Life Drawing for Beginners Read online

  Jackie Moore was having second thoughts.

  What had she been thinking, how on earth had she imagined that she could do this? It wasn’t as if she’d always yearned to be a model: On the contrary, the thought had never entered her head. For one thing, her figure was far from model material. Not that she was overweight exactly, but you wouldn’t call her slim either.

  And since she’d had Eoin, no amount of sit-ups would flatten her stomach—those muscles were shot forever. And horrible cellulite on her thighs, no matter how much she scrubbed with the loofah, and that awful varicose vein behind her left knee. She was no Elle Macpherson, and never had been.

  The trouble was, Audrey had been so nice, so friendly and chatty. She’d assured Jackie that varicose veins and cellulite didn’t matter in the least.

  “Imperfections are part of nature,” she’d said. “Have you ever seen a perfectly shaped apple?”

  “Er—”

  “Of course not, because it doesn’t exist. Everything in nature is imperfect, including the human body. But nobody will be focusing on that—they’ll be more concerned with curves and lines, and getting things like proportions and foreshortening right.”

  She’d asked how old Jackie was.

  “Twenty-four. Everyone says I look younger.”

  “You certainly do.”

  “How many in the class?”

  “Five, nice and small.”

  “Is it mixed?”

  “Just two men, both very nice.”

  Jackie had visualized two men sitting in front of her—strange men, checking out her breasts, having a good long look at all her bits—and her earlier confidence had begun to waver.

  “Well…”

  “Don’t worry,” Audrey had said, in the kind of warm voice you’d expect Mrs. Claus, or your fairy godmother, to have. “There’s bound to be a little awkwardness initially. That’s perfectly normal when you live in a society where nakedness is associated with sexuality, where the nude body is regarded as something that should be covered up.”

  “That’s true.” Jackie thought of Irish beaches, where people undressed under towels, terrified of showing intimate parts in public.

  “The human form,” Audrey had declared, “is a thing of beauty, nothing to be ashamed of at all. Not in the least.”

  And the thing was, Audrey’s own figure was far from ideal. Jackie would have said quite overweight, although she carried herself well, her broad shoulders back, her head held high, and she had a pleasant, open face. Surely such an abundance of flesh wouldn’t be regarded as a thing of beauty though?

  Mind you, most of the nudes in famous old paintings had had pretty generous curves, all wide hips and full bosoms, all big bellies and substantial thighs, and the artists had obviously thought them worth painting, so maybe it was only modern thinking that said you had to be thin to look good.

  Really, why shouldn’t every human body, whatever its shape, be considered beautiful? The idea was certainly appealing. No more anorexia, no more girls and women starving themselves in the name of beauty. Everyone waddling around happily.

  Audrey had poured them both more tea from the pot they’d gotten to follow the cannelloni. “So what do you think? Are you interested?”

  The money being offered wasn’t great, but it would make it possible for Jackie to get the Wii that Eoin wanted. And it all sounded so easy: just sit there, or lie there, or whatever, and collect your money at the end. Really, what was there to object to? All Jackie had to do was get over her inhibitions, loosen up a bit.

  “I think I’m interested,” she’d said. And just like that, she’d committed herself.

  For the rest of the day she’d felt satisfied with her decision. She’d seen a way to make a bit of extra cash and she’d gone for it. She’d obviously impressed Audrey, who’d said more than once that she thought Jackie would be perfect for the job.

  When you thought about it, Jackie was being terribly broad-minded and mature. She was the girl who took her clothes off for art. As she walked home from the café she’d felt acutely conscious of how she was moving. She’d found herself straightening her shoulders, pushing her chest forward, swinging her hips. She was an artist’s model. She was a thing of beauty.

  But when she lay in bed that night, the implications of what she’d done began to sink in. Taking off her clothes, all her clothes? Standing there completely naked, with five people focused on her wobbly bits—did she really have the confidence to go through with it?

