But why are you going?”
James untied and redid the belt of his daughter’s red dressing gown. “I told you, because I’d like to try and do some drawing. It’s just for a little while.”
“But why can’t you do drawing here?” She poked a finger through one of his buttonholes.
“Because I want the teacher to help me,” he answered patiently. “Because I’m not very good.”
“But why can I not come too?”
“Because it’s only for grown-ups.”
Charlie pulled hard at the buttonhole. “That’s not fair.”
James smiled. “Well, school is only for children—that’s not fair either.”
“I hate school,” she said crossly, twirling her finger around, winding the fabric into a creased bunch. “School is a stinky bum.”
“Now, now, that’s not very nice,” he said, extricating the finger. “And mind my poor jacket, you’re making it all crumply. Look, you’re going to have great fun with Eunice.”
“I don’t like Eunice,” Charlie mumbled. “She’s smelly.”
“Ach now,” James protested—but he had to admit that his daughter had a point. Helpful as their new neighbor was proving to be, Eunice wasn’t exactly fragrant. On the contrary, she exuded a peculiarly cheesy odor, which James suspected was emanating from her feet. But what could he do, when she was allowing him these two precious hours of freedom?
Just then, Eunice herself came bustling in from the kitchen. “The popcorn is made,” she said. “Will we let Daddy get off?”
Charlie buried her head in James’s chest. “Don’t want popcorn,” she mumbled.
“Now stop that,” James said firmly, taking her shoulders and holding her out from him. “Have some manners. Eunice is being very kind to you. Come on now,” he added coaxingly, “be nice. Tell you what,” he went on, inspiration striking, “I’ll phone you at the break and tell you a story.” The break should roughly coincide with her bedtime—and would surely last ten minutes.
Charlie looked doubtfully at him. “Not a old story.”
“No—this one will be brand-new.”
“With a princess. And a pony.”
James got up from the sofa. “Princess and pony, got you. And you have to promise to go straight to bed for Eunice afterwards. Deal?”
She considered. “Okay.”
“Good girl. Now I need you to find my car keys.”
As she left the room James turned to Eunice. “Thanks again for doing this. I hope she’ll be okay for you. She’s been…a bit clingy since we moved down here.”
Eunice nodded. “Of course she has—and all the more reason for you to get a little break. Don’t you worry about us, we’ll be fine.”
James wondered what Eunice and Gerry had made of a man moving into the area with a small daughter and no sign of a partner. He’d made no mention of Frances to them, and thankfully they hadn’t asked—assuming, probably, that he was either widowed or divorced. Eunice had offered to babysit before James had even considered going out in the evenings. Feeling sorry for the lone father, no doubt.
“Tuesdays would suit best,” she’d told him, “since it’s Gerry’s night for cards with the boys down at the local. I’m sure you could join them, if you were interested.”
James could imagine Eunice cajoling her husband to take the newcomer along to meet the boys. He wondered how long his past would remain a secret in the company of card-playing drinkers. And what he’d seen of the local, with its graffiti-covered walls and huddle of tough-looking smokers in the doorway, didn’t encourage closer acquaintance.
“I’m not much of a one for cards,” he’d lied, “but thanks for the offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”
And the more he thought about it, the more he longed for one evening away from the demands a six-year-old could put on you. He loved his daughter dearly, but having sole responsibility for her from five o’clock each weekday, and all weekend, was extremely challenging.
When Frances was there, it had been so much easier. The care of Charlie had been shared between them during the week, and Maud and Timothy, less than forty miles away, were happy to take their only grandchild for at least part of each weekend. James adored his only daughter, but like any parent he appreciated the breaks from her too.
And now her mother was gone, and her father had made a decision that had put real distance between Charlie and her grandparents, and the only break he got apart from work was the once-a-month visit to Maud and Timothy’s for Sunday lunch.
James had been uncertain when they’d suggested it. The events of two years ago had prompted a seismic change in the relationship between him and his parents-in-law that didn’t surprise him in the least. Their lives had been upturned, their happiness snatched away in a single afternoon, and they had no way of knowing if James was responsible.
The case was still open, with nobody having been charged, or even arrested—for without any evidence, with no proof that any crime had even taken place, how could any arrest be made? James imagined what awful mixed feelings Maud and Timothy must have, how they must wish for an ending, even the worst of all possible endings—for wouldn’t that be better than this terrible limbo into which they’d all been plunged?
