Life Drawing for Beginners (14 page)

“How long will it last?” he asked.

“About an hour. You’ll need a shower afterwards, so bring a towel and stuff.”

She tried to remember what he looked like, and couldn’t. Dark anyway, but his features were gone. She’d know him when she saw him.

Monday at five thirty, later than she normally worked. She’d ask Martin to leave the gym early, to make dinner for Emily and to let Pilar go home.

As her hairdresser approached Irene tore the page from the magazine and slipped it into her bag.

A
s he approached the library Michael saw a girl sitting on the ground outside, her back against the stippled wall, her head bent, a cardboard cup in her outstretched hand. The town was becoming overrun with beggars. He’d mention it to the library staff, maybe they could move her on.

When he was still some distance away he saw that there was a small child with her, sitting on her far side. He tightened his grip on the books under his arm.

Was it her, was it them? Hard to be sure. He kept walking—​and as he drew near, as the likelihood that he knew them grew stronger, she lifted her head and stared straight at him.

Michael stopped. “What the hell are you doing?” he said quietly.

She looked defiantly back at him. “What does it look like?” There were a few copper coins in the cup, nothing more.

“Get up,” Michael said, making an effort to keep his voice low. A woman passed, looking curiously at them. He resisted the impulse to advise her to mind her own business.

The girl got unhurriedly to her feet, pulling the boy with her. She faced Michael sulkily.

“You didn’t give me no choice,” she said. “I told you we didn’t have nobody else.”

He shook his head fiercely. “Don’t you blame me for your miserable life—you made your choices long ago.”

“I’m not blamin’ you,” she said, “I’m jus’ tellin’ you, you’re all we got.”

It wasn’t his fault—so why did he feel responsible for them? He couldn’t leave them here, he couldn’t have her begging, it was out of the question. He went on glaring at her, wondering what on earth to do, and she tossed her head and looked away in the distance.

He turned and regarded the boy. If it was possible, he looked worse than the last time Michael had seen him. His hair was unkempt, his face streaked with dirt. He gazed straight ahead, his eyes empty.

“When did he eat last?” Michael demanded.

“A while ago. What do you care?” Sullenly, her eyes on the ground again.

“Have you a place to stay?”

“We’re in a shed,” she muttered. “We’re sleepin’ on the ground, in a shed.”

On the ground in a shed. He had to do something. He took a pen from his breast pocket and tore a blank page from the back of one of his library books and began to scribble rapidly.

“If that’s for me, you’re wastin’ your time.”

He lifted his head. “What?” he barked. Was she going to suddenly develop some pride and decide she didn’t want his charity after all?

“I can’t read,” she said. “I never learned it.”

Michael supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. God knows how much—or how little—schooling she’d had.

“Walnut Grove,” he said clearly. “You know it? Behind the cathedral.”

“I know the cathedral.”

“Number seventeen,” he said, checking his watch. “Come at eight o’clock, not before.”

For the first time the sulky expression left her face. “You want us to come to your house?” She looked younger, less sure of herself.

“That’s why I’m giving you my address,” he said in exasperation. He pulled out his wallet and took a
€
10 note from it. “Go and get something to eat,” he said. “Something hot. No more begging. What’s my address?”

She repeated it, looking slightly dazed. She took the money without comment. Michael turned on his heel without waiting for a reply. What had he just done? He walked rapidly away, retracing his steps, the library forgotten. Eight o’clock, and it was heading for seven. So little time.

“Zarek!”

He turned towards the sound of the voice and saw a raised arm in the water about five meters away. The face looked a little familiar, but with her hair hidden under a navy rubber cap Zarek couldn’t immediately place the woman.

She swam over, using a clumsy breaststroke. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said—and as she rose to her feet Zarek realized it was Meg from his art class, an inch or two taller than his five-foot-ten height, even in bare feet. Minus her distinctive purple-framed spectacles now, of course, which was why he’d been slow to recognize her.

“You’re a real pro,” she said. “That dive was magnificent. I can just about keep myself afloat, as you’ve probably noticed.” Laughing, her eyes flicking over his bare shoulders, down to his chest. “Maybe you could give me a few lessons sometime.”