  And throughout the following day, the whole notion had become more and more intimidating. What if the women were all glamorous and beautiful, the kind of women who enrolled in evening classes just to have something to talk about at dinner parties? How could Audrey be sure they wouldn’t sneer when Jackie presented her far-from-perfect body to them, or snigger at her dimpled behind, her pitifully small breasts?

  Or worse, what if someone she knew had enrolled in the class, what if a neighbor turned up? What if she had to undress for Mr. MacDonald in Number 20, whose gaze drifted to her fully covered chest anytime she talked to him? Two men, Audrey had said. And if anyone she knew had signed up, just imagine her parents’ horror when they found out what their daughter was doing on Tuesday nights. They wouldn’t see it as art, no way.

  Round and round her uncertainties flew, growing and multiplying until now, the night before the first class, Jackie knew that she simply couldn’t do it. She felt awful about letting Audrey down by backing out at such short notice, but not awful enough to conquer her fears. Surely a few other people had responded to the ad, surely a replacement could be found?

  She checked that her parents were watching television before scrolling through her phone contacts until she reached Audrey Matthews. She took a deep breath and pressed call, and listened to Audrey’s phone ringing.

  And ringing.

  After eleven rings her son came out to the hall and saw Jackie sitting on the stairs.

  “Can I have a biscuit?”

  “Just one—and brush your teeth straight after.”

  She listened to three more rings before the line went dead. No voice mail, no way of letting Audrey know she’d changed her mind. What now?

  She hung up and walked slowly into the kitchen. Audrey had been so friendly when they’d met, and so delighted with Jackie. What if she couldn’t get a replacement, what if the class had to be canceled because of Jackie abandoning ship at the last minute?

  “I need my PE gear tomorrow,” Eoin said, replacing the lid of the biscuit barrel.

  “Right,” Jackie said absently.

  Maybe she should give it a go, just once, and see how it went. It mightn’t be as bad as she was imagining. Maybe the people who’d signed up would be nice and mature, maybe they’d be totally impervious to the fact that Jackie was naked. Maybe they’d just concentrate on making art.

  And if it did turn out to be awful she could say so after the class, and her conscience would be clear because Audrey would have a whole week to find someone else.

  She followed Eoin upstairs, just as Audrey climbed, dripping, from her Monday-evening bath.

  —————

  “You have to go,” he said, grinding his cigarette butt into the bare cement floor. Carmel knew he was doing it to annoy her; he knew she hated cigarettes. He could just as easily have flicked it out the open window.

  “We got nowhere,” she said. “You can’t throw us out, we’ll be on the street.”

  “Not my problem,” he said. “I told you, you don’t deal, you don’t make no money, you can’t stay.”

  “You can’t make us go,” she said. “This isn’t your place. We was here before you.”

  He took a step in their direction and she instinctively pushed Barry behind her. He reached out and grabbed her wrist and squeezed it painfully.

  “You’ll go,” he said softly, “or your little boy will be sorry. You can’t watch him all the time.”

  She felt something lurch inside her. “You touc
h him an’ I’ll kill you,” she said, feeling his nails digging into the skin of her arm.

  He laughed. “Stop, you’re scaring me,” he said, dropping her arm. “You got two days to go back to dealing, or you’re out.” He hawked and spat on the floor, barely missing Carmel’s shoe. “You hear?”

  Carmel said nothing.

  “Two days,” he repeated. “Then it’s bye-bye.” He wheeled and left the room, and Carmel turned and gathered Barry into her arms, her skin still burning.

  She’d have to go back to the pet shop. Even though Ethan’s father thought she was a liar, even though he’d ordered her out and said he’d call the police, she’d have to go back and try again, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  “My tummy hurts,” Barry whimpered.

  She put her hand on it and rubbed round and round, the way her granny used to do with her. “Shh,” she said.

  She was afraid of going back to the pet shop. He’d be angry when he saw her again, he might get so angry that he’d hit her this time. But she had nothing else, nobody else.