But whatever they felt for and about James, whatever dark places their thoughts about him might bring them, they were still Charlie’s grandparents, and she needed them in her life. They needed each other, with Charlie their only remaining link to Frances. So James had agreed to the monthly Sunday lunches, even though the visit now involved a round trip of over two hundred miles. But the first one had been successful, if only from Charlie’s point of view.
His parents-in-law had both been perfectly polite, of course, and Maud had pressed more roast lamb on James, and a second helping of blackberry and apple crumble afterwards. But the strain had been there, he’d felt it in the lightning glances that passed occasionally between the older couple, in the small pauses between remarks, in the forced element of their laughter.
Happily, Charlie had been oblivious to any tension. Throughout the visit she’d chattered to her grandparents, answering their questions about school and friends and the new house. She’d fallen asleep in the car on the way home, and James had watched his daughter’s face in the rearview mirror and seen, with a familiar pang, her mother’s high cheekbones and pointed chin.
Now, driving the mile or so to Carrickbawn Senior College, James felt a growing sense of dread. He hadn’t a clue how to draw, and he had no wish to learn. For the second time he considered absconding from the whole business, driving to a pub and sitting with a drink and the evening paper for two hours. What would anyone care, who would even know except himself and the other people in the class, perfect strangers whose opinion didn’t matter a damn to him?
But he’d signed up and paid, and he’d bought the pencils and charcoal, the sketch pad and the putty rubber. He may as well give it a go, at least once. If it was as bad as he was anticipating, he need never return.
He turned into the college car park at twenty-seven minutes past seven precisely.
—————
Zarek was looking forward to his first life drawing class in Ireland. He wondered if there would be any difference between these classes and the ones he’d taken at home. He supposed a nude body was a nude body, whatever the nationality—although he had yet to see what a naked Irish body looked like—and the rules for drawing the human form must surely be the same the world over. Still, it would be interesting to see how this teacher, whose name he’d forgotten, would approach the subject. He hoped his English wouldn’t let him down.
Although he couldn’t remember her name, the teacher had made a good first impression on him. Her flowing, colorful clothes, her generous, womanly build told him that here was a person who, like himself, enjoyed the sensual, the visual, the beautiful. Of course he had to acknowledge that she was no great beauty herself, at least not in the popular, physical sense.
Attractive certainly though, with her fresh, unlined skin, and brown hair whose curls gleamed with rich, red lights—did he imagine it, or did all Irish people have some red in their hair?—and eyes the color of caramel.
Her personality was appealing too. Her friendliness was tempered with a touching hesitancy; her instincts, Zarek felt sure, tending towards helpfulness. She would make a good teacher, she would guide rather than steer. Her criticism would be kindly meant, and constructive.
He took his jacket from its hook and lifted his satchel onto his shoulder as the apartment door opened and one of his flat mates appeared.
“I have a horrible day,” Pilar said, dropping her bag to the floor and yanking off her hat. “I kill that woman if I work for her one more week.” She unzipped her jacket, glaring at Zarek. “You know what she say me today? She say I eat too much biscuits. Plenty money, but she count biscuits—pah!”
She stalked towards the kitchen, leaving a faint tang of disinfectant in her wake, and Zarek heard her speaking to Anton in precisely the same annoyed tone.
He closed the front door quietly behind him and bounded happily down the stairs, looking forward to two hours of no dramas, no complaints.
—————
The bedroom door opened and Martin walked in. “She’s asleep.”
Irene slipped a chunky silver bangle over her hand. “Good.” She changed her mind and took the bangle off again—it might get in the way when she was drawing. “Did you start the dishwasher?”
He opened the top drawer of his bureau and began rummaging through it. “I did.”
He didn’t look forty-eight. He had the muscle tone of a man years younger. Irene appreciated how he filled his T-shirt, how hard and firm his body was under that grey marl cotton. She loved the way he moved, the way he strode across a room, any room, as if he owned it.
She wondered again if he was having an affair—and again, she didn’t ask.
“You’ll be glad to get the car back,” he said, still riffling through files.
“Sure will,” Irene said, taking a thin gold chain from her jewelry box and wrapping it around her wrist.
“When did they say?”
“Thursday, but I told them I needed it for work. I’ll give them a ring in the morning.”
“You’re an awful liar,” he said in the same neutral tone of voice.
Irene shrugged and reached for her perfume. “No harm done—and the guy will get a fine fat tip if he has it ready for tomorrow.”
She touched the stopper behind her ears and on her wrists, conscious of his presence behind her. She dipped the stopper back into the bottle and dotted perfume on her cleavage. She stood and took her lavender scarf from the bed and draped it around her neck.