Zarek felt slightly uncomfortable. Coping with the teenage girls who came into the café was one thing, but someone older, someone he was going to meet regularly over the next few weeks, was another. Maybe he was imagining it—but she’d chosen the desk next to his in the life drawing class, and during the coffee breaks she was rarely far from his side. And he remembered mentioning the pool last Tuesday evening, and now here she was.

He hadn’t noticed if she wore a wedding ring in the class. She wasn’t wearing one now, but maybe she’d taken it off for the swim.

“So you come here a lot?” she asked, straightening the shoulder strap of her red swimsuit. “Funny I haven’t seen you before; I’m usually here on Thursdays.”

That may well have been true. When Zarek came to the pool he took little notice of his fellow swimmers.

“I come not all the time,” he told her. “Some nights I must work.” He wondered how to get away without being rude. Was she going to stay talking to him for the hour? Some people did that, he’d seen them out of the corner of his eye as he swam his laps, holding on to the side of the pool, having conversations. He wondered why they didn’t just go to a café or a pub instead.

“Well, I suppose you want to get back to your swimming,” she said, not making any move herself.

But it was enough for Zarek. “Yes, I do my laps,” he said, turning immediately. “I see you on Tuesday, yes? At the drawing class.” And without waiting for her reply he cut through the water and swam continuously for eight laps, barely putting his head above water to breathe. By the time he took a break, panting, she was nowhere to be seen.

He hoped he was wrong about her interest in him, but he had an awful feeling he was right.

“I can make the hardest jigsaw in my school,” Emily announced. “It’s called the farm jigsaw, an’ it has a farmer an’ a cow an’ a horse an’ some chickens an’ a tractor an’ a duck pond with ducks. It has a million pieces.”

Her grandmother smiled indulgently at her. “A million pieces? That’s a lot. You’re such a clever girl. What’s your teacher’s name again, dear?”

“Meg.”

“Well, Meg must be very proud of you.”

The new maid appeared and began to clear away the soup plates. Irene’s mother turned to her. “How are the art classes going?”

“Fine,” Irene answered. “I’m no Picasso, but it’s a bit of a laugh.”

Across the table Martin and her father were talking about rugby. They’d hit it off from the start when Irene had brought him home to meet them, shortly after Martin’s status had changed from boss to boyfriend.

Financially secure in his own right, Martin had been undaunted by the big house or the maids or any other indications of the fortune that Irene’s father had amassed over the past thirty years—and it was precisely Martin’s own wealth that had convinced Irene’s parents to trust him. Here wasn’t just another gold digger in search of Irene’s substantial future inheritance.

Her parents had bought them the cottage in Ballyvaughan as a wedding present, and when Emily was born her father had given Irene the green Peugeot, and set up a trust fund for his new granddaughter.

The lobster was served, with breaded scampi for Emily. The men’s conversation switched from rugby to golf.

“Don’t you think it’s time, darling?” Irene’s mother murmured as Irene picked up her fork. “Emily’s growing up so fast, you don’t want to leave too much of an age gap.”

Irene cracked a claw and dug out a chunk of flesh. She dipped it into the little bowl of melted butter, automatically registering that this meal would warrant some serious work in the gym on her next visit.

“Mother, you bring this up every time we come to dinner,” she replied. “You’ve been telling me to have another baby since Emily was one. I can only give you the same answer I give you every time, which is that you can’t get pregnant to order—it’s in the lap of the gods.” She spoke quietly, anxious not to attract Martin’s attention.

“But you are trying?” her mother asked.

“Of course,” Irene answered lightly. “But I’m not exactly in the first flush, so the probability that I’ll conceive again is lower. You know that.”

“All the more reason.”

“I’m aware of that. Now would you mind very much if we changed the subject?”

They had no idea, they hadn’t the tiniest idea. Irene imagined her mother’s face if she told her the truth, if she said
Martin hasn’t touched me in almost two years, not since he realized that I’m never going to feel the way he does for our daughter. We sleep in the same bed but we may as well be on different continents. Now and again I have sex with men I feel nothing for, and Martin is probably having some on the side too. But in the unlikely event he ever decides to do it with me again I’m on the Pill, because I have no intention of bringing another child into the world.