  She put Barry on the bed and pulled the blanket up around him, even though it smelled like sour milk. His forehead wasn’t hot, so it must be the sandwich giving him the pain. She often took stuff from the bins at the back of the supermarket. She only took things that were still wrapped up, but once in a while something would be gone off and you wouldn’t know until later. He’d vomit it up in a while and he’d be okay.

  She found a plastic bag and left it by the bed. She sang softly to him, rubbing his tummy round and round.

  Tuesday

  But why are you going?”

  James untied and redid the belt of his daughter’s red dressing gown. “I told you, because I’d like to try and do some drawing. It’s just for a little while.”

  “But why can’t you do drawing here?” She poked a finger through one of his buttonholes.

  “Because I want the teacher to help me,” he answered patiently. “Because I’m not very good.”

  “But why can I not come too?”

  “Because it’s only for grown-ups.”

  Charlie pulled hard at the buttonhole. “That’s not fair.”

  James smiled. “Well, school is only for children—that’s not fair either.”

  “I hate school,” she said crossly, twirling her finger around, winding the fabric into a creased bunch. “School is a stinky bum.”

  “Now, now, that’s not very nice,” he said, extricating the finger. “And mind my poor jacket, you’re making it all crumply. Look, you’re going to have great fun with Eunice.”

  “I don’t like Eunice,” Charlie mumbled. “She’s smelly.”

  “Ach now,” James protested—but he had to admit that his daughter had a point. Helpful as their new neighbor was proving to be, Eunice wasn’t exactly fragrant. On the contrary, she exuded a peculiarly cheesy odor, which James suspected was emanating from her feet. But what could he do, when she was allowing him these two precious hours of freedom?

  Just then, Eunice herself came bustling in from the kitchen. “The popcorn is made,” she said. “Will we let Daddy get off?”

  Charlie buried her head in James’s chest. “Don’t want popcorn,” she mumbled.

  “Now stop that,” James said firmly, taking her shoulders and holding her out from him. “Have some manners. Eunice is being very kind to you. Come on now,” he added coaxingly, “be nice. Tell you what,” he went on, inspiration striking, “I’ll phone you at the break and tell you a story.” The break should roughly coincide with her bedtime—and would surely last ten minutes.

  Charlie looked doubtfully at him. “Not a old story.”

  “No—this one will be brand-new.”

  “With a princess. And a pony.”

  James got up from the sofa. “Princess and pony, got you. And you have to promise to go straight to bed for Eunice afterwards. Deal?”

  She considered. “Okay.”

  “Good girl. Now I need you to find my car keys.”

  As she left the room James turned to Eunice. “Thanks again for doing this. I hope she’ll be okay for you. She’s been…a bit clingy since we moved down here.”

  Eunice nodded. “Of course she has—and all the more reason for you to get a little break. Don’t you worry about us, we’ll be fine.”

  James wondered what Eunice and Gerry had made of a man moving into the area with a small daughter and no sign of a partner. He’d made no mention of Frances to them, and thankfully they hadn’t asked—assuming, probably, that he was either widowed or divorced. Eunice had offered to babysit before James had even considered going out in the evenings. Feeling sorry for the lone father, no doubt.

  “Tuesdays would suit best,” she’d told him, “since it’s Gerry’s night for cards with the boys down at the local. I’m sure you could join them, if you were interested.”

  James could imagine Eunice cajoling her husband to take the newcomer along to meet the boys. He wondered how long his past would remain a secret in the company of card-playing drinkers. And what he’d seen of the local, with its graffiti-covered walls and huddle of tough-looking smokers in the doorway, didn’t encourage closer acquaintance.

  “I’m not much of a one for cards,” he’d lied, “but thanks for the offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  And the more he thought about it, the more he longed for one evening away from the demands a six-year-old could put on you. He loved his daughter dearly, but having sole responsibility for her from five o’clock each weekday, and all weekend, was extremely challenging.

