May God protect the king,” the beautiful man declared, smiling widely.
On the point of making its first mark, Audrey’s pen stilled. She looked up. Such incredibly white teeth.
“Pardon?”
“Is my name,” he told her. “English meaning of Belshazzar: May God protect the king.”
“Belshazzar? But I thought you said your name was—” She suddenly couldn’t remember the impossibly foreign-sounding word she’d been about to write. Something beginning with Z—or was it X?
“Zarek, yes, is short name of Belshazzar.”
“Oh, I see.” Audrey positioned her pen for the second time. “Maybe you could spell that for me?”
She wondered if anyone else was going to turn up. It hadn’t occurred to her that she mightn’t fill the class; she’d just assumed enough adult inhabitants of Carrickbawn would be interested in signing up for life drawing. But she’d been sitting alone for nearly forty minutes in Room 6, becoming steadily less confident, before the handsome Polish man had appeared.
Forty minutes gone out of sixty, which left just twenty. What if this young man was it? One person’s payment wouldn’t cover the model’s fee, let alone Audrey’s time. And could you even hold a class with just one student? Was there a minimum requirement?
Still, as long as he was here, she’d better register him.
“And your surname?”
He looked blankly at her.
“Your last name?”
“Olszewski.” He eyed her unmoving pen. “Is better if I write?”
She slid the form across. “Much better, thank you.”
In Ireland since May, he’d told her. In Carrickbawn since the middle of June, having decided after three weeks that Dublin wasn’t for him. Eyes as blue as Paul Newman’s—and would you look at the length of those lashes. A real heartbreaker of a face.
She guessed midtwenties—too young, sadly. Not that he’d be interested in Audrey in a million years, not when he could pick and choose from the pretty young ladies of Carrickbawn. How could a generously built thirty-seven-year-old, not blessed with a particularly beautiful face, hope to compete with a slimmer, younger, more attractive specimen?
Not that she was offering the class in order to find a boyfriend; of course not. Still, you wouldn’t rule it out. You’d never rule it out. The man she was waiting for could be anywhere, so why not here? What was to stop him from opening the door of Room 6 in the next few minutes and walking in?
“Is this the still life drawing class?”
Audrey looked up. A couple stood in the doorway. Sixties, possibly older. The man wore a grey tweed cap and held a supermarket shopping bag from which a long cardboard container protruded—aluminum foil? Waxed paper? The woman stared openly at Zarek, a look of profound distrust on her face.
“Hello there,” Audrey said, smiling brightly at two more possible students. “It’s not actually still life, it’s life drawing.”
The skin on the woman’s forehead puckered. “Is that not the same thing?”
“No.” Audrey hesitated, wondering how gently she could break it. “Still life is drawing inanimate objects, like fruit and, er, bottles and things, and life drawing is, well, drawing the human body.”
They considered this in silence.
“And would that be a real person?” the man asked eventually. “I mean, are you talking about someone sitting there in front of the class?”
“Exactly,” Audrey said. She had to tell them, she couldn’t let them sign up and arrive on the first night not knowing. She crossed the fingers of the hand they couldn’t see. “And in life drawing, the person is normally…unclothed.”
Another dead silence, during which the color rose slowly and deeply in the woman’s face. Audrey wondered if Zarek, who didn’t seem to be paying too much attention, understood the significance of the conversation.
“Well,” the man managed eventually, “I think you ought to be heartily ashamed of yourself.”
“Disgusting,” his companion added vehemently, her face still aflame. “Bringing that sort of thing to Carrickbawn. Have you no morals?”
Audrey considered pointing out that the nude human body had been drawn and painted by great artists for centuries, but decided that such a defense would probably fall on deaf ears, and might make things worse. She opted instead for silence, and did her best to look abashed.
Another few seconds of wordless outrage followed. Audrey wondered if they were planning to stand there till eight o’clock. What if more potential students turned up—would the couple bar the door? She smoothed a seam in her skirt and cleared her throat discreetly. Zarek continued to make his way slowly through the enrollment form, hopefully oblivious.