“Have fun,” Martin said, pulling out a folder and bending over it.
“You know me.” She rested a palm briefly on his back as she passed. Aching to press against him, to feel his solid bulk all along the length of her, to breathe in his spicy smell. “See you.”
In the hall she took his car keys from their hook and opened the front door. Now that the first night of life drawing had arrived, she was half regretting her impulse to sign up. Did she really want to stare at another woman’s body for two hours? Should she have gone for photography on Wednesdays, or pottery on Thursdays?
The teacher was a mess, with that mop of curly hair and horrendous fashion sense—imagine putting a patterned skirt over those hips. Irene could only hope that she was better at teaching art than dressing herself. If the opportunity arose she might mention the gym, just throw it out to the group, make sure the teacher overheard. She’d be a real challenge, if Irene took her on.
As she drove towards the college she thought she wouldn’t mind being a model for a life drawing class. She’d never been shy about showing off what she had, and what she had was in pretty good nick, thanks to her workouts. Breasts that still pointed in the right direction, a behind that would give Beyoncé a run for her money, long lean thighs. Her Brazilian wax might cause a bit of a scandal, though. The view might be a little too revealing.
She thought about the mechanic who was repairing the car. She’d know when she collected it, she’d know by the way he talked to her if anything was going to happen. She wouldn’t push herself on him, she’d never do that. But she had a feeling he wouldn’t need any encouragement.
Not that she wanted him particularly, not that she wanted any of them. But Martin had put himself beyond her reach, and the emptiness that had caused in her had to be filled. She had to try and fill it, try to put something in its place, or she’d go demented.
She drove through the college gates and pulled into a parking space. She locked Martin’s car and strode towards the entrance, her three-inch heels clacking loudly on the paving stones. She passed an elderly couple holding placards and she smiled brightly at the woman, who glared back at her.
—————
As he approached the massive doors that led into the Senior College, Zarek observed a man and woman pacing back and forth in front of the building, each holding a notice of some kind. Perhaps they were advertising the evening classes, maybe they were some sort of Irish welcome.
But as he got closer he changed his mind. Neither of them was smiling or looking at all welcoming. On the contrary, the woman was regarding Zarek with what appeared to be surprising hostility.
“You’re one of them,” she said as he drew level with her. “I saw you. Didn’t you see him?” she demanded, turning to her companion.
The man nodded grimly. “Oh yes, he was there, he was filling in the form. I hope you’re thoroughly ashamed, young man. It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Zarek was puzzled. They seemed angry with him, but he had no idea why. Had they met before? They didn’t look at all familiar. He scanned the notices they held, thinking they might offer some explanation.
NO FILTH IN CARRICKBAWN, he read on one, and KEEP OUR TOWN DECENT on the other. Both signs were handwritten with a black marker on squares of white card, and attached to their wooden poles—sections of a broom handle?—with green insulation tape, and their messages completely escaped Zarek.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I do not understand—”
“Oh, you understand all right,” the woman told him. “You understand enough to enroll in this sinful class. How can you sleep at night?”
“How I sleep?” asked poor Zarek. “Very well, thank you.” Had he somehow offended them by being a sound sleeper?
“Is your conscience not troubled?” the man asked.
“My—”
“Hello there.”
To his enormous relief, Zarek recognized the tall woman who’d enrolled in the life drawing class. Perhaps she would explain.
“Can I ask what you’re protesting about?” she asked the couple.
“You can,” the woman answered grimly. “There’s a class going on here this evening involving a naked person.”
“Really? A naked person?” Behind her purple-framed spectacles her eyes widened. “I didn’t hear anything about that. Some kind of publicity stunt, I suppose.” She turned to Zarek. “We might get our pictures in the paper.”
“Some kind of filth, you mean,” the woman retorted—before Zarek, who was now completely lost, could attempt a response. “An art class, if you don’t mind, bold as brass in the middle of Carrickbawn, and my husband and I felt we had to show our disgust.”
“Well, good for you,” the tall woman said, edging towards the doorway. “Well done, pity there aren’t more like you.” She addressed Zarek again. “Come on, we’ll be late for our…flower arranging.”
“No—he signed up for the art class,” the older man protested. “We saw him.”
“Actually, there was a mistake,” the woman told him, lowering her voice. “He’s from Poland, very confused, terrible English. He thought he was signing up for flower arranging, poor thing—well, you can see how he could mix them up. It was all sorted out eventually. And now we must dash, or we’ll be late. Keep up the good work.”