  When Frances was there, it had been so much easier. The care of Charlie had been shared between them during the week, and Maud and Timothy, less than forty miles away, were happy to take their only grandchild for at least part of each weekend. James adored his only daughter, but like any parent he appreciated the breaks from her too.

  And now her mother was gone, and her father had made a decision that had put real distance between Charlie and her grandparents, and the only break he got apart from work was the once-a-month visit to Maud and Timothy’s for Sunday lunch.

  James had been uncertain when they’d suggested it. The events of two years ago had prompted a seismic change in the relationship between him and his parents-in-law that didn’t surprise him in the least. Their lives had been upturned, their happiness snatched away in a single afternoon, and they had no way of knowing if James was responsible.

  The case was still open, with nobody having been charged, or even arrested—for without any evidence, with no proof that any crime had even taken place, how could any arrest be made? James imagined what awful mixed feelings Maud and Timothy must have, how they must wish for an ending, even the worst of all possible endings—for wouldn’t that be better than this terrible limbo into which they’d all been plunged?

  But whatever they felt for and about James, whatever dark places their thoughts about him might bring them, they were still Charlie’s grandparents, and she needed them in her life. They needed each other, with Charlie their only remaining link to Frances. So James had agreed to the monthly Sunday lunches, even though the visit now involved a round trip of over two hundred miles. But the first one had been successful, if only from Charlie’s point of view.

  His parents-in-law had both been perfectly polite, of course, and Maud had pressed more roast lamb on James, and a second helping of blackberry and apple crumble afterwards. But the strain had been there, he’d felt it in the lightning glances that passed occasionally between the older couple, in the small pauses between remarks, in the forced element of their laughter.

  Happily, Charlie had been oblivious to any tension. Throughout the visit she’d chattered to her grandparents, answering their questions about school and friends and the new house. She’d fallen asleep in the car on the way home, and James had watched his daughter’s face in the rearview mirror and seen, with a familiar pang, her mother’s high cheekbones and pointed chin.

  Now, dri
ving the mile or so to Carrickbawn Senior College, James felt a growing sense of dread. He hadn’t a clue how to draw, and he had no wish to learn. For the second time he considered absconding from the whole business, driving to a pub and sitting with a drink and the evening paper for two hours. What would anyone care, who would even know except himself and the other people in the class, perfect strangers whose opinion didn’t matter a damn to him?

  But he’d signed up and paid, and he’d bought the pencils and charcoal, the sketch pad and the putty rubber. He may as well give it a go, at least once. If it was as bad as he was anticipating, he need never return.

  He turned into the college car park at twenty-seven minutes past seven precisely.

  —————

  Zarek was looking forward to his first life drawing class in Ireland. He wondered if there would be any difference between these classes and the ones he’d taken at home. He supposed a nude body was a nude body, whatever the nationality—although he had yet to see what a naked Irish body looked like—and the rules for drawing the human form must surely be the same the world over. Still, it would be interesting to see how this teacher, whose name he’d forgotten, would approach the subject. He hoped his English wouldn’t let him down.

  Although he couldn’t remember her name, the teacher had made a good first impression on him. Her flowing, colorful clothes, her generous, womanly build told him that here was a person who, like himself, enjoyed the sensual, the visual, the beautiful. Of course he had to acknowledge that she was no great beauty herself, at least not in the popular, physical sense.

  Attractive certainly though, with her fresh, unlined skin, and brown hair whose curls gleamed with rich, red lights—did he imagine it, or did all Irish people have some red in their hair?—and eyes the color of caramel.

  Her personality was appealing too. Her friendliness was tempered with a touching hesitancy; her instincts, Zarek felt sure, tending towards helpfulness. She would make a good teacher, she would guide rather than steer. Her criticism would be kindly meant, and constructive.

  He took his jacket from its hook and lifted his satchel onto his shoulder as the apartment door opened and one of his flat mates appeared.