“You haven’t heard the last of this,” the man said eventually, and to Audrey’s great relief they gathered themselves up with a series of outraged tuts. She listened to the sound of their footsteps fading along the corridor.
She should have made it clearer, she shouldn’t have assumed that people understood what life drawing was. Come to think of it, confusing it with still life was perfectly understandable. And of course some people would balk at the idea of a nude model; she should have anticipated that too.
As she was wondering if she should scribble out a clarification notice and stick it beside the list of classes in the lobby, a woman appeared in the doorway. Late twenties, possibly early thirties. Hopefully not offended by a display of naked flesh.
“Life drawing? Am I in the right place?”
“Yes, this is life drawing,” Audrey replied. Still a good quarter of an hour to go, and the student count was up to two. If just three more came, she’d have a respectable class. Five was fine, wasn’t it? Four even, at a pinch. So what if she took home a little less cash than she’d anticipated? She’d never been a big spender.
The woman walked to the top of the room. “I’ve never done it before,” she said. “Not any kind of art, not since school.”
Her dark red hair was twined into a fat side braid that hung over her left shoulder. The frames of her small, oval-shaped spectacles were deep purple. Even in her flat tan slip-on shoes Audrey calculated that she must be six feet tall, or as close to it as made no difference. At five foot one Audrey was used to looking up at people—including, sadly, many of her secondary school students—but making eye contact here involved a little more head tilting than usual.
“Inexperience is no problem,” Audrey told her. “It’s a beginner class, so everyone’s in the same boat, and the pace will be very relaxed.”
As the newcomer reached the desk Zarek thrust his hand towards her. “I am Zarek Olszewski. I am from Poland. Please to meet you. I also take this class.”
Wonderful—a welcoming committee of one extremely attractive man. Audrey couldn’t have planned it better.
The woman looked impressed. “Meg Curran,” she replied, shaking his hand. “Very nice to meet you. I was in Poland two years ago, on holidays. I went to Auschwitz—very sad.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“But I loved The Pianist.”
“Please?”
“Well, when I say loved, I mean it was terribly harrowing, but very well made, don’t you think?”
Seeing Zarek’s look of incomprehension, Audrey decided that the time might be right to hop in. “And I’m Audrey Matthews,” she said. “I’ll be teaching the class.” She passed the woman an enrollment form. “If you wouldn’t mind filling this in for me—”
Soft footsteps sounded behind her. Audrey turned to see another woman approaching the desk.
Around the same age as the others, maybe a little younger. Petite, boyish figure; pale hair cut so short it was hard to define the exact color. Three tiny silver rings pushed through her right earlobe, one above the other. She wore a white top and blue jeans.
Her brownish red lipstick was startlingly dark—and not, Audrey thought, the most flattering color for her. Overall there was a delicate quality to her features, the tidy nose slightly upturned, the small, almost child-like mouth, the pale unblemished skin. Elfin, if you had to put a label on her—and apart from the lipstick, rather colorless. Next to Meg, she looked positively miniature.
“Hello,” Audrey said, smiling warmly. “Have you come for the life drawing?”
The woman nodded. “Fiona Gray,” she murmured. “I’m not late, am I?”
“Not at all.” Audrey took another enrollment form from the stack. Three students, just another one or—
“Hello?”
Everyone turned. Yet another woman, who unwound a long, narrow, lavender-colored scarf as she walked past the rows of tables. “This is life drawing, yes?”
“Yes, it is, yes,” Audrey told her—four, she was up to four; wonderful. “You’re very welcome.”
The woman slung her scarf over the back of a chair as she reached the desk. “I’ve been running to catch up since this morning, thought I’d be late for this too.” She wore a black leather shift dress that stopped above her knees, and red patent shoes whose heels were high enough to make Audrey think of stilts. How on earth did she walk in them?