She shepherded the bewildered Zarek briskly through the college entrance. “Phew—let’s hope we don’t have to do that every Tuesday.”
“You not come to life drawing?” he asked her. “You change to other class?”
She smiled. “No, I haven’t changed, I’m still going to life drawing. I just said that to get away. Remember, if you meet those two again, you’re going to flower arranging, okay? It’ll just keep you out of trouble.”
Zarek nodded. It seemed the simplest thing to do.
—————
“You hardly touched your dinner. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I just thought I’d better not be too full for the Pilates. I’ll have a bit more when I get home. And thanks for looking after Eoin.”
“What looking after? He’s no trouble. You should get out a bit more.” Her mother eyed the bag on Jackie’s shoulder. “What’s that you have?”
“Just a towel,” Jackie lied. “We were told to bring one, for the cool-down.” Amazing, how easily the lies came.
“Bring a dressing gown,” Audrey had said, “that you can slip on and off.”
Jackie thought of slipping off the dressing gown in front of them all and her stomach lurched for the thousandth time. She hoped to God she’d be able to keep down the bit of dinner she’d managed to eat. She’d been jittery all day at work, her anxiety increasing as the evening had drawn nearer.
A mistake, a huge mistake. She wasn’t cut out for this, she didn’t have the nerve for it. But it was much too late to back out now, she’d have to go through with it. She’d endure tonight somehow and tell Audrey she’d have to find someone else for the rest of the classes. She opened the front door and stepped out into the cool evening air.
“You can feel the autumn coming,” her mother said. “Are you sure Dad can’t drive you?”
“No, no—I could do with the walk.”
Imagine meeting Audrey outside the college, imagine her saying something to Jackie’s father that would give the game away. It would be like Santorini all over again.
“Enjoy yourself, love, see you later.”
“See you.”
Enjoy yourself—if she only knew what her idiot of a daughter had signed up for. As Jackie made her way to Carrickbawn Senior College she marveled, not for the first time, at how life had returned to normal in the Moore household after she’d turned it upside down over six years earlier. It hadn’t seemed possible, in the awful weeks following her revelation, that she’d ever be forgiven.
Her father leaving the room anytime she walked in, hardly able to look at her if they met on the stairs. Her mother’s accusatory, tear-filled rants, wailing that Jackie had disgraced them, that they’d never again be able to hold their heads up.
Jackie’s friends had assured her that given time, they’d come around. “When the baby is born,” they’d said, “things will change, wait and see.” But Jackie hadn’t believed them. Her friends hadn’t a clue, none of them had been in her situation. If anything, the baby would make things worse, would be a constant reminder to her parents of how stupid Jackie had been.
“Your whole life ahead of you,” her mother had sobbed, “anything you wanted to do, all waiting for you. And now this, everything gone, the Leaving Cert useless to you.”
And Jackie had remained silent, knowing that it was all true. She had ruined her life, she couldn’t deny it. She’d gone to Santorini with three friends the summer after the Leaving Cert. She’d drunk too much and taken a chance, like so many others, and she was one of the unlucky ones who’d been caught.
She had no idea who Eoin’s father was. She remembered he was English, but that was it. They’d met in a bar and they’d made their way to the beach afterwards. Jackie had woken, headachy and alone on the chilly sand as the sun was coming up. She’d never seen him again. They’d been together for a few drunken hours and they’d made a child, and he’d go through the rest of his life not knowing that one summer he’d fathered a son.
By the time Jackie realized she was pregnant, a fortnight before she was due to start college, her holiday tan had long since faded. She’d confessed to her parents—what else could she do?—and all hell had broken loose.
And now Eoin was six, and his grandparents had doted on him from the day he was born. And twenty-four-year-old Jackie, who’d given up her college place, worked in a boutique that was owned by a friend of her mother’s, and she couldn’t say that she was unhappy.
She rounded the last bend, and the gates of Carrickbawn Senior College loomed ahead of her. She took a deep breath and walked on, willing the next two hours to fly by, telling herself to rise above it and pretend it wasn’t happening.
—————
Audrey turned in the college gates and hurried up the driveway, blotting her damp, rosy face with a tissue. She approached the entrance, panting heavily, hardly registering the older couple who were stowing something in a car boot, their backs to her.
In the lobby she waved distractedly at Vincent as she rushed past his cubicle. Hopefully he’d assume she had a good reason for turning up almost fifteen minutes after the starting time, as indeed she had. A moped that wouldn’t start, despite having just been serviced, surely constituted a good reason.
