Life Class (41 page)

Stefan saw her bottom lip quiver.

‘What?’ he asked again. ‘You’re worrying me.’

‘Please don’t worry,’ she said with a sniff and half laugh. ‘I’m being pathetic.’ Shaking her head, she took a stuttering breath. ‘I don’t know why they felt they had to announce it like that. I am
so
not interested!’

Whatever ‘it’ was, she’d been deeply affected, Stefan realised. And though he asked her a third time, it was apparently easier for her to talk around the subject.

‘And Gabriella had this infuriating little smirky smile. And I had to sit there and listen to all their gooey rubbish and pretend to be interested and pretend to … It just about put the tin lid on it when we got back to the house and Malcolm told me he’d had Dom’s results all evening! I just grabbed my things and left. There was no way I was going to stay in that house if I didn’t have to. I only just caught the train home. And when I got my mobile out to call you, I remembered I’d meant to charge it up. I could have kicked myself. It was as flat as a pancake.’

‘I’ve told you, it doesn’t matter.’

‘That’s why I drove straight here. I’m sorry to have arrived so late.’

‘Stop apologising. It was far more exciting and dramatic to get the news that way. You are utterly and delightfully mad. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am.’

‘I needed to tell you straight away. For you as much as Dom. I know you care about him.’

He nodded. There wouldn’t be a better time to come clean, even though it was late and they were both tired and a bit drunk. ‘There’s something I should have mentioned,’ he began. ‘You accused me of … how did you put it … exploiting Dom’s vulnerability?’

‘I’d no right to speak to you like that,’ she interrupted. ‘Life is never black and white, is it? And your relationship with Dom was …
is
… none of my business. But at the time, I was in your bad books for telling my sister about Dom being gay. Attack seemed the simplest way to deflect your disapproval. I regretted what I’d said immediately. But I know the real situation.’

‘You know?’

‘Dom told me, after laughing at the very idea. He told me you are his true friend, but you’re not gay. What perplexes me is why you let me make all those accusations. Why you didn’t correct me?’

Stefan picked up the champagne bottle and tried unsuccessfully to squeeze out another few drops.

‘Another?’

‘Better not. I’m sloshed already.’ ‘I’ll make coffee.’

‘Before you disappear off to the kitchen, will you explain?’

Why
had
he allowed her to rant at him? Why did he find it easier to let the world misjudge him?

‘I was half amused, half curious as to why you cared so much. But I thought, ultimately, best to let it lie. Sleeping dogs et cetera.’ He raised his eyebrows at her.

‘You preferred me to think badly of you?’

He sighed. ‘For a very long time it has suited me to remain out of play, if you like, in life’s great mating game.’ A long pause developed. He wondered what she made of the statement. He wondered what his own attitude was these days. It wasn’t something he reflected on. Maybe the time was right to revisit a decision made so long ago.

‘So, what
is
the story?’ she asked eventually. Here it comes, he thought. Dory’s not going to allow me to make a statement like that without interrogation. ‘About you and Dominic? You behave like a father. A groovy, laid-back, indulgent father, but still a father. You’re not, are you? Dom’s dad?’

He half laughed. She’d let him off one hook only to try and catch him with another.

Stefan stood up. ‘I’ll make the coffee. Don’t worry. I will tell you, but I need some caffeine first.’

Side by side on the sofa, Stefan told her how he and Dominic had met.

‘But it is
just
the beginning, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘There was a misunderstanding which could have been embarrassing, but which you both saw the funny side of. And then he modelled for you. You did the Icarus series based on Dominic, didn’t you? But there’s more to it. Why are you so close? Why did you take him under your wing?’

‘You know his history?’

‘I don’t know the detail, but I’ve made some assumptions.’

‘He’s only recently discovered that his drug addict sister is really his mother. His father was one of her unknown customers. From a young age, he was in care. Or
looked after
in current parlance. Foster placements broke down. He suffered bullying and abuse from older boys and was suspended from school so often he simply stopped going. He couldn’t stand the interference and the expectations at the children’s home he was living in. When he demanded to leave, their only offer was for him to go into supported accommodation, a hostel-type arrangement with social workers on shift. He was too young to be put in a flat. Dom being Dom wanted total freedom. He was offered training, but only for jobs he had no aptitude for, like car maintenance or building work. Easy for us to say he should have stuck with it, should have stayed in the accommodation, should have knuckled down and learnt a trade whether or not he fancied it. He was a damaged child who already knew he could make an independent living by prostituting himself.’

