Life Drawing for Beginners (33 page)

“You clean up kitchen,” she told Zarek, “and I finish kuldunai. And then we eat.”

Anton was out this evening with a group from his workplace, which meant it was just the two of them for dinner. Zarek began to clear the table, thinking of the stir-fry with noodles he’d been planning to cook, and hoping that Lithuanian dumplings tasted considerably better than their aroma would suggest.

J
esus
.” Carmel immediately clapped a hand to her mouth. “Sorry.”

Michael looked at her. “Is it that bad?”

She shook her head, still staring at him. “It’s not bad, I jus’ got a shock,” she said. “I thought you were someone else.”

Michael turned to Barry. “It’s me,” he said. “It’s your granddad.”

Barry regarded him silently, eyes wide.

“I like it,” Carmel said. “You look better. You look younger.”

“Dinner will be ten minutes,” Michael replied—because how else did you respond to that?

In the kitchen he stirred gravy and rubbed his chin, hidden for so long under its hairy coat. His whole face had an exposed quality to it now, the part that had been covered by the beard a bit pink and raw looking. It put him in mind of a just-shorn sheep. He assumed he’d get used to it, although the thought of having to shave again each morning was mildly depressing.

Valerie would be happy. She’d never approved of the beard he’d started to grow shortly after Ethan had left home. Michael couldn’t remember now why he’d suddenly decided on it. He had no idea either what had prompted him to buy a new razor on the way home from work today, an impulse he’d followed without really knowing why.

“Well,” he said aloud, “it’s done now.”

“You look like Ethan,” Carmel told him, when they were eating bacon and cabbage a few minutes later. “He looked like you, I mean. I didn’t see it before.”

Ah yes, Michael thought, that was why. He’d seen his absent son’s face every time he looked in the mirror, and he’d covered it with a beard so it didn’t keep haunting him.

“Can I show you something?” she asked when the plates were cleared away.

“What?”

“Hang on.” She left the room.

Left alone with his grandson, Michael regarded him. “What did you do at school today? Did you draw a picture?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you draw?”

“The sun.”

Michael smiled. “Just for a change,” he said.

“An’ I made a Lego house with Em’ly.”

“Well done.”

Carmel reappeared with the tin box Michael recalled seeing on the bedside locker by her bed. Battered and dented, about half the size of a shoe box, the lid fitting uneasily. She pried it open and took out a photo, and handed it to Michael.

It took a few seconds to recognize Ethan. He looked horribly thin and he was unshaven, and he wore a shabby brown sweater whose sleeves were too short for his arms. But it was Ethan, and on his face was a smile.

And he held a baby in his arms.

Michael looked up. “Why didn’t you show me this before?”

“I thought you’d get mad,” she said, reaching into the box and taking out more photos. Her and Ethan, her and Barry, the three of them together. Less than a dozen images in total, a meager enough collection compared with Michael’s albums of Ethan and Valerie’s early years, but a record of them as a family, for the brief time they’d lasted.

“They’re not very good,” she said. “We only had one of them cameras you throw away.”

Michael regarded the handful of photos of his son. He wasn’t sure how it had come about, but he realized that somewhere over the past few weeks he’d made his peace with Ethan. He’d blundered his way through it the way he blundered through everything, but it was done now.

The sadness, of course, would always be there, but the guilt had left him. He’d done his best for Ethan, and now he was getting the chance to do his best for Ethan’s son. And that was a blessing he hadn’t expected—a blessing he’d never have gotten if Carmel hadn’t shown up in his shop that first day.

And Valerie, Valerie had come back to him. For the first time in over twenty years, Michael Browne could honestly say he was at peace—and yes, happy. He was happy.

After dinner he settled in his usual armchair and picked up the newspaper and pretended to read it, while on the couch across from him Carmel turned the pages of the
Chicken Licken
book she’d bought with her wages and went through it haltingly, and with many mistakes, for her son.

Tomorrow he’d buy a block of ice cream on his way home from the shop. No reason why they shouldn’t have dessert once in a while—and everyone loved ice cream.

Anton mashed potatoes with crushed garlic, black pepper, butter, and warm milk as Pilar filled a jug with water. Zarek set the table and thought about the fact that he’d officially come out.

Just to one person, it was true—and telling Meg hadn’t really mattered, they hardly knew each other. But it was the first time he’d actually put it into words, the first time he’d said them aloud:
I am homosexual
.

