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Life Drawing for Beginners Page 20


  Zarek, though, was a delight. Always good-humored, always eager for Audrey’s advice, even if he was the one who needed it the least. She hadn’t been surprised to learn that this wasn’t his first attempt at life drawing.

  “I like to draw,” he told her, “is good for relaxing.” Poor man, probably catching about a quarter of what she said, despite her attempts to make sure he understood.

  Sadly, her efforts to bring him and Jackie together were proving useless. When she did manage to draw him into conversation with Jackie he made polite small talk with both women, not appearing remotely interested in letting Audrey slip discreetly away.

  Irene clearly was no artist, but she was easily the liveliest in the class, keeping the rest of them amused with frequent deprecatory comments on her own efforts. For all her wisecracking, though, Audrey knew virtually nothing about her life outside the classroom. She knew nothing about any of their lives.

  She stood behind Irene’s latest drawing. Jackie’s hand had been drawn at such an improbable angle to her arm that she’d have to have severely dislocated her wrist to achieve it.

  Irene looked up and grinned. “What d’you think, Audrey? Will they be looking for it in the Louvre?”

  —————

  Michael swept the pale blue swab gently around Barry’s mouth. This was it, he told himself, this would give him the answer. The child held his mother’s hand and kept his eyes on her face as Michael worked.

  “Good boy,” she murmured. “See? I told you it wouldn’t hurt.”

  Michael removed the swab. “Wait here.”

  In his bedroom he placed it on the edge of his chest of drawers to dry, careful not to allow the tip to come into contact with anything. He had to do this right, it had to be perfect.

  He took one of the pink swabs from its envelope and returned to the bathroom and handed it to Carmel. “Roll it against your cheek and under your tongue and behind your bottom lip, and don’t stop till I tell you.”

  He counted slowly to ten in his head. Barry stared as she moved the swab around her mouth. She kept her eyes fixed on the middle of Michael’s chest. At ten he held out his hand and she gave him the swab.

  “Dinner in ten minutes,” he told them.

  Back in his room he used the green swab to collect his own sample. He regarded the three swabs sitting side by side on the chest of drawers. He wrote their three names on the appropriate envelopes. In the morning when they were dry he’d pack up the swabs and post them off, and then they’d wait.

  And then what? His mind still refused to go any further. What a turn his life had taken, Ethan still creating turmoil from the other side of the grave. Michael closed his bedroom door gently and went downstairs to take the shepherd’s pie from the oven.

  —————

  “Working in café is okay,” Zarek said. “The other peoples are friendly, it is not so bad.”

  “And if you get hungry you can help yourself, I suppose,” Audrey said.

  He looked mildly shocked. “Oh no, Audrey, I do not like the fast food, the chip and the burger. It is not good, and very full with the fat. I like to eat the food that is healthy for the body.”

  And Audrey, who had a hard time resisting food that was full with the fat—a bag of salty, vinegary chips, say, with a generous dollop of ketchup—decided that a polite smile was the only possible response.

  “My flat mate Anton is from France,” Zarek went on. “He is very good cook. He cook very nice food, very healthy.”

  “Your own French chef—lucky you.”

  “Yes,” Zarek replied. “I am very lucky.”

  —————

  “Do you have kids?” Fiona asked.

  Irene nodded. The boredom of small talk. “One. You?”

  “Actually”—Fiona smiled, the color rising in her pale face—​“I don’t have any children yet, but I’ve just found out that I’m pregnant.”

  Irene raised an eyebrow. “And you’re happy about it?”

  Fiona looked at her in surprise. “Oh yes, very happy. Delighted. Of course.”

  “In that case, congratulations.” Irene sipped her coffee and grimaced. “Jesus, I thought the tea was bad till I tasted this.”

  “Weren’t you?” Fiona asked.

  “Wasn’t I what?”

  “Happy—when you found out you were pregnant, I mean. Sorry,” she added quickly, reddening again, “it’s just that you asked me, and I thought you sounded as if…well, as if you weren’t—​happy I mean, when you found out. Sorry,” she repeated, “maybe I’m being too personal.”