But Lord, how unprofessional to arrive late to your first-ever evening class, when you were the teacher and naturally expected to be there ahead of everyone. How bad it must look, how they must all be regretting that they’d chosen her class.
She burst into the room, full of flustered apologies: “I’m so sorry”—fumbling at the buttons of her jacket as she approached the desk—“my moped refused to start”—her blouse stuck to her back, her armpits drenched—“so I had to race all the way”—her face on fire—“you must all think I’m just the most careless person—” She flung her jacket on the chair, trying to catch her breath, doing her best to compose herself, forcing a smile as she panted to a halt.
They regarded her silently. Five faces registering varying degrees of concern, no disapproving expression that she could see. At least they’d all waited, at least none of them had walked out when she hadn’t shown up at half past seven.
Audrey patted her hair, attempting to marshal her thoughts—and as she scanned the room she realized with fresh horror that her model was nowhere to be seen.
—————
Michael ran his hand along the row of photo albums on the bottom shelf of the bookcase until he came to what he wanted. He pulled it out and brought it to his armchair.
For some minutes he sat with the book closed in his lap, staring at the framed photo of his wedding day on the mantelpiece. Ruth wore a white fur stole over her dress—they’d chosen New Year’s Day to get married—and carried a small bouquet of white flowers. She leaned into Michael’s side and gazed up at him—such a little slip of a thing she’d been—and they both looked perfectly happy. If they’d known what lay ahead, how little time they’d have together, what a mess Michael would make of everything after she’d left.
He opened the album and turned the pages slowly. Like all parents, they’d gone mad with the camera for their firstborn. Ethan had been snapped in all manner of poses. Lots of him fast asleep, curled on his side, mouth pursed, clutching Bun-Bun, the little blue rabbit that someone—Michael’s mother?—had given him, and that had gone to bed with him for years.
In others he was sitting on somebody’s lap, or on a rug out the back, his face and hands covered in ice cream, or standing by the clothesline, podgy hands hanging on tight to the pole. Michael remembered, with a fierce stab, Ruth running in from the garden to snatch up the camera, shouting Quick, he’s standing, he’s staying up!
And there he was later, toddling around by himself, grinning up at the camera in little shorts and a T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front, splashing naked in a paddling pool, sitting in front of a birthday cake with two candles.
Michael turned a page and looked at Ethan on a couch, his baby sister in his arms. He would have been three then, or almost. About the same age as the child who’d come into the shop with his mother.
The white-blonde hair was similar—but lots of young children had hair that color. Ethan’s had darkened to a midbrown by the time he was six or seven. The faces were different, the boy in the shop was peaky, with none of Ethan’s chubbiness—but that could be down to how he was being brought up. A steady diet of junk food probably, and precious little fruit or vegetables.
Michael sat back and closed his eyes. What was the point of this? He’d made his choice, he’d sent them away, and chances were he’d never see them again. He shut the album and returned it to the shelf. He switched on the television and watched as someone tried, excruciatingly slowly, to win a million pounds.
—————
“Remember we’re just trying to get the overall shape of the body here,” Audrey said. “Forget about detail—in these short poses we’ll map in the holistic view quickly, so look for the curve of the spine, the angle of the head, the positioning of the legs. And don’t worry about getting it right, let’s just enjoy the form.”
She walked among the tables, keeping up a running commentary of instruction, demonstrating how to produce a rapid sketch, how to use the pencil to gauge proportions, how to relate the various body shapes to one another.
After the first ten minutes she’d picked out Zarek’s natural affinity with his pencil, and James’s rough, brave efforts. She observed Irene’s flamboyant but amateur attempts; Meg’s overreliance on her putty rubber; Fiona’s hopeful, haphazard scribbling.
Along the way she also noted Irene’s cleavage—could that tan be real?—Meg’s silver earrings that were shaped like tiny scissors, the small, dark brown mole on the back of Fiona’s neck, the flecks of white scattered through James’s almost black hair. And as she walked around the room taking everything in, Audrey offered silent, fervent thanks that after the shakiest of starts, her first life drawing class was finally under way.
Once she’d established that her model wasn’t in the room, she’d instructed her band of students to rearrange their six tables so that they formed a horseshoe shape. “After that,” she told them, pulling rolls of masking tape from her bag, “you can take a wooden board from the table at the back and attach a page from your pads to it with this. I’ll be right back.”
She’d hurried from the room, praying that Jackie was in the vicinity—surely she’d have gotten in touch if something had prevented her from coming? But what if she hadn’t bothered, what if she’d simply changed her mind? Surely not—she hadn’t struck Audrey as that kind of person when they’d met.
