Life Drawing for Beginners (26 page)

I
come to Ireland two year ago,” Pilar said to the woman who sat on the other side of the coffee table. “I clean the houses and look after the little childrens, and also I cook a little bit.”

The woman’s red hair was almost exactly the same color as the coat on a dog Pilar had once had. Pilar had never met a human whose hair was that shade of red. There were magazines on the coffee table that didn’t look as if anyone read them.

“When you say you cook, what exactly do you mean?” the woman asked, clasping her topmost knee with fingers that were tipped with purple varnish. “I mean, can you actually
cook
?”

Pilar had never had more than a passing acquaintance with recipes and saucepans. Her mother had thrown her hands up in despair at her daughter’s leathery dumplings and stodgy blinis and haphazardly seasoned borscht.

Happily, since her arrival in Ireland, Pilar had managed to avoid jobs that involved producing anything more challenging than sausages or beans on toast—and since moving in with Anton, she was enjoying the luxury of having her own meals cooked for her.

“Um…my cooking is simple,” she said. “I do the sausages, the fingers of fish, et cetera”—a sudden image of Emily’s mashed banana and yogurt breakfast jumped into her head, and her heart twisted as it always did when she recalled the little girl—“and also the boiled potatoes and the, er, beef burger.”

The woman turned her nails upwards and inspected them. “I see…and do you drive?”

Pilar assumed what she hoped was a regretful expression. “Sorry, no driving.”

In fact she’d driven happily, if a little erratically, in Lithuania from the age of seventeen, but the thought of driving on the wrong side of the road, in a car where nothing was where you expected it to be, terrified her.

The woman sighed. “So you clean and cook basic children’s food, and you don’t drive, and that’s it?”

“Also I can iron the clothes,” Pilar said, casting about for inspiration. “And…um, walk with the dogs. And a little work in the garden also.” Fresh inspiration struck. “And perhaps the childrens like to learn a little Lithuanian?”

“Lithuanian,” the woman repeated flatly.

“Yes—maybe they go for holiday.”

The woman stood and smoothed her blue-and-white skirt. “Well, thank you for coming. I’ll be in touch.”

Pilar shook the hand that was extended to her and walked towards the door, knowing before she was past the threshold that she wouldn’t be returning.

But there may be other women in need of an au pair, not quite as demanding as this one. And of course, failing that, there was always the café. Even if it wasn’t her first choice of employment, it would be very nice to work with Zarek, with whom she got along so well.

Perhaps
he
would like to learn a little Lithuanian, as they stood together behind the counter.

When Emily had been positioned in front of the television and Irene had the kitchen to herself, she looked up a number in the phone book. She took her credit card from her bag and made a short call. After disconnecting she scrolled through her messages until she found the mechanic’s last text.

She pressed
reply
and typed
Bradshaw’s, 3:30, Sunday. Room 12.

Bradshaw’s was a smallish country hotel about eight miles outside Carrickbawn. Irene had no intention of revisiting that garage. By three o’clock the Sunday lunchtime drinkers would have gone home for their roast beef, and a person slipping upstairs after that wouldn’t be noticed. Irene would check in at three fifteen; let the mechanic make his own way up when he arrived.

Might be awkward escaping from his wife on Sunday afternoon, but Irene was fairly confident that he’d make the effort. Sex with her in the comfort of a hotel bedroom—few enough men would turn that down, and he’d certainly seemed to enjoy his first encounter.

Twenty minutes there and back, and an hour or so in the room. She’d be home by five to take over from Martin and boil an egg for Emily’s tea.

Unless she’d found a new au pair by then, in which case they could take their time at Bradshaw’s.

“I’d be able to take him three days a week, Wednesday to Friday,” Meg said, “if that’s any good to you.”

“That would be fine, thank you,” Michael replied. Three days was better than no days.

“So you’ll bring him along next Wednesday?”

“Not me,” he told her. “I have to work, but his mother will take him.”

“And I assume you’re the father?”

Michael wiped at a smear on the counter with his sleeve. “No, I’m not the father.” He didn’t think she’d pursue it, and she didn’t.

“Right, so,” she said. “Did Audrey give you my address?”

“No.”

She called it out and Michael wrote it down.

“And it was Barry you said, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And the surname?”

“Ryan.” He paused. “And I will be paying, so I would appreciate if you could furnish me with a bill for the remainder of the first term. Let me give you my address.”

She was probably wondering what his relationship to the boy was. Imagine if he said,
I may be his grandfather; we’re just waiting for the outcome of the paternity test
.

“That’s fine,” Meg said when he’d called out his address. “So I’ll see him at half past nine on Wednesday. But let’s wait to make sure he settles in first, before I bill you for anything. Not every child is cut out for playschool.”

She sounded pleasant and capable. Michael pictured Barry building a tower with bricks, or doing a jigsaw, or drawing a picture maybe, surrounded by children his own age. Doing normal things for the first time in his life.

“He’s quiet,” he told Meg. “He’s had little contact with other children. It may take him a while to find his feet.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll have a fair idea in the first few days if he’ll settle. You’d be surprised how quickly most of them adjust.”