Her musky scent was cloying, her white-blonde hair beautifully, perfectly cut in a bob that slanted from high on the back of her neck to just below her chin. Her voice was throaty, the voice of a theater actor. Older than the others, around Audrey’s age—or maybe even the other side of forty—but looking after herself.
“I’ve never done it before,” she said, “life drawing, I mean. That’s with a live model, yes?”
“That’s right,” Audrey told her, relieved that the point had been made in front of everyone, but anxious to make it completely clear. “We’ll be working with a live, nude model.”
She waited. Nobody looked shocked.
“Good,” the blonde repeated. “Should be fun. Does it matter that I’m a total novice?”
“Not at all, it’s a beginner class,” Audrey said, handing her an enrollment form.
“We are all in the same ship,” Zarek told her cheerfully.
The woman looked at him with interest.
“I am Zarek Olszewski.” He stuck out his hand again. “I am from Poland.”
She laughed. “You don’t say.” Letting her hand linger in his, which of course they all noticed. “Irene Dillon,” she told him. “Charmed to meet you, I’m sure. And…?” Turning to the two other women with, Audrey thought, a noticeable lessening of interest.
As they introduced themselves Audrey began distributing the materials list. “As you know, it’s a drawing class, so your requirements are relatively few—unless, of course, anyone would care to add color, in which case that’s absolutely fine; and while you could stick to pencils for the drawing, I thought charcoal would be a nice—”
“Excuse me.”
She stopped. A man had appeared at the door, his head covered in a black woolly hat. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said in a soft Northern accent. “I don’t know if you’re full, or…”
—————
He took in the handful of people. One man who didn’t look Irish and four women, the largest of whom seemed to be in charge. He decided this was probably a mistake—what did he know about life drawing, what interest had he ever had in any drawing that wasn’t technical?
He’d wanted to enroll in intermediate French, to back up the CDs he’d taken out from the library the previous week, which were already helping him resurrect the words and phrases of his schooldays. He wanted to bring Charlie to France next summer, so she could start learning it too—at her age, she should soak it up. He hadn’t ruled out moving to France at some stage. These days he wasn’t ruling anything out.
But according to the handwritten message pinned to the notice board in the college’s reception area, intermediate French had been canceled due to the tutor becoming ill.
“Can’t you get someone else?” he’d asked the man behind the glassed-in cubicle, but the man had apologized and said he was just the janitor, and he had no information about tutors. So James had returned to the notice board and studied the other Tuesday-evening options, and had not been inspired.
Computer programming, Pilates, or life drawing. Not one of those remotely appealed to him. He used a computer at work and hated it—who would have thought an estate agent would have to spend so much time on a damn computer?—and he had no intention of having anything to do with them in his spare time.
He had a vague idea that Pilates involved stretching out on a mat and doing exercises of some sort, which approximated pretty much his idea of hell. Rowing was the only exercise that he’d ever taken any sort of pleasure from, and that was firmly in his past now, like just about everything else he used to enjoy.
Of the three choices, life drawing seemed the least offensive. He had endured more than enjoyed trying to reproduce the collections of objects his art teachers had assembled at school, but he supposed this might be different. Life drawing was people, not things, wasn’t it? Might be marginally more interesting—and who cared if he was utterly useless at it? He certainly didn’t.
He had to choose one of the Tuesday classes, because Tuesday was the only evening he could make his escape, and he needed an escape, so life drawing it was. He made his way to the room where the enrollment was taking place—and as he walked in and drew attention to himself, he realized that he’d made a colossal mistake.
What had he been thinking? Who said he had to sign up for any evening class at all? Couldn’t he sit in a pub for a few hours, couldn’t he go to the cinema if he wanted a break from home once a week?
As he opened his mouth to say thanks but no thanks, the large woman beamed at him.
“No, we’re not full,” she said. “You’re very welcome. Do come in.” She took a step towards him, putting out her hand. “I’m Audrey Matthews, the teacher. Come and let me introduce the others.”
