‘No, it’s fine – it doesn’t matter at all about the colours being true to life. Whatever you feel. If you want to paint him completely in purple then of course you can. You see, that’s the point, Melissa – art is about expressing what’s inside you. There are no rules. Any medium, any shade, any size. Each decision is what makes up your inner artist. Do you see?’ Sara tried to look encouraging. Most of her students relished the idea of absolute free choice when it came to artistic impression, but with this one it was hard work. Sometimes half the lesson had gone before she’d decided whether to use a pencil or a brush.
Melissa didn’t look as if she did see. Or as if she ever would. It sounded a bit cruelly intense, addressed to this most anxious-to-please of Sara’s Wednesday afternoon Beginners Art class, who were sitting in a circle in the Adult College studio (actually a former science classroom, all Bunsen burners capped off by Health and Safety) with their easels set out like wagons round a pioneers’ campfire. There were twelve class members, the majority of them post-pension age, making the most of cut-rate access to the classes and determined to get out and about while they could. Some spent almost every waking hour on college premises, flitting from Conversational French to Yoga to Batik by way of Cake Decoration and the Poker Club.
Just now, the class were concentrating intently on the naked life model. Poor Melissa – one of only three younger-generation class members – was a tragically indecisive soul, and would prefer to be doing something that had a comfortable set of regulations to obey. Why her hyper-keen probation officer hadn’t suggested a useful skill like Basic Cookery instead of pointing her firmly in the direction of Art, Sara had no idea. Possibly it was to do with the theory that Melissa would feel the glow of creativity in an area unconnected with relieving high-street clothes shops of their goods without paying for them. It was a pity, because Melissa, who had led a chaotic life, would feel secure in the comfort of an exact recipe to follow, something she couldn’t really get wrong, and surely you couldn’t get much more of a creative glow than by eating what you’d made? Sara watched as Melissa opened a tube of Prussian Blue gouache and another one of Crimson Lake and squidged dollops on to her palette, then hesitated again, dithering over the choice of brush.
‘Big brush . . . or a little skinny one . . . big, little, fat or thin?’ Sara heard the girl murmur to herself. She backed away, wondering how Melissa ever made decisions in shops over what to steal. Perhaps taking skirts in every available colour had been what led to her many arrests. She turned instead to look at Mrs Mottram’s heavily scuffed charcoal drawing. Alan the model – one of the college’s caretaking staff, enjoying a lazy but paid break – shifted slightly on his chair and scratched his pale bum, the only bit of him that wasn’t deeply tanned. Pamela Mottram, a tall, rod-straight sixty-something with a Hermès horse-head scarf tied bandanna-style, scowled at him for daring to move, and he winked at her.
‘Cheeky sod,’ Pamela whispered to Sara. ‘I wouldn’t mind but he’s not got a lot to wink about, has he?’
‘Oy – I heard that!’ Alan twisted round and grinned at them. ‘You should try handling the goods before you pass judgement, darlin’. You might find I’ll grow on you, in a manner of speaking!’ A ripple of sniggers went round the group.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Pamela told him. ‘But you haven’t got anything I haven’t handled before and in a grown-up size, so would you kindly resume the position please?’ She added some vicious strokes of thick dusty charcoal to her flamboyant sketch as the model settled back on his chair and turned the pages of the Daily Star to the sports section. The room settled into a comfortable silence as the students concentrated on their efforts.
Sara glanced across to the corner of the room where she’d left Charlie sleeping in his buggy. You couldn’t just put babies out of your mind and concentrate on what you were doing, even when they were sleeping. No wonder Cassandra found it hard to get her college work done. All the time, one ear and half a brain were tuned to the slightest movement, the first stirrings. Stuart from Car Maintenance had put his head round the studio door earlier, making going-for-a-drink gestures at Sara, but when she’d pointed at Charlie he had almost fled from the room. ‘Another time . . .’ she’d heard him call as he dashed off down the corridor. What she’d actually meant was that they’d have to take Charlie too . . . not that she couldn’t go. She’d been about to say yes, if he’d stayed long enough to listen. It would have been good to have had a quick wind-down after work before going home to sort out supper and second-guess whatever mind game Conrad had got planned for the evening. If Cass and Paul really had separated, would Stuart’s reaction be that of just about every new potential boyfriend the poor girl attracted? She really hoped not.
‘He’s a good sleeper.’ Melissa now pointed her paint-brush in the direction of Charlie. Purple paint dropped in blobs on to the parquet floor.
‘That’s because he was up twice in the night,’ Sara told her. ‘Poor Cassie had a ten o’clock lecture this morning and spent half the night trying to settle him.’
‘You can get stuff for them,’ Melissa said, giving Sara a sharp look, as if about to offer class-A drugs in baby-dosage. ‘Stuff to make them sleep. My sister always does for hers. She says she’s got to have a life too, and that it’s not all about the baby.’