She might have lost her nerve though, and been too embarrassed to let Audrey know. How could anyone conduct a life drawing class with no model? Audrey wondered wildly if Vincent the caretaker could be persuaded to sit for them.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and jabbed at Jackie’s number. It was answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
Faint, nervous—but at least she’d answered it. Audrey closed her eyes and crossed her fingers tightly.
“Jackie? It’s Audrey. Where are you?”
“I’m here, I’m in the bathroom, but I can’t—”
“Hang on—I’ll be right there.”
Audrey dashed towards the toilet block, heart in her mouth. She pushed the door open and burst inside—and there was her model, huddled by the bank of sinks in a blue dressing gown, deathly pale, her shoes and socks still on, a rucksack clasped to her chest, an expression of abject fear on her face.
“I can’t do it,” she blurted as soon as Audrey appeared. “I’m really sorry, I thought I could, but I just can’t. I feel sick. I can’t go in there. Please don’t make me. I’m sorry, I know I’m letting you down, but I can’t.”
It was what Audrey had been dreading. Jackie had had too much time to think about the implications of presenting her naked body to a group of strangers. Her initial confidence, which Audrey had bolstered so carefully in the café, had worn off and left her terrified.
Audrey put an arm around her shoulder, searching her mind for the right words, praying for a miracle in the next minute or two. “Jackie, if I had a euro for every model who was nervous before her first time, I’d be a millionaire. What you’re feeling is perfectly understandable, but I know you’re well able—I wouldn’t have taken you on if I didn’t think you could do it. The students are lovely, and like I said, there are only five of them. They’re adults, they’re very professional. You’ll have no bother at all.”
Jackie looked unconvinced, her head slowly shaking from side to side.
“Imagine them in their underwear,” Audrey went on desperately, aware of time ticking by. Would they all have given up and gone home by the time she persuaded Jackie to return with her—if that ever happened? “Imagine them in long johns—or maybe bloomers, you know those ones with elastic and…frilly ends.”
“I really don’t—”
“And think of what you can treat yourself to, with the money,” Audrey said. The money might do it.
“I was hoping to get my son a Wii for Christmas,” Jackie admitted. “But I honestly don’t think I can go through with it.”
Audrey felt a flicker of hope—not that she had the slightest notion what a wee was. “There you go, he’d be thrilled with that—they’re all going mad for them now.” Please, she begged silently, please. “Tell you what,” she said, “give it ten minutes. If you still hate it after that I’ll let you go home, I promise.”
And eventually, finally, Jackie was coaxed back down the corridor and into the room, where the group sat in their horseshoe positions, pages taped and ready—and where the clock on the wall read eight minutes to eight.
Audrey introduced Jackie quietly and without ceremony, aware that the girl remained extremely reluctant, that the slightest glitch might still cause her to bolt in fright. She indicated a chair off to the side. “You can leave your things there,” she said in an undertone, “and then I’ll tell you what to do.”
Acutely conscious, as she plugged in the fan heater she’d brought along, as she positioned a second chair facing the horseshoe of tables and covered it with a dark blue sarong, as Jackie crouched to unlace her runners and peel off her socks, that every eye in the room was trained on the girl. Don’t look at her, she begged silently, not yet.
“We’ll start with a series of short poses,” she told them, keeping Jackie at the periphery of her gaze, aware of the dressing gown being slowly opened. “Two or three minutes at the most, just to warm us up.”
The dressing gown slid from Jackie’s shoulders and she bundled it quickly onto the chair. “Right Jackie, if you could come and sit over here please,” Audrey said calmly, praying silently.
Her model walked slowly to the chair that faced the horseshoe of tables, not looking towards the students, not looking anywhere but down at the seat of the chair, hands held awkwardly in front of her. Audrey noted the small breasts, the rosy pink of the nipples, the full bush of dark pubic hair.
“Good girl,” Audrey murmured. “The worst bit is over. Trust me, it gets easier from now on.”
Jackie still looked sick. “What do I have to do?”
Audrey positioned her on the chair. Jackie sat as instructed, eyes downcast.
Audrey turned back to the class, feeling the tension of the evening beginning at last to slither out of her. Finally, they were ready to begin.
“Right, everyone,” she said, “the first of our short poses. Remember we’re just trying to get the overall shape of the body here, don’t worry too much about detail. Note the position of the limbs, the angle of the head, the line the torso makes.”