And she looked so genuinely happy to see him that he found himself ridiculously unable to disappoint her. He stepped forward, his heart sinking.
“James Sullivan,” he said.
The name felt odd, but he’d get used to it.
—————
This was going to be a laugh. Irene signed the enrollment form with a flourish. Talk about eye candy, when all she’d come for was a bit of fun, something different to do on a Tuesday night. Pity the Pole wasn’t stripping for them—now that would be interesting. Bet he had some body under that tight black T-shirt and faded chinos.
All in all, today had shaped up pretty well. Not that she’d fancy driving into the gatepost every morning, but it had turned out to have its upside.
“Not too bad,” the mechanic had said, running his hand along the dent. Oil under his nails. Short, broad fingers. “Not too deep. Could be worse.”
The sleeves of his overalls pushed up past his elbows, arms covered in dark hairs, muscles taut. Probably didn’t need to work out, plenty of stretching and weight lifting with his job.
“You’ll have to leave it with us,” he’d said.
Irene had stood close enough to let him get her perfume. Men went mad for musk. “How long?”
He’d leaned against the car, arms folded. A head full of dark hair, cut short the way she liked it. Brown eyes. Bet he tanned as soon as he looked at the sun.
“Thursday at least, we’re busy right now. Give us a call Thursday morning.”
“You couldn’t do it any quicker?” she’d asked, a hand reaching up to touch his arm oh-so-briefly. “It’s just that I use it a lot, for work.”
Hard muscle, not an ounce of fat there.
“I wouldn’t ask,” she’d said, flashing her newly cleaned teeth at him, “only it’s really awkward being without it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he’d said then. “Give us a call Wednesday morning.”
“There you go.” Irene handed her form to the teacher, whose bright blue blouse with its tiny pink polka dots and horrendous turquoise flowery skirt were probably meant to be terribly artistic—and that must be her yellow jacket slung over the back of that chair. How could anyone seriously wear that collection of colors and patterns all at once?
Must be very liberating all the same, not to give a damn what you looked like.
—————
On the whole, Zarek Olszewski was quite happy living in Ireland. He accepted that the erratic weather system was what you got when you chose to live on a tiny island perched beside a huge ocean quite far up in the Northern Hemisphere. He’d grown accustomed to cars traveling on the wrong side of the road, and after four months he’d learned—just about—to live without his mother’s spicy dumplings and sauerkraut soup.
He shared a small flat with two other immigrants, one of whom produced a very edible dinner each evening in return for ignoring every other household chore, an arrangement that suited all three perfectly.
Zarek worked behind the counter in one of Carrickbawn’s fast-food outlets. His salary was modest, but his expenses were few. By shopping almost exclusively at Lidl and avoiding the pubs and restaurants of Carrickbawn, he managed to send a small monthly bank draft to his parents in Poland, and he squirreled away what little was left towards his eventual return home.
His single weekly extravagance was a €2 lottery card every Friday on his way to work. By the end of August he’d claimed two free cards and had won €4 enough times to keep investing in them. And just this morning, he’d scratched away the silver covering as usual and revealed €250 three times. Two hundred and fifty euro!
His first thought was to send the entire amount to his parents—what did he need it for?—but later that day, as he struggled during his fifteen-minute break through Carrickbawn’s free local paper, the Senior College’s autumn schedule of evening classes had caught his eye. Life drawing, he’d read, and his pocket dictionary had confirmed that it was what he thought it was, and enrollment was that very evening. The lure had proved irresistible.
A hundred and fifty euro would be a perfectly respectable windfall. His mother could fill the freezer, his father could get a new pair of trousers. They’d be perfectly happy with €150.
And now he was signed up, and the teacher was friendly and jolly, and he looked forward to the classes. He read the materials list for the second time and wondered again if he could ask the teacher what a putty rubber was.
