it strange that he didn’t know? He’d been vastly relieved when he hadn’t even been asked for a size before the assistant placed one of Charlie’s feet into some kind of a measuring device. He’d had no idea that every child’s shoe shop had a similar facility, that children’s feet grew so quickly that sometimes they skipped a whole size between one pair of shoes and the next.

  Of course he knew that now; talk about a steep learning curve. Since Charlie had started school he’d learned not to panic over playground bumps and bruises, and he’d become pretty good at removing paint and other stains from her clothes. He’d learned to check her schoolbag each day for lunchbox spills and notes from teachers, and he’d also mastered the art—after a few unpleasant head lice encounters—of tying up her hair in two vaguely symmetrical bunches. Braids, he felt, could wait until she was able to do them herself.

  But there were some things he was still unsure of, and one of them was bedtime. Was half past eight too late for a six-year-old? Charlie never seemed tired before then, but maybe he shouldn’t wait until she started yawning. He’d feel stupid asking anyone such a basic question, so he didn’t.

  “Finished.”

  She handed him the toothbrush and he ran the head under the tap and filled the plastic tumbler with water. “Rinse.”

  Their nightly routine, never varying except on Tuesdays when he went to drawing class, and Saturdays when he gave her a bath. It suddenly occurred to him that at some stage in the future it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to be bathing his daughter, but when? So many minefields ahead of them.

  “Will you read The Cat in the Hat?” Charlie asked.

  He made as if to collapse. “Again? That’ll be six million zillion times.”

  “But I love it, Daddy.”

  “I know you do.”

  The note from Eoin’s mother had taken him by surprise, although he probably should have been expecting some sort of approach. “What’s this?” he’d asked, pulling the envelope out of Charlie’s lunchbox.

  “Mrs. Grossman gave it to me,” she’d told him—but it wasn’t her teacher’s handwriting, and Mrs. Grossman wouldn’t write Charlie’s Dad on the envelope. He’d opened it and pulled out the single sheet and read Hello—wondering if Charlie would like to visit Eoin next Sunday. I can collect and deliver her back if that suits. (And we can provide dinner, as long as she’s happy with roast beef!)

  She’d signed it Jackie, and added Eoin’s Mum in brackets. And below the signature, a mobile phone number.

  Jackie—whose partner, according to Charlie, was dead; and hadn’t grandparents been mentioned? So chances were she was currently unattached, if she and Eoin were living with her parents. And if James knew that Eoin’s father was no longer around, this Jackie was probably aware that Frances wasn’t on the scene anymore either.

  He couldn’t help wondering if there was a hidden agenda here. What if she was looking for a replacement father for her son, or maybe just a new partner for herself? Was he being ridiculous, thinking like that? Had what happened to him made him paranoid, along with everything else?

  He appreciated that parents needed to make contact with each other in order to manage their offspring’s friendships; but even if the invit
ation was entirely innocent, he discovered he simply couldn’t face the prospect of having to socialize with another adult to such a degree.

  Because this would just be the start, wouldn’t it? He’d have to reciprocate, and before you knew it there’d be sleepovers and trips to the park together, and he and Eoin’s mother would of necessity become a couple, of sorts.

  He supposed it was the same reluctance he felt for mixing with the four other students in the art class. Mixing meant talking about yourself at some stage, mixing meant surrendering your secrets, sooner or later.

  He knew, of course, that he couldn’t avoid Eoin’s mother, or any other parents of Charlie’s friends, indefinitely. For one thing, it wasn’t fair to Charlie, who had every right to a social life. And for another, she’d surely wear him down eventually. For somebody who still had trouble tying her shoelaces, and who needed him to check for trolls under her bed each night, his daughter was surprisingly good at getting what she wanted.

  But not yet; he wasn’t ready yet to risk it all coming out again. He couldn’t face another round of unasked questions, hostile looks, whispers behind hands. He couldn’t go through all that again, not when they’d barely settled into Carrickbawn.

  He’d texted a response to the mobile number, knowing how unfriendly it would sound to Eoin’s mother. No doubt she’d be put out by his blunt refusal, but there was nothing he could do to help that. He hoped he wasn’t jeopardizing Charlie’s friendship with Eoin, who sounded like a nice boy. Surely the mother wouldn’t take it out on the children if she was annoyed?

  It was a chance he’d have to take. He sat on the edge of his daughter’s bed and opened her bedtime story.

  —————

  Not a single sarcastic comment, not a look or a gesture Audrey could object to. On the contrary, he’d been quite civil—almost pleasant, in fact. Even making a joke about the vet.

  Of course his language had been a little choice, but considering how much more objectionable he’d been on previous occasions, Audrey was willing to overlook that. And he had excused himself afterwards, which had been gratifying.