Neither of Michael’s children had gone to playschool. He didn’t think they’d existed then, and even if they had, Ruth wouldn’t have wanted them to go. She’d been a stay-at-home mother, glad of the excuse to give up her office job once Ethan was on the way.

Playschool would probably have been good for Valerie. After her mother died the little girl had become terribly clingy, first to Michael and then to Pauline, as soon as the housekeeper had arrived on the scene. It had taken her several weeks to settle when she’d started school.

Michael remembered the tears every morning as Pauline was putting on her uniform. If it hadn’t been for Ethan, two classes ahead, and blessedly willing to hold his little sister’s hand on the way, they’d never have gotten her there.

After he’d hung up Michael looked around the silent shop. Strange how empty the place felt in the afternoons, even though the boy made such little noise when he was here.

They’d gone through the fairy-tale collection and moved on to a set of Mr. Men books that Michael had spotted on a special-​offer stand in the local bookshop. Barry’s favorite was Mr. Bump. The first time Michael heard him laugh was when Mr. Bump walked straight into an apple tree and knocked several apples off. Barry’s laugh was short, more of a high-pitched shout than a laugh really. Michael supposed he hadn’t had much practice.

He thought it was probably then, when he’d heard that first laugh, that he’d decided to go ahead with the playschool without waiting for the results of the test. It had suddenly seemed petty to be waiting, to be making a small boy’s development dependent on a blood connection.

Whatever their relationship, Michael had decided that he would fund a year of playschool for him. He would do it because he could, and because the boy needed it. It would give him a start in life, try to make up for what had gone before. Even if it turned out the girl was trying to pull a fast one, the child was still the innocent party.

He’d wait till tomorrow to tell her what he’d done. He wondered what her reaction would be. He was aware that he was interfering. Even if he was putting a roof over their heads it was still none of his business how she raised her son. But he hoped she’d have the intelligence to see how it would benefit the boy. The fact that it wasn’t going to cost her a penny might help.

He went into the back of the shop to bring out more tins of puppy food.

I am sorry to tell you that Pilar is out of work
, Zarek wrote.
On Monday she had an argument with her boss and she walked out. She has been looking for more work but so far she has not been lucky. Yesterday she came into the café and filled out an application form
.

He couldn’t mention the fact that Pilar’s boss just happened to be in his life drawing class, and that he’d inadvertently offered Pilar as a replacement for herself. It would be a good story, it would be funny were it not for the fact that he’d kept the art classes from them up to this.

Here the weather is mixed, some good sunshine but also very wet days. I hope it is not getting too cold at home yet. Have you had the chimneys cleaned this autumn?

Weather in Poland could be cruel from November to March, with the temperature often plunging to minus twenty. He wondered how his first Irish winter would compare: If the weather he’d experienced here so far was any indication, he wasn’t expecting anything too predictable.

I am fine, thank God. No complaints, I am enjoying my time in Ireland.

He dropped his pen and sat back and pondered the truth of that remark. Certainly he wasn’t unhappy here. His job could undoubtedly be more interesting, but most of the time it wasn’t unpleasant.

His accommodation was comfortable, if not luxurious, and he got on well with his flat mates. There were no arguments, nobody had fallen out. The three of them ate together on the evenings Zarek wasn’t working, and often spent time in one another’s company outside mealtimes.

Really, he couldn’t complain. Life in Ireland had been good since his arrival. And if he sometimes longed for more, maybe he was simply looking for too much.

H
is stillness was absolute. Audrey had no idea how long he’d been there—she’d just gotten home from work and come upstairs to change into her gardening clothes—or how long he’d stay in that position, but she decided to take a chance. She grabbed her sketch pad and began to draw, her pencil flying across the page, her eyes flicking rapidly between the scene outside and the pad.

Kevin squatted on the lawn, feet planted solidly, forearms resting on his thighs, upper body tilted slightly forward. He peered downwards, totally preoccupied with something in the grass.

“He can watch something for ages,” Pauline had told her. “Ants, worms, a few earwigs—I’ve no idea what he finds so fascinating.”

His face was hidden from Audrey, her view of him foreshortened by her elevated position at the upstairs window. It was a challenging posture to capture, but Audrey did her best, scribbling busily until his head lifted suddenly and turned towards the house—and here came Pauline making her way across the lawn to him, bending to see what was engaging his attention.

Audrey closed her pad and dropped it on the bed. She began to change into her gardening trousers, hearing Dolly’s demanding yips from the kitchen. Another weekend, two lie-ins to look forward to, and only another week to the midterm break. She’d bring Dolly to the park after dinner; a quick trot around it would tire her out for the evening.

The park reminded her of Michael Browne. She wondered if he’d followed up on the playschool. She wouldn’t ask Meg on Tuesday, it was none of her business, but Meg might well mention it herself.

Audrey was just interested, that was all.

“A playschool?”

Her expression wary, which immediately irritated him. Couldn’t the silly woman see what he was offering?