—————
Audrey bundled the five enrollment forms together and slipped them into her canvas bag. She tucked checks and cash carefully into the bag’s side pocket and zipped it closed. She took her yellow jacket from the back of the chair and slid her arms into it and fastened the red toggle buttons.
She locked the classroom door and returned the key to Vincent at the reception desk, who told her that two people had asked him to lodge a formal complaint about the naked drawing classes to the college authorities.
“Lord,” said Audrey, alarmed. “What should I do?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Some old people just love to have a moan.” Vincent was seventy-five if he was a day. “If they come back, I’ll say someone is looking into it. See you Tuesday.”
In the car park Audrey unlocked the chain she’d wrapped around the front wheel of her newly repaired moped. She placed her bag in the basket and puttered down the short driveway of Carrickbawn Senior College. Five people signed up, five checks paid over—no, four. Zarek, bless him, had paid in cash.
Nice to have a non-Irish student in the class, made it feel quite cosmopolitan. After several months in Ireland, Zarek’s command of English was still a little precarious; and of course the language employed during the classes could well be a little specialized, “putty rubber” being a case in point. Maybe Audrey could suggest he bring a dictionary to the classes, to make sure he understood the instructions.
She wondered what he did to earn a living. What did any of them do, these five strangers who’d opted to spend two hours a week in one another’s company from now till Halloween? No doubt she’d find out in due course.
Interesting, too, to see how the dynamics would go, who’d get along and who’d have nothing in common. Would the women stick together, or would there be personality clashes? Would any attractions surface? Imagine if one of the three women made a play for Zarek; they’d all looked gratified to have him in the class. There might be a torrid affair—
She stopped. Listen to her, creating drama where there was none. They were simply a group of adults sharing a common interest, planning to spend a couple of relaxing hours together each week, no pressure to be anything else but amiable companions. Torrid affair, indeed.
But it would be nice if they bonded as a group; they might get quite chummy over the six weeks. There might even be a call for an advanced life drawing class after Halloween—if they weren’t run out of town before then by Mr. and Mrs. Scandalized.
And purely as an observation, with no hidden agenda whatsoever, James Sullivan had a beautiful soft Northern accent, and hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring. And looked to be about Audrey’s age.
Oh, he was probably attached, most people were by the time they reached his age, and lots of men didn’t bother with rings. She wished he’d taken off the hat—not that it mattered at all what kind of hair he had, but Audrey would have liked to see it. Presumably all would be revealed on Tuesday—he hardly wore the hat around the clock.
And speaking of all being revealed, there was still the problem of a model—or rather, of no model. So far Audrey had had three inquiries over the phone, one male and two female. The male had lost interest when he’d heard what money was being offered, and neither female had shown up for the subsequent face-to-face interview.
On the plus side there’d been another phone call just this afternoon, and a meeting had been arranged for the following day. With the first class looming, Audrey was keeping her fingers crossed that Jackie Moore turned up at least.
She’d sounded pleasant on the phone, and hadn’t seemed to mind the pay. Maybe a little unsure about the actual stripping, but that was to be expected. Happily, it wasn’t in Audrey’s nature to worry unduly—she’d hope for the best, like she always did, and see what happened.
And if Jackie didn’t work out and nobody else responded to the ad, there was always Terence, who taught science at Carrickbawn Secondary School and who’d been a little too eager to offer his services as soon as Audrey had mentioned the classes in the staff room. Terence would certainly not have been Audrey’s first choice, but he’d do in a pinch—as long as she kept a good eye on him.
She motored unhurriedly along the early-evening streets, still quite bright just after eight o’clock. The thought of the winter months ahead didn’t alarm her. Winter brought big coal fires and deliciously spicy curries and rich meaty stews, or bowls of steaming soup to dip soft floury rolls into—not to mention the occasional hot port when she came home wet through and frozen to the bone.