‘But they’re not little for long,’ Sara said carefully, not wishing to condemn an unknown woman’s child-rearing methods of choice, however tempting it was, for surely the point should be that it was all about the baby? ‘Cass knows it’s just a stage. It’s funny, it only seems about a week since that was me, trying to get her to sleep through the night.’ Conrad had suggested dipping a finger in brandy and letting Charlie suck it, as his generation’s parenting had decreed – whether secretly or otherwise. Not very much changes over the years, she thought, wondering if, resentfully camped outside the gates of the Garden of Eden, Eve had despaired over the sleeping habits of her own babies. Did she blame God when they woke her all through the night and resent this extra aspect of his mean-spirited eternal condemnation of her, simply for fancying a bit of fruit and the answers to some questions?
The blanket over Charlie was shifting. He was waking and would need some milk. This was going to involve a trip to the staffroom to use the microwave, so it was a good time to send the students to the canteen for tea and a biscuit. She was pretty sure they liked this bit of the lesson the best, especially the older women, who treated the breaks as a social event and a chance to chat up the most eligible widowers, luring them with two-for-one theatre-ticket bargains or offering to cook them supper, saying it wasn’t worth doing a full-scale roast for one. The men were easily wooed by offers of home cooking, and the most greedy of them played off the women against each other. Marie reckoned the canteen was elderly dating heaven.
‘How long have we got?’ Alan the model asked Sara. ‘I mean is it worth my while getting dressed, or would Mrs Mottram be persuadable in the fetching-me-a-cuppa department?’
‘Certainly I’ll get you some tea,’ Pamela told him. ‘And I’ll remember to bring you something to stir it with,’ she added, grinning, as she picked up her bag and went to the door.
‘Now that’s what I call a classy goer,’ Alan said, admiringly. Sara laughed. A more unlikely pairing she could hardly begin to imagine.
‘Ah there you are, Sara darling – are you coming up for a cup of tea?’ Marie breezed into the studio, passing the last of the outgoing students. She looked at Alan, who was now wandering naked among the easels, commenting on the success or otherwise of those who’d tried to capture his likeness.
‘Oh, no wonder you’re staying in here, Sara!’ Marie chortled. ‘And this is an aspect of you we never get to see, Alan! I’ll picture you like this next time I see you in the corridor bleeding the radiators.’
‘Marie please – don’t tease him! Do you know how hard it is to get nude models? Especially ones as pleased with their own bodies as Alan. The difficult bit is getting him to put his clothes back on.’
‘I just like to please the ladies. Gives them something to think about in the lonely night-time hours, if you catch my drift.’ Alan smirked.
‘Stop it now! Save it for Pamela!’ Sara laughed. ‘Come on, Marie, let me get Charlie and we’ll go and chat.’
She lifted the now wide-awake baby from his buggy and picked up his bag of essential supplies. Charlie wriggled in her arms. Slippery things, babies, she thought, remembering Pandora at this stage, intent on hurling herself backwards every time she was picked up.
‘Ooh let me carry him, Sara! I don’t get to play with babies very often.’ Marie sighed. ‘I don’t think my boys will ever get round to breeding. They’re too into Wii games and beer. When did playing with toys become something that went on beyond the age of eleven? I certainly wasn’t still asking Santa for dollies and daft games when I was older than that, were you?’
‘Definitely not! Maybe it’s a boy thing. Even Conrad plays computer games. He pretends he doesn’t but I’ve caught him loads of times sprawled on the sofa in the studio, switching off just too late to stop me seeing.’ That was what she’d caught him doing the night before, when she’d come home early from not going to the movies with Will. He was down in the studio, escaping, he said, from Cassandra and her friend Miranda, who were having one of those girly intense chats that involve lying on a sofa each and saying, ‘And then, like he says to me . . .’
Sara handed Charlie over to Marie, who tickled his tummy and made him smile. Marie made everyone smile she had that big-eyed happy kind of face that warmed and encouraged people. No wonder she’d so easily snaffled this Angus person.
‘I’ve had more titillating texts from Angus. It’s still all on, though next week now, not this,’ Marie told Sara excitedly as they went up the stairs to the staffroom. ‘He’s getting me so warmed up, I can’t wait! He’s got a friend’s flat in Chelsea that he uses when he’s down from Edinburgh. Better than a hotel, I think. Less, you know, staged. Don’t you think? And no embarrassing interruptions from room service and so on.’
Sara laughed. ‘Well, I suppose so. It’s not something I’ve thought about. If it was a hotel . . . actually I quite like hotels, but it would have to be one you already knew was good. A room you’d stayed in before and really liked, so you didn’t get any nasty surprises such as a shower that’s a bit manky or ugh chintz! I don’t think I could do anything sexually fun in a room that was all green swagged velvet, ochre walls and floral sofas!’