‘When you and he met, he desperately needed someone stable in his life. I see that … but why did you make the decision to be that person? Most of us walk by on the other side of the road. We may feel sympathy, but we move on. We have other things to do with our lives and don’t need the hassle. We leave it to someone else. What made
you
go the extra mile for Dominic?’

Stefan looked into her fascinating eyes and wondered how she saw him. If she had him down as some kind of altruistic hero, he needed to put her straight.

‘Don’t make it out to be more than it was. I never planned it. He wore me down.’ He briefly clutched his hand to his face and dragged it down, feeling the graze of his beard against his palm. Her wide eyes were fixed on him. He wanted to be open, but was scared of alienating her. Eventually, he said, ‘I saw that Dom needed support and encouragement. At his age it was what I’d wanted but didn’t get. But I was luckier. I had an education and possessed a kind of dogged self-belief. I rebelled against my father and went off without his blessing.’

‘To study sculpture?’

‘Fine art. I’d always been fascinated by sculpture but the sort of figurative work I wanted to do was discouraged. Easier to produce the kind of painting that gained approval, so that’s what I specialised in to get my degree. Then reality bit. I never sold anything. More importantly, I didn’t have the commitment, the love for what I was doing to make it as a painter. I had to earn a living. So, because of my interest in sculpture, I decided to get a job in a foundry and learn the process from the bottom up. I did a class in the evenings.’

‘It’s a big leap from working in a foundry to doing a post-graduate degree at the Graduate School of Figurative Art?’

‘We had a regular client at the foundry, you might have heard of him. Hugh Devon? The work we did with him was very collaborative. Though he didn’t do the kind of thing I was personally interested in, I liked
him.
He was a good bloke, and in the early days of his success, he was generous and keen to share the perks with the people who’d helped him. When he had his first one-man show in New York, a couple of us from the foundry went with him. Of course he was the star. We were just the hangers-on. We soon found ourselves at a loose end.

‘Before coming home, I visited the GSFA’s end of year show. I was blown away by what they were doing there. When I got home I put together a folio of work and applied. In fact, Hugh encouraged me. I don’t suppose his support was unrelated to the fact I was awarded a place, but hey, I didn’t care how I’d got there. But life jumped up and bit me.’ Stefan stopped talking and looked at Dory. Her large, amber eyes were fixed on his face, as if enthralled. He smiled and reached out to stroke her downy cheek. ‘I’m sorry. How have we gone off on this self-pitying tangent?’

‘I’m always interested in people’s lives. How they end up doing what they do. For most it’s a chapter of accidents, coincidence, and happenstance. Add in a generous measure of “other people’s expectations” and you’ve got
my
life.
You
seem to have pursued your goals more single-mindedly than most.’

‘Bloody-mindedly. At least I finished the course and got my Masters before I got the news my father was very ill and not expected to make it. I came home, but he defied the prognosis. In those last few months of his life, I’ve sometimes wondered what he would have made of Dom, less than sixteen at the time, modelling naked for me in the barn while he was up on his deathbed. He would’ve been appalled. I was never the son he wanted.’

‘And you still feel guilty about that?’

Stefan shook his head. ‘A child should never be burdened with the expectations of its parents. Parents shouldn’t demand gratitude from their children for the accident of birth.’

The conversation had come full circle. Dory looked away, and was now gazing down at her linked fingers. He stared at her profile and a slight frown puckered her brow. There was a part of his life story he’d told no one apart from Dominic. It suddenly felt necessary to tell Dory now. He’d bottled it once. There wouldn’t be a better moment.

‘We were talking about Dom. I’m not his father, but …’ Dory looked up at him. ‘Even on first meeting him I felt concerned about him … Perhaps because part of me has always acknowledged that I could have been.’

‘You had sex with his mother?’