—————
“So what about the big protest?” Meg asked.
Irene regarded the plate of biscuits but made no move to take one. “What protest?”
“Two people,” Fiona told her, “with placards, out the front.”
“Oh yes, I saw them but I took no notice. What were they protesting about?”
“Us,” Meg said. “This class. They don’t approve. I had to rescue Zarek.” Turning to him, on her left. “Didn’t I?”
“Please?”
“The angry people outside, before the class. I had to take you away.”
“Oh yes; I was not understanding what they say.”
“Hear that, Jackie?” Irene asked. “You’re causing a scandal.”
Jackie, back in her dressing gown, smiled shyly. “Oh dear.”
Audrey listened to her students and sipped her tea. All seemed to be well, halfway through the first class. They were chatting, they were getting on.
Or rather, most of them were chatting. She wondered where James had gone. Out for a cigarette maybe. Pity if he smoked though, very off-putting. She’d been pleased to see his nice head of hair when the woolly hat had come off—not that baldness was necessarily a bad thing, of course. Look at Yul Brynner, or Telly Savalas. Well, maybe not Telly Savalas, bless him.
And the height of Irene’s heels again tonight: How did she walk in those shoes? They made her almost as tall as Meg, who was in flats, and who seemed far too busy making eyes at Zarek to notice what Irene had on her feet. Maybe there would be a fling after all.
What was that saying about boys not making passes at girls who wore glasses? Not that Meg struck Audrey as the type who waited for a man to make a pass—and anyway, glasses were so trendy now, more like a fashion accessory than a passion killer. And Meg’s pair was certainly striking: Audrey approved of the purple frames.
And despite her age, it had to be acknowledged that Irene looked good in a short skirt. Look at those slim legs, those shapely calves. Audrey would have loved to wear minis when she was younger, but at twelve she’d decided that her substantial knees were best hidden from public view, and she’d turned to color by way of compensation.
She took a second custard cream from the plate by her elbow and dipped it into her cup. So far so good, after the shakiest of starts.
—————
“The princess climbed back onto her pony and galloped over the mountain, just in time to put out the forest fire—”
“How?”
“What d’you mean, how?”
“She had no water. You have to have water to put out a fire.”
James thought quickly. “Oh, I forgot to mention the magic well she found at the top of the mountain.”
“But if there was a well how could there be a fire?”
“I can’t understand it,” he said sadly, “and neither could the princess. But anyway the magic well had a hose attached, and she squirted it at the fire and put it out in no time at all. Then she married the prince and lived happily ever after.”
“With her pony.”
“Yes, with her pony. Now, make sure you brush your teeth and go straight to bed, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Night-night, poppy. Big hug.”
“Night, Dad.”
James hung up and got out of the car. He’d kill for a cup of tea, but the princess and her pony had probably put an end to that.
—————
“So you enjoyed the Pilates.”
Jackie took the plate of leftover chicken from the microwave. “I sure did: It was excellent.”
“That’s good; and you had the walk to and from the college too. Plenty of exercise.”
“I’ll be as fit as a fiddle in no time.” She filled a cup with tea.
“Eoin was asking again if Charlie can come to play after school,” her mother said.
Jackie added milk to her cup. “Those two really seem to have hit it off—he’s always talking about her.”
“You should have her around.”
“I will, as soon as I meet the parents.”
She brought her cup and plate into the sitting room and sat next to her father on the couch, pretending to watch a documentary about Irish murders while she replayed the events of the last couple of hours in her head.
When she’d passed the protesting couple at the door of the college—“no filth”: God, that was her—she’d looked straight ahead and kept going, and thankfully they hadn’t attempted to talk to her. Walking into Room 6 and seeing no sign of Audrey, her nervousness had increased. What was she supposed to do, where should she change?
No, not change, undress. Strip. Get naked. Whatever way you put it, it sounded horribly sleazy.
There were three people already in the room, two women and a man, standing over by the window. They’d glanced around when she’d entered, but Jackie had been careful not to catch anyone’s eye. These were the people who were going to be looking at her nude body in a few minutes. She couldn’t possibly have a conversation with any of them now.
She’d perched on the chair nearest the door, her rucksack clutched to her chest, the knot in her stomach growing steadily tighter as the minutes had ticked by. Where the hell was Audrey, why wasn’t she here, telling Jackie what to do, putting her at her ease?
Finally, she hadn’t been able to bear it any longer. She’d gotten to her feet abruptly, her chair scraping loudly on the tiles, aware of heads turning towards her again. She’d fled from the room and stood outside the door, searching the corridor for Audrey, but still seeing no sign of her.