“He needs to mix with other children,” he said briskly. “It’s not good for him to be with just you or me all the time. And there’d be lots of books, and jigsaws, and other toys. He’d be learning, you’d be giving him a good start.”

She nodded slowly, biting at the nail of her index finger. Michael itched to tap it away, like he’d always done with Valerie as a child.

“It would be three mornings a week,” he said. “Wednesday to Friday. She’s doing us a favor, taking him in. I was lucky to find any place at all, this late in the year.”

She gnawed at the cuticle now with her teeth.

“Please stop doing that,” Michael said sharply, and she dropped her finger quickly.

“She’s holding a place open for him,” he said. “He could start this coming week, next Wednesday.”

It didn’t matter to him, it was nothing to him whether the boy went or not. So why did he feel like shaking her right now until her teeth rattled? What the
hell
was wrong with her?

“Well? What do you think? Are you happy to let him go?”

“It’s jus’ that…you don’t know yet.” Her color rose, her hand drifted to her mouth again until she saw him looking, and she let it fall.

“I don’t know what?” But he knew what she was talking about.

“If I’m tellin’ you the truth,” she answered, her face aflame. “About Ethan, if he’s the father.”

“Are you telling me he isn’t?” Michael asked quietly.

Suddenly, shockingly, he realized that he didn’t want to hear her admit that she’d made it all up.

She shook her head rapidly. “No, I’m not sayin’ that. I
told
you the truth—but you don’t
know
it’s the truth yet. So why are you doin’ this big thing for us? What if you change your mind in a few weeks, or a few months, after Christmas or somethin’, an’ Barry has to drop out because I can’t pay, an’ he got all that learnin’ that might just stop, an’ then we have to go back to nothin’ after all that?”

She stopped abruptly, pressing her lips together. Michael left the table and walked to the kitchen window and stood looking out at his excuse for a garden.

“I’m not going to change my mind,” he said evenly, keeping his back to her. “I’m prepared to pay for the full year. I’m doing it to help the boy, because I can afford it, and because I want to, and because he deserves a good start in life, whoever he is. Everyone does.” Looking at the old stone wall at the bottom of the garden, not looking at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said then, “if I don’t sound grateful. I
am
grateful, you done so much for us. I’m jus’ scared, that’s all. Nothin’ like this ever happened to us before. I jus’ think…it’s too good to be true, an’ it can’t last.”

Michael made no reply. What could he say to that?

“You read him stories,” she said then. “In the shop. He told me.”

He nodded, watching a robin dropping from the top of the wall to land lightly on the grass. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“He likes them.”

Michael tapped his fingers on the edge of the sink. “It’s good for him,” he said. “Stories feed the brain.”

A short silence followed, and then she spoke again. “When we met you first,” she said, “I thought you were really mean, but you’re not. You’re a good man. I knew Ethan would have a good father.”

Michael had no idea how to respond. He studied a cracked tile on the margin of wall above the sink.

“Thank you,” she said. He heard her getting up. “I’ll never forget what you done for us.”

She turned and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs, to where Barry had already been put to bed.

Later, when he went up himself, Michael heard soft singing coming from Valerie’s room.

She sat in the darkened cinema beside Eoin. On his far side was Charlie, and beyond her, James. The air was thick with the smell of popcorn. The volume was too high—why was it always set so high? Did the cinema staff think they were all deaf, or were they just trying to make them deaf?

The film, about a car that seemed to think it was human, didn’t interest her in the slightest. The plot was paper-thin, the ending apparent in the first two minutes. The acting was mediocre, the dialogue as predictable as the plot.

But if she closed her eyes she could pretend the children were at home, fast asleep. She could imagine that she and James were out on a date, his arm around her, his thigh touching hers. She could picture them leaving the cinema when the film ended and going to a restaurant for dinner. Or maybe they’d have eaten before the film, maybe they’d just go somewhere quiet for a drink afterwards.

His hand reaching across to touch hers as they chatted, the wine making her feel beautifully woozy. Going back to his place, or her place—her apartment, which of course existed in her imagination—

“Mum.”

She opened her eyes. Eoin was pulling at her sleeve. She dragged herself out of the apartment. “What?” she whispered.

“I have to go to the toilet.”

“Okay.” She stood up.

Back to reality, where James was three seats away from her, and they were on a play date.

“We might go to the park on Sunday,” he said as they were getting out of the car. “Just if you’re around.”

She smelled of oranges, her shampoo maybe. She wore pale pink lipstick, and the neckline of her top sat just above her breasts, a hint only of cleavage visible, the suggestion of a shadowy dip, that was all.

But he knew what her breasts looked like, he knew the shape and color of her nipples. He had studied the dark triangle of pubic hair at the top of her legs, he had attempted to reproduce her body on paper.

“If the weather is fine,” she was saying, “we’ll see you there.”

“Grand,” he said, putting the car into gear.

“Thanks for this evening,” she said. “Eoin, what do you say to Charlie’s dad?”

Charlie’s dad, that’s what he was. If she only knew the thoughts Charlie’s dad had been having about Eoin’s mum. He drove off, leaving them waving on the path.