‘God, no!’ A memory of the scrawny, waif-like woman Dom had recently pointed out to him flashed up in his mind. He pulled a face. ‘She must have been fourteen when she had him. When I was at college, nineteen odd years ago, I had a girlfriend, Chrissie. It wasn’t serious on my part. She, though, was probably after something more committed, particularly when …’ Stefan paused, thinking about those times, and the girl who had briefly attached herself to him. He wondered how Dory was going to react. It could be make or break time. But without this admission, he suspected, there was no future for him and anyone, let alone Dory. His past had to be exposed, accepted, forgiven.

‘I expect you can guess. Chrissie got pregnant.’ He felt Dory stiffen. ‘She envisaged a future for us and I didn’t. When she turned to me for help I offered nothing. No support, financial or emotional, either to have the child or to get rid of it. I simply refused to have anything to do with the decision.’

Dory’s eyes dropped to her coffee mug. What was she thinking? It had felt imperative to tell her, but had it been too much of a risk?

‘A child?’ she whispered, almost to herself.

‘Dory? Are you disgusted?’

‘Were you in love with her?’

‘In love …?’ He was startled. ‘It was just sex! That’s why I had to break it off. There’s no room in my life for the messiness of love.’

Though she gazed at him steadily, her eyes had grown glassy. ‘But you’ve been proved wrong, haven’t you?’

‘How?’

‘You’ve made room in your life for Dom.’

‘That doesn’t count.’ Stefan shook his head, unable to find the words to express his feelings towards the boy. ‘Anyway, you asked me about being
in
love. I’m not even sure what it means.’ He shrugged.

‘I suppose it’s one of those things. Hard to explain, but you know it when you see it.’ Momentarily, Dory caught his eye then glanced away sharply. Now she continued to shake her head slowly from side to side, as if trying to clear her thoughts. ‘This is so weird,’ she said. ‘Everything coming around in circles.’

‘If I’d achieved my goal of making a solid living out of art, then the hurt I inflicted on Chrissie to gain it would be easier to rationalise and justify,’ he continued. ‘But my determination to succeed by cutting everything else out of my life was doomed. If I believed in an overarching supernatural power, in fate or karma, I might have taken my failure as some kind of cosmic retribution.’

‘Life isn’t like that.’

‘Isn’t it? I’ve never been able to forget that my child would now be Dom’s age. But I don’t know if he was raised by Chrissie, given up for adoption, or aborted.’ Dory drew in a sharp breath. Had he upset her? Too late to backtrack now. He’d told her the worst. ‘Don’t think I want to know. She dropped out, and as far as I’m concerned, she vanished. You’re shocked?’

Her face was crumpling again, her lovely mouth turning down at the corners, her eyes darkening to a drenched, bronzy green. ‘How could I …?’

‘Dory? I felt it important to be straight with you, but it was too much.’

‘Thank you for telling me. At least I understand …’ Her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands. He took hold of them, pulling them gently away, uncovering the tears she tried to conceal. Suddenly, without premeditation, he was kissing her. Miraculously, she was kissing him back, her lips soft and damp. He could feel her hands tightening behind his neck, could feel the subdued pulse of the sobs as her body grew heavy against his. They subsided along the dusty old sofa. He pulled back slightly in order to look at her, but was then impelled to kiss away the tears which still glossed her cheeks.

Her eyes were squeezed tight shut, her brow fiercely furrowed. She clung to him, pressing her mouth against his. There was no resisting and several moments passed in this hypnotic exchange before she pulled back and gazed up at him wide-eyed. A stuttering sigh escaped her. She blinked several times and shook her head. Stefan pushed some strands of hair back off her forehead and dropped a kiss there, before asking again, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ There was something she’d not told him. The pain in her expression wrenched at him. He went to kiss her again, but her eyes focused sharply. Abruptly she pushed away and pulled herself up straight.

‘No! I can’t deal with any of this now.’ Blinking and clinging to the arm of the sofa as if to steady herself, she muttered, ‘I need to phone for a taxi.’

Chapter Forty-four - Fran

‘It was embarrassing …’ Having phoned Dory, Fran now found herself struggling to justify why she should have been informed in advance of her sister’s absence from life class. ‘Not knowing why you weren’t there.’