She’d considered bolting, just walking out quickly past the front desk and making her escape. She’d stood there biting her lip, her whole body tense. It had been so tempting.
But she couldn’t let Audrey down, not at this late stage, even if the thought of what she had to do was becoming more daunting with every second that passed. Anyway, knowing her luck, she’d be sure to meet Audrey as she tried to leave. She’d turned and walked quickly past the open classroom door and farther down the corridor, willing her nerve not to desert her as she spotted a sign for toilets ahead.
She’d hurried into the nearest cubicle and removed her clothes with trembling hands, her sense of dread increasing with each garment she stuffed into the rucksack. When everything apart from shoes and socks was off, she’d wrapped the dressing gown around her and belted it tightly, and stood quaking by the bank of sinks.
By the time her phone rang a few minutes later she’d been on the point of getting dressed again, having decided that she couldn’t, just couldn’t, go through with it. She’d waited for Audrey to walk in, bracing herself for the other woman’s disappointment, or even anger. Of course she’d be angry, with Jackie letting her down at the very last minute.
But Audrey hadn’t been angry, she’d been kind and understanding—and however she managed it, she’d persuaded Jackie to give it a go. And Jackie had given it a go. She’d felt the fear and done it anyway, or whatever that expression was—and it hadn’t been half as awful as she’d imagined.
It had taken a while to get over the mortification of it, of course; she hadn’t relaxed immediately. For the first couple of poses she’d sat rigidly, acutely conscious of them all staring at her, terribly aware of the imperfections they could clearly see. She kept her gaze fixed on the floor in front of her, frightened to look anywhere else in case she caught someone’s eye.
But as the minutes passed and everyone just scratched on the pages with their pencils, and asked Audrey questions about shading and lines, and nobody seemed particularly interested in Jackie, apart from how to get the shape of her hip or the curve of her breast right, she realized that being naked was no big deal in an art class. And slowly, very slowly, she began to relax.
The ice had been well and truly broken at break, when they’d all been so nice and friendly, joking about the protesting couple, apologizing to Jackie for their pathetic efforts to capture her on paper, and generally including her as part of the group.
And by the end of the class, she’d decided that one of the people she’d been so terrified of was in fact absolutely gorgeous.
All in all, the most interesting evening she’d had in a long time. She took another mouthful of chicken and glanced at her father, and decided that sharing her euphoria with him might not be the best idea in the world.
—————
For the fourth night in a row, Dolly occupied the bottom of Audrey’s bed, lying on a nest of newspapers that crumpled loudly anytime she moved. The room smelled, in no particular order, of Audrey’s patchouli bath oil, bleach, and dog urine. Audrey lay awake and listened to the rapid breathing of the bed’s other occupant.
She’d failed miserably to get Dolly to remain in the kitchen overnight—some figure of authority she’d turned out to be. And once in the bedroom, Dolly persisted in trying to clamber onto the bed until Audrey gave in and lifted her up, which meant that the duvet’s days were numbered—newspaper could only provide limited protection against an enthusiastic canine bladder. Newspapers on the kitchen floor were similarly ineffective, Dolly preferring to leave her calling card on whatever tiles she could find each day.
And everything was chewed, from the kitchen table legs to the log basket to the handles on the floor-level cabinet doors to the blind cords. Nothing was safe—when it came to putting something between her teeth, Dolly didn’t discriminate. What on earth was Audrey to do, how was she to stop the house from mini demolition?
She didn’t think she’d last till the vet returned on Saturday. Much as she resisted the idea, it looked like she might have to return to the pet shop and seek the cranky man’s advice. He surely couldn’t object to someone looking for help with an animal he’d sold—wasn’t it his duty to provide after-sales service if it was needed? Audrey would be all politeness and civility if it killed her, she’d make it impossible for him to brush her off.
She turned her thoughts to the first life drawing class, and gave thanks again that it had turned out well in the end. Her five students had seemed happy enough, and thankfully Jackie had gotten over her inhibitions and promised to come back.
“My parents think I’m at Pilates,” she’d confessed to Audrey at the break. “They’d go mad if they knew about this.”
Still living with her parents at twenty-four, and the mother of a child. No mention of the boy’s father—and if her son was old enough to know that he wanted a wee, whatever that was, Jackie must surely have been young when she’d had him.
None of Audrey’s business. She turned over, trying to ignore the pins and needles in her left foot, on which a small and blessedly sleeping animal was positioned.