He’d come out, and the world hadn’t ended. Meg had been a little taken aback, but that was to be expected, given the circumstances. He presumed she wasn’t too upset; he hoped there wouldn’t be awkwardness at their last life drawing class.

Maybe he should have said nothing—but saying nothing had suddenly become impossible. And so he had spoken, and it had been such a relief to finally say the words, such a letting go, such a weight rolling away.

Of course there were far more difficult challenges ahead.

He thought about his mother asking him, every time he rang home, whether he’d met anyone nice. He remembered her pointed references to any suitable female in their neighborhood, once he’d reached the age where he might reasonably be expected to bring home a girlfriend. He remembered her disappointment when no girl had ever been brought home.

He tried to imagine what her reaction to his news might be, and failed. He had no idea how she would feel, what she would say to him. He thought about his father, getting up for early-morning Mass every day of the week. What would the knowledge that his only son was gay do to him?

But he had to tell them, and it had to wait until he went home at Christmas. This wasn’t something that could go into a letter, or be said over the phone. He would tell them and they would cope, they would have to cope.

His sister, he felt, might not be too surprised. In her quiet way, Beata may well have figured out what Zarek hadn’t even admitted to himself up to quite recently.

But difficult as breaking the news to his family would be, the person whose reaction Zarek most needed, and most dreaded, was Anton. He glanced at his flat mate, who’d begun to spoon the silky mashed potatoes into a serving bowl, and the bowed, dark head, the line of Anton’s arm, the curve of his neck—​everything, everything—sent a wave of love and longing through Zarek.

When he’d first begun to feel for the Frenchman what he’d never felt for any female, Zarek had done his best to deny it. He’d struggled against these new and dangerous emotions, he’d tried to pretend they didn’t exist. He’d considered moving out of the apartment, even leaving Ireland altogether, but the idea of cutting ties with Anton was simply too painful.

And of course changing his location wouldn’t make the slightest difference—he was who he was, a gay man. Once he accepted the truth of this, all the uncertainties of his adolescence finally made sense. And so he made the decision to stay where he was, to bide his time and wait for the right moment to say what was in his heart, and suffer the consequences.

“I ’ave something to tell,” Anton announced, bringing the potatoes to the table and pulling out a chair. “Some news.”

Pilar began pouring water into their glasses. “Good news?”

Zarek took a seat and picked up the serving tongs and helped himself to a rosemary-scented lamb cutlet.

“Yes, it is good news. I ’ave decided,” Anton said, spooning potato onto his plate, “to return to France.” He reached for the black pepper. “My uncle will open ze new restaurant in Brittany next month and he invite me to work there, as his assistant chef. So I return.”

“You leave?” Pilar lowered the jug. “When you go?”

“Three weeks,” Anton replied, taking a cutlet. “November fifteen.”

“You become real chef,” Pilar said. “With job in important restaurant. With big white hat.”

Anton smiled. “I am not sure about ze ’at.”

“Yes, this is good news,” Pilar said. “You are good cook. I like your cooking very much. But Zarek and I will miss you—yes, Zarek?”

Zarek spooned potato onto his plate. “Yes,” he said.

“Zarek?” Anton asked.

Zarek looked up.

“You ’ave nothing to say me?”

“This is good for you,” Zarek replied. “Congratulation.”

“You will come to France maybe,” Anton said, “when you ’ave ze ’oliday?”

Zarek held his gaze. “Maybe,” he said. “If you like.”

“
Oui
,” Anton replied, a dimple appearing in his cheek. “I like.” He lifted his glass. “And maybe you stay, maybe you find ze job. Maybe my uncle need ze waiter.”

“Yes,” Zarek replied, hardly trusting his voice. His heart knocking in his chest. “I would like to be waiter.”

“Maybe I come too,” Pilar said, oblivious. “Maybe I meet nice French man with big house and plenty of euros.”

Meg listened to her husband and daughter laughing at some cartoon in the next room, and she thought about how foolish, how incredibly silly she’d been.

She spread the pizza base with roasted tomato sauce. What on earth had made her run after Zarek like some infatuated teenager? She didn’t want another man, least of all a younger foreign one. Least of all a younger foreign
gay
one. It would be funny if it weren’t so excruciatingly mortifying.

She halved cherry tomatoes and scattered them over the sauce. For the past few weeks she’d treated her husband abominably. She’d pushed him away anytime he tried to get close, and she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe opening the playschool had caused it, maybe the stress of those first few hectic weeks had sapped her patience—she’d been so mad at herself for not sailing into it like she’d imagined—and her poor husband had been the one to bear the brunt.