She sipped the chilled Grüner Veltliner that had come up from her father’s cellar and dabbed her lips with Irish linen. She looked across the table at her husband’s handsome face and thought of the tragedy of having more money than you could ever need, and not being able to buy the one thing you desperately wanted.

Audrey steered her trolley past the stationery and computer equipment and gardening supplies, and turned into the clothing aisle. The supermarket offerings weren’t terribly fashionable or well made, but when you were looking for a nightie that in all likelihood nobody else would see, what did it matter?

She examined the rows of nightwear without enthusiasm, the black, white, powder-blue, and baby-pink polyester offerings. Why didn’t they make nighties in more interesting colors? She’d love an emerald-green one with sky-blue polka dots, or a red one with orange and yellow stripes—but she supposed for
€
7.99 you took what you got.

She selected a blue one with tiny white flowers running around the neck and dropped it into her trolley. As she meandered through the various clothing aisles on her way to the grocery section she steered her trolley around a male customer who was frowning at a small pair of canvas trousers.

Hardly for his own child, he was a bit old for that. A grandchild then. Audrey found it difficult to picture him with a family. Maybe he was completely different outside the pet shop, maybe he was all twinkly and smiling—but the image of him with a small child sitting on his knee was still impossible to conjure up.

A few minutes later she encountered him again in the cereals aisle. He selected a bag of organic porridge and added it to the basket he carried. He probably ate all the right foods, and would no doubt disapprove of the box of Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes that Audrey was placing in her trolley.

He had a harassed air about him. She guessed shopping wasn’t his favorite occupation. Then again, he frowned like that a lot of the time; it seemed to be his default expression. For some reason Audrey felt a rush of sympathy for him. He didn’t strike her as a particularly happy individual, and that was a pity. She wondered if there was anything he really looked forward to.

Had he any friends, or did he live alone and unloved?
She
lived alone, of course, and she had to admit to being unloved—well, apart from her parents, who were more or less obliged to love her—​but she got on with people, she had friends, and great neighbors whom she hoped thought fairly fondly of her. And of course she had Dolly.

Then again, the man from the pet shop was buying clothes for a child, so there must be some kind of family in his life. They came face-to-face briefly, as Audrey walked past his queue at the checkout. He nodded at her, and Audrey gave him a smile.

As she took her place in another queue a few checkouts away she glanced into her trolley and saw the blue nightie nestling between a tin of beans and a pound of sausages, and she hoped to God he hadn’t spotted it.

Not that it would matter if he had, of course. Not that he’d have taken a blind bit of notice.

At ten minutes past eight the doorbell rang. Michael set the fireguard in place and went into the hall.

They looked worse, if anything, than earlier. More shabby, more pathetic. He stood back silently to let them in, wondering if any of his neighbors had seen them. She cradled a black bin bag; the same one, he assumed, that she’d been carrying the second time they’d called into the shop. The boy stood silently beside her and clung to her thigh. They brought a distinct smell of unwashed bodies with them.

Michael closed the door and folded his arms and eyed her bundle. “There better not be anything illegal in there,” he said.

“D’you want to check it?” she asked.

Her face was impassive. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to be smart, but he decided to ignore it. The thought of rummaging through whatever belongings she had didn’t appeal to him in the least—and the fact that she’d offered to let him probably meant she had nothing to hide.

“If you brought any food, leave it in the kitchen,” he told her. “No food upstairs.”

“Where’s the kitchen?” she asked.

Michael led the way and indicated the table. “Leave it there.”

She reached into the black bag, drew out a small white one, and placed it on the table. “You live in this big house on your own?”

“That’s none of your business,” he retorted. “I don’t appreciate questions about my private life.” She wouldn’t last long if she didn’t remember her place.

The color rose in her face, and for a second he thought she was going to cry. All he needed.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean nothin’, I was jus’ talkin’.”

He turned for the stairs. “This way,” he said shortly, wondering what had possessed him. On the landing he took two towels from the airing cupboard and showed her the bathroom. “You will both have a bath,” he said, “tonight, before you go to bed.” He’d debated moving his toiletries out of sight, and then decided that she’d probably rummage and find them, so he’d left them where they were. He supposed he could bear the loss of some shower gel and toothpaste.