Summer’s food and drink, in her opinion, wasn’t a patch on winter’s. She’d never been a big fan of salads. Lettuce was just too leafy, no matter how you dressed it up. And she’d never really seen the point of cooking out of doors, with everything either burned or half cooked, and always the danger of food poisoning from carelessly barbecued chicken. And chilled white wine hurt her teeth; give her a glass of warm red any day.
And this winter, she remembered with sudden delight, if all went according to plan, there would be two of them sitting in front of the fire. She considered making a detour just to have another look at him—but the pet shop was at least twenty minutes out of her way, and of course he wouldn’t be there at night.
And she was starving, having eaten nothing since a tomato sandwich at four, and a steak and kidney pie was waiting at home. She loved steak and kidney pie, admittedly not the most nutritious of dinners—precooked in a tin like that, God only knew what kind of meat you were getting—but terribly tasty. And so handy, just whip off the lid and pop the pie into the oven, ready in no time.
She increased her pressure slightly on the accelerator, causing her flowered skirt to billow out. She’d go there first thing in the morning and get him, she couldn’t wait. She’d go straight after her rashers and sausages breakfast.
And maybe a bit of white pudding.
—————
James put the pint glass to his lips and took a deep swallow. As long as he had an hour off he may as well use it. Once he got home he’d be back to being Dad, who got precious few hours off.
So he was all signed up, he’d written his check for €90 and handed it over. He could always stop it in the morning, before the teacher had a chance to get to the bank. He could cancel the check and forget about fooling around with pencil and pad in the company of strangers for the next six weeks.
He drank again, feeling the stout coursing through him, relishing its pleasant malty taste. When had he been able to do this, could he even remember the last time he’d gotten away on his own, even for an hour?
Work didn’t count. He was never alone there; always someone around the office asking him questions he couldn’t answer, or telling him things he didn’t want to know. But he had to pretend, he had to make out it was where he wanted to be, otherwise they’d get rid of him, and he’d have nothing. He hated to acknowledge it, but the truth was he’d been lucky to get any job in the recession, even if it was one he despised. Better surely to be going out to work than sitting at home all day, trying to pass the time till Charlie finished school.
He glanced around the small pub. Two old men in the far corner, sitting side by side and saying not a word to each other. Another man on a stool at the counter, licking a thumb to flick through the pages of the Carrickbawn Weekly News. Not exactly the most exciting place on earth.
Which was fine by him: He hadn’t been looking for excitement when he’d applied for the estate agent’s job, when he’d uprooted Charlie and brought her here. As far as he was concerned, the less excitement Carrickbawn had to offer, the better. But after coping on his own with a six-year-old for over a month, James realized that he did need some sort of a break—and the drawing classes would probably be as good a way to achieve that as any.
He wouldn’t get involved, he’d keep his distance from the others. He’d speak if he was spoken to, but not otherwise. They’d get the message eventually, they’d leave him alone. And if they thought he was an unsociable so-and-so they’d be dead right, for that was exactly what he had become.
He checked his watch and saw that his hour of freedom was almost up. Better not push it, or Eunice might find a reason not to babysit in future. He drained his pint and left the pub.
—————
“So,” said Pilar, spreading peanut butter on dark rye bread, “you join the artist class?”
“Yes.” Zarek slung his jacket on the radiator and took a carton of apple juice from the fridge. “I join.”
“That is good.” Pilar arranged banana slices carefully on top. “How many peoples?”
Zarek thought. “Three…no, four, and me.”
“Five people, small class.” Pilar cut the bread carefully into neat triangles. “You like some sandwich?”
“No, thank you.” Zarek poured juice into a glass, listening to the guitar music that wafted softly from the next room. A savory scent still hung in the air, echoes of the rabbit casserole the three of them had eaten earlier.
“I go to have bath,” Pilar announced, taking her supper with her. “I come out in half hour.”
“Okay,” Zarek replied. Left alone in the kitchen he leaned against the fridge and sipped his juice and let the music wash over him.