She grated mozzarella and sprinkled it on the pizza, and topped it with slivers of smoked salmon and spoonfuls of sour cream. Or maybe she’d been going through one of those dips everyone felt now and again, where nothing seemed to be going right. What a bitch she’d been though, snapping at him for the least little thing, turning away from him in bed—God, it was a wonder he hadn’t walked out.

She shook oregano on top and opened the oven door and slid the pizza in. And then Zarek’s admission in the car, on the way home from Audrey’s party. Mortifying at the time, totally unexpected—but she’d realized, before she’d even gotten home, that it hadn’t mattered to her in the least, because Zarek meant nothing to her. He’d been a diversion, a distraction, that was all.

She took white wine from the fridge and levered off the cork. She filled a glass and sipped it, leaning against the kitchen table. She had a lot of making up to do, a lot of amends to make. She’d start tonight, after they’d put Ruby to bed.

And she’d skip the last life drawing class. She couldn’t face Zarek, knowing what a fool she’d made of herself. And anyway, she wasn’t really cut out to be an artist. She couldn’t draw to save her life.

“Can I go to Charlie’s house? She came here, so now I should go to hers.”

Jackie tipped the plastic cup, and the die hopped out onto the snakes and ladders board. “Oh good, five.” She moved her yellow counter along its line. “You have to wait until Charlie invites you—you can’t just go to her house whenever you feel like it. I invited Charlie here, so that’s why she came. Your turn.”

Eoin shook the cup and tipped out the die. “But I have no school for a whole week and you have to go to work and I’m
bored
at home by myself.”

Jackie’s head was fuzzy from lack of sleep, most of the past two nights spent lying on her back, listening to recycled daytime radio. “We’ll see,” she said, picking up the cup.

Eoin groaned. “You always say that.”

“I’ll ask Granny if she’ll take you to Jungle Jim’s, or to the park, okay?”

She’d run a bath at ten to ten the previous morning; she’d been sitting in it when the doorbell had rung. She’d heard voices downstairs, James and her father, but she couldn’t make out the words. The talk hadn’t lasted long, a couple of minutes only. And thankfully her parents hadn’t spoken about him since—probably sensing, from the timing of the bath, that she didn’t want to.

She’d make more of an effort to get out and about with her friends. She’d dress up and look happy and talk to anyone who talked to her, she’d find someone who wanted her. She was only twenty-four.

She was dreading the last life drawing class, dreading his eyes on her body. She wished it was over. If Audrey was planning another class after Halloween, Jackie would tell her she wasn’t interested. She’d had enough of life drawing. Been there, done that.

And if James made contact for Charlie’s sake she’d respond, for Eoin’s sake. It would be hard to be in his company so she’d try to minimize that, arrange it so one or other of them took the two children. She’d manage, like she always did.

She slid her counter down a snake. And given time, she’d get over him.

H
alfway home from town, Audrey’s phone began to ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s Michael Browne,” he said.

Audrey stopped dead in the middle of the path, causing a minor obstruction among Carrickbawn’s pedestrian population.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“Yes,” she said, running a hand through her hair, tweaking her blouse collar. “Where did you get my number?”

“You phoned me,” he said. “About the playschool. I had it from then.”

“Oh…but didn’t I call your landline?”

“I have caller ID.”

“Oh.”

Foolish, asking him that. What did it matter where he’d got her number? She was prattling because she was nervous, which was ridiculous. She stood in the middle of the path and people walked around her.

“I’m calling,” he said, “to let you know that I’m having a sale.”

“A sale?”

Did pet shops have sales? Was he ringing all his customers to tell them?

“Tomorrow,” he said. “A one-day sale. Everything reduced. I just thought I’d let you know, in case you needed anything.”

A kennel. She needed a kennel. Silly really, to go all the way to Limerick if she could get one right here. “Do you have kennels?” she asked. Wouldn’t kill her to go and look. Daft to turn down a bargain, if it was on sale.

There was a short silence. Had he heard?

“I do,” he answered then. “Twenty percent off tomorrow.”

Twenty percent off. She’d be foolish not to at least check them out.

“Right,” she said. “I’ll call in.”

“Right,” he repeated. “I’ll see you then.”

She heard the click as he hung up. She remained standing there, the phone still clamped to her ear.

“Excuse me.” A woman with a double buggy was attempting to maneuver it around Audrey.

“Sorry.” Audrey stepped out of her way and moved on slowly. He’d rung her to tell her he was having a sale.