  What a little mouse she was, tiptoeing around Irene, stuttering and stumbling as if she were going to be taken out and shot if she said the wrong thing.

  “I was as sick as a pig for the whole nine months,” Irene said. “Couldn’t wait for it to be over.”

  “But then your baby was born, and it made it all worthwhile,” Fiona said, and Irene hadn’t the heart to tell the silly cow the truth.

  “Of course,” she said. “When are you due?”

  “Oh, not for ages, not till next May.”

  Irene sipped more horrible coffee. Barely pregnant and over the moon about it, dying to be telling the world. Took all sorts.

  —————

  “I was wondering if you’d like to come to a birthday party—well, it’s really a children’s party—” Meg laughed and pushed her red braid behind her ear “—it’s my daughter actually, she’ll be five. But I thought it might be interesting for you, you know, an Irish birthday party, just to see what it’s like.”

  Zarek struggled to keep his polite smile in place. “Er…when is party?”

  “Friday, around three o’clock. You wouldn’t have to stay for long, just a glass of wine, or whatever…you know, just to experience it.”

  “Oh, sorry, on Friday I work all the day.”

  “Oh…well, no harm, just thought I’d ask.” She smiled brightly before lifting her mug to her lips.

  “Sorry,” Zarek repeated, watching her glasses fog up from the coffee’s steam. Another lie, but he felt it was unavoidable. The invitation had perplexed him. He had no experience of Irish children’s parties—but surely it was rather odd to invite a man to a party for a little girl?

  Coupled with Meg’s presence at the swimming pool the previous Thursday, the invitation suggested rather more to him.

  He might be wrong, he reminded himself, he might be misjudging her. Maybe she genuinely felt it would be interesting for him to witness an Irish child’s birthday party.

  But he thought not.

  —————

  “It’s between the fire station and the library,” Irene said. “Redbrick building, two stories. Floor-to-ceiling windows.”

  “Oh yes,” Audrey said vaguely. She must have walked past it umpteen times—she went to the library every two weeks or so—but she had no memory of seeing a gym on that street. Or maybe she’d seen it and blotted it out.

  “I should have known you had a job that involved lots of exercise,” she told Irene. “You’re so lovely and slim. You must be really fit.”

  “Anyone can be fit,” Irene replied. “All it takes is a bit of willpower. You’d be amazed at how quickly people change once they start to eat right and take some exercise.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re right,” Audrey said, attempting to suck in her stomach, and ignoring the last custard cream on the plate beside her.

  “People come in for a free workout, and most of them are pleasantly surprised by how much easier it is than they were expecting. We tailor our programs to suit the person’s ability, and then adjust them as they start to get fit.”

  “Really? That’s so interesting,” Audrey said, beginning to edge away. “And now you’ll have to excuse me, I need to run to the loo before we go back in.”

  She made her escape, vowing to avoid Irene in future during the breaks.

  —————

  “Night-night, sweetie,” James said, and hung up.
He’d wait until their model went in—the class couldn’t very well resume without her.

  He could see her from the car, sitting on the low wall to the side of the front door. He’d momentarily forgotten her name; he’d always been useless with names. Frances often had to remind him who was who at dinner parties.

  He supposed she wasn’t unattractive, in a girl-next-door kind of way. Nice, pleasant face, the kind that seemed ready to break into a smile at any moment—after she’d gotten over her first-night nerves. Couldn’t be easy, taking off your clothes for strangers—​he didn’t think he could do it, whatever incentive he was offered.

  He saw her standing up and turning towards the door. Give her a minute and he’d follow.

  —————

  “Well done,” Audrey said, “you all made great efforts with your homework.”

  “I sense another lot coming on,” Irene said.

  Audrey smiled. “How right you are, Irene. For next week I’d like you to forget about the whole body and try a few detailed studies, hands and faces in particular.”

  “Hands are impossible,” Fiona said. “I can never get them right.”

  “Everyone finds them tricky,” Audrey assured her. “Just persevere. Remember what I said—map in the whole hand first, then find the line of the knuckles and work from there. Watch the length of the fingers, measure them against one another.”

  “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 fel
t 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.

  Wednesday

  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?