Business must be slow. This was a strategy to boost his sales, nothing more.

But he’d rung her, he’d taken the trouble to look her up on his caller ID and he’d rung her. And she was calling in to his shop tomorrow, to check out kennels that were 20 percent off.

She paused in front of a boutique she never went into because it was too dear. There was a green-and-white skirt on the mannequin in the window. A card on the floor read
Skirt
€
85
.

Eighty-five euro. Scandalous.

She pushed the door open and went in.

“Hi, Audrey.” Jackie smiled. “Fancy meeting you here.”

It is cold today
, Zarek wrote.
Winter is coming to Ireland. I will see how it compares with the Polish winter.

In the past few days he’d taken to wearing both his sweatshirts at the same time. He’d visited the local charity shop and picked up a navy wool coat for
€
9. There was a small cream stain on the underside of the left sleeve, about the size of a walnut. Zarek presumed it was the reason for the coat’s presence in the shop, but he was happy to overlook it.

My flat mate Anton is moving back to France soon
, Zarek wrote.
He will begin working in his uncle’s new restaurant. We will miss him
.

They were going to put a notice in the porch of the local church, whose priest was active in helping newly arrived immigrants to Carrickbawn, and where flat-sharing adverts could often be found. They were going to look for a replacement for Anton.

I was glad to hear that Mama’s varicose vein operation went well
, Zarek wrote.
I hope the bruising will quickly fade
.

Pilar had already laid claim to Anton’s bedroom, which was the biggest of the three. Zarek hadn’t argued. What did it matter who slept where, what did any of it matter when Anton was gone?

I am sorry to hear that cousin Ana and Mieszko are to separate
, Zarek wrote.
It is sad for the children, especially Danek, who is still so young. Perhaps they will reconsider
.

Anton knew. Zarek hadn’t needed to say anything because Anton knew. He had looked straight at Zarek and asked him to come to France. He’d talked about Zarek getting a job in Anton’s uncle’s restaurant.

Zarek finished the letter and put it into an envelope and added his bank draft, full of a shaky, terrified hope.

The last, and smallest, life drawing class. Audrey stood by the table of the only student who’d shown up and wondered what had happened to the rest. She cast her mind back to enrollment night, and her first meeting with them all.

She remembered how struck she’d been by Zarek’s good looks—​well, anyone would be—and her dismay when the older couple had reacted so negatively to the notion of someone undressing in the name of art. She recalled her relief when Meg had arrived, her second enrollment. And soon afterwards Fiona had appeared, and it began to look like the class might fill up after all.

She recalled Irene striding into the room, all glamour and confidence, and James’s late arrival, practically at the last minute. She remembered how she’d fully expected a dozen or so to enroll, and how glad she’d been to get five in the end.

And going home afterwards, she remembered wondering how they’d all get on. Whether any romances would strike up, whether there would be clashes. As far as Audrey could see, nothing dramatic had happened at all. They’d interacted at the break, they’d chatted politely with one another, and that had been that.

But she’d enjoyed the classes, she didn’t regret offering them in the least. She’d done her best and that was all anyone could do. Maybe she’d take a break now, maybe she wouldn’t think about another course for a while. But after Christmas she was quite prepared to give it a second go—life drawing intermediate, maybe—and see what happened. Maybe next time she’d get more than five, maybe she’d get ten.

Jackie looked a bit glum this evening. She might be sorry the classes were over. They were certainly an easy way to make a few euro, if you had the courage to let everyone see you in all your glory. Audrey thought of how terrified poor Jackie had been on the first evening, cowering in the toilet block, ready to bolt. How terrified Audrey had been too, that her first class would have no model. But Jackie had gotten over the nerves and now it was no bother to her. She’d probably be delighted to come back for another round after Christmas.

Audrey regarded the bowed head of her single student. “Another minute with this pose,” she said, “and then we’ll have the break.”

Zarek looked up and smiled. Such a wonderful smile he had.

“Listen,” he said, “I know it’s short notice, and I know I said I wouldn’t need you tonight, but something’s come up and I wonder if I could ask you to come around and sit for half an hour, forty minutes tops. Charlie’s asleep so it would be just a matter of watching telly, or…whatever.”

“Of course,” Eunice said, “that’s no trouble, dear. Let me just leave a little note for Gerry and I’ll be right over.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said, “I wouldn’t ask only it’s important.”

“I assumed that, dear,” she said placidly. “See you in a bit.”

James hung up and reached for his jacket. Determined not to analyze what he was about to do, afraid it might take away his resolve. Only knowing that he suddenly wanted to tell her everything, and see where that took them.

He had to tell her, he’d never sleep again if he didn’t. And she had a right to know, hadn’t she? If she ran a mile when he told her what had brought him and Charlie down from the North, so be it. And if she told his story to the whole of Carrickbawn, he’d have to live with that too—but either way, he had to tell her, and he had to tell her tonight. She was taking up too much of his head space, she was there all the time.

He paced the sitting room floor until he heard Eunice’s footsteps on the path outside. He opened the front door before she had a chance to ring the bell.

“Thanks a million,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, help yourself to anything in the fridge, or make tea, or whatever.”

Five minutes to drive to her house, and the same to get back home. That left half an hour at the most to spill his guts, half an hour for her to take it all in. Talk about mission impossible.

“I just wanted a word,” James said as soon as she opened the door. “I won’t keep you long.”

Jackie cursed the fact that she’d already cleansed her face. Not a scrap of makeup on, not even a dab of lipstick. At least she hadn’t gotten into pajamas, which she’d been tempted to do as soon as she’d come home from the art class.

She stepped outside, pulling her cardigan closed. “Maybe we could sit in your car,” she said. “My parents are inside.” Her palms were suddenly damp. She wiped them on her jeans as she followed him down the path.

In the car she sat upright, her back pressed against the door. James was turned away from her, looking straight ahead. She smelled licorice.

“You weren’t at the class,” she said.

“No.” He hesitated. “I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

She had no idea what to make of that. She waited, but nothing more came.

“Where’s Charlie?” she asked, just to say something.

“At home in bed. A neighbor is there. I said I wouldn’t be long.”

Another silence. She hugged her cardigan more tightly around her.

“I want to explain,” he said then. “I want to tell you about…​my situation.”

His situation? Jackie kept her eyes fixed on his profile, wishing he’d turn and look at her.

“First of all,” he said, “my name isn’t James. At least, James is my second name. I started using it when we moved down here. My name’s Peter.”

He’d changed his name. He was a fugitive from justice because he’d killed someone up north, and now he was in hiding. He was in the Real IRA, or he was a loyalist paramilitary. Either way, she didn’t like the direction he was taking.

“The reason we moved, and the reason I changed my name,” he said, turning at last to face her, “is because two years ago, my wife—” He stopped.

His wife. Jackie felt a dull lurch in her abdomen. She could feel the cold of the car door through her clothes.

“Two years ago my wife disappeared,” he said. “She left the house one day to go shopping, and she never came back.”

Jackie drew in her breath.
Charlie’s mum is lost
, Eoin had said, and she’d assumed that meant dead. But it didn’t mean dead, it meant lost. His wife was lost. She gave an involuntary shiver.

“You’re cold.”

“I’m okay,” she said, but he turned the key and switched on the heater, and in a few seconds she felt warm air at her feet and on her face.

He turned away from her again. “After she disappeared,” he said, staring straight ahead, “the police launched a massive search. They dragged lakes and sent divers off the coast, and combed woodlands and mountains. They interviewed me so many times I lost count.”

She thought she vaguely remembered a young mother going missing in Donegal. It had made the headlines for a couple of days, till something else had taken its place. Nothing very newsworthy about someone still missing.

Had there been a mention of it on the first anniversary? Maybe. There was usually a mention, a fresh appeal for information.

“Some people decided I’d done away with her,” James went on. “I got anonymous letters, people spat at me in the street, or crossed over to avoid me. When they started asking Charlie if she knew what her dad had done, I decided it was time to move. So we came here.”

“And she was never found?”

He shook his head. “Not a trace.” He hesitated. “You’re the only person I’ve told, down here. I wanted you to know, because…”

He might have killed her. He might have killed his wife and disposed of her body so well that nobody had found it. But he didn’t strike Jackie as a killer.

“I’m glad you told me,” she said.

“I’m not free though,” he answered. “Until a body is found, or until she turns up, I’m still married. For seven years, apparently.”

“I know,” Jackie said. “I know that.” She did know that, without having a clue where she’d heard it. One of the thousand pieces of random information that had found a place in her head.

Was he asking her to wait? Was that what he wanted? It was what
she
wanted, she was sure of that.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said then. “I’m staying here in Carrickbawn.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Eoin would be sorry if you moved.”

He turned to look at her again. “Just Eoin?”

“No,” she answered, her heart thumping in her chest. “Not just Eoin.”