‘Oh I don’t know, the way I feel about Angus right now, I could do it in the back of a Mini. Anywhere just so long as it happens!’
And what about Mike, Sara wondered, what about that long-devoted, stolid husband of Marie’s who never did anything that wasn’t first of all intended to make her happy? Where did he fit in? He was probably putting up a shelf right now, or replacing the sealant round the bath. Not romantic, but done with love, all the same. None of my business, Sara told herself. And besides, with Marie all wound up like this, so happy and excited, it could be argued that so long as he never found out, he was actually getting the benefit of this hyper-good mood. There would be a lot of men out there, living with women at the same menopausal stage as Marie, who would envy Mike his ever-smiling, cheerful partner. Way better, they’d claim, than living with a hormonal time bomb, a moody viper veering between bouts of depressive sobbing and expensive therapeutic shopping. He was a sweet man, even if his idea of a fun trip out was a visit to B&Q to top up his supply of drill bits.
The staffroom was, for once, pleasingly underoccupied. Marie carried Charlie to the tattered leather sofa by the window and Sara found his bottle and put it in the microwave.
It wasn’t quite as true as it had been, what Sara had said about not thinking about sex with someone new. Sleepless the night before, she had found herself drifting into a fantasy about the man she’d had a drink with by the river. How easy it had been, chatting with him for that short time, how very relaxing it was to be with someone whose life history and life burdens she didn’t know about, and who had nothing at all to do with hers. A slightly shocked part of her recognized that he would have been an ideal candidate for that sexual holy grail Erica Jong wrote about many years before: the zipless fuck. Sex without any complications, no obstacles – emotional or otherwise. Except surely there were always complications. Premises, for one. How not spontaneous would booking a hotel room be? It would surely take all the edge off and put all the pressure on. Did the zipless thing ever really work, unless you were her sister Lizzie, whose sexual mores had never left the sixties love-in, or Marie, who, after a silver wedding’s worth of absolute fidelity, astonishingly failed to see a downside to this exhilarating love she’d recently found?
‘I bet you have thought about it. You must have. Everyone has.’ Marie looked at Sara sharply, making her blush, as if her mind was being read. ‘I don’t mean I’d recommend a full-scale affair.’ She backtracked. ‘And that’s not what I’m having.’
‘Would Mike agree with that statement?’ The microwave pinged and Sara took Charlie’s bottle out, shook it and tested the temperature.
‘Don’t be silly, of course he wouldn’t. But it’s not about Mike. This is separate. It’s for me, like going to the spa and having a day of pampering. I love Mike to bits, I can’t imagine ever living with anyone else . . . but . . . this Angus thing just jumped out and bit me when I wasn’t looking. Remember, I told you how we met at the Teach To Write conference, I was there when he did his talk. I watched him . . . he looked at me a lot and after the question session, we just drifted together as if we’d known each other for ever. It was always going to happen.’
‘Why didn’t you sleep with him at the time, then?’ Sara asked her, quietly in case the few staff reading newspapers or talking together had bat-like hearing.
Marie laughed. ‘His wife was there! I don’t think she’d have been very thrilled if we had! As it was she didn’t take to me. Her radar was working overtime. I thought, hey why is she being like this, and tried to be friendly, but when she asked me if I’d got my dress from Primark I just knew she wasn’t ever going to be a sister.’
‘And did you get your dress from Primark?’
‘Oh yes, of course I did! But that’s not the point, is it? You know the rules – if you think you might like some-one a huge lot and become proper friends with them, you say, “Oh that’s lovely, is it Prada?” And then they do a big shrieky laugh and say, “No actually, it’s Primark!” feel incredibly flattered and you then marvel at their amazing ability to pick out a fabulous bargain.’ Marie bustled about, fetching tea and biscuits for them both, then whispered loudly, ‘Got to go send a quick text, back in a jiff ! Keep my seat, I’ll be out on the stairs trying to concentrate on not sending it to Mike by mistake! God, can you imagine?’
The staffroom was filling up now. Sara relaxed in the depths of the sagging leather sofa, feeding Charlie his milk while various members of the teaching staff cooed over him. Charlie enjoyed the attention, allowing people to distract him, breaking off to smile at the ones he liked the look of. Stuart came in and hovered by the microwave, glaring across at Sara and the baby as if the child was a love rival.
‘Stuart! Thanks for this week’s veg box!’ Sara called across to him. ‘Why don’t you come and meet Charlie?’
‘OK, just for a minute. Don’t want to interrupt. Hello Charlie,’ he said, rather grumpily. ‘I suppose if Sara’s got you, she won’t want to come to the pub with me any more.’
‘Of course I will, don’t be daft!’ Sara protested. ‘I’m just looking after him for Cassandra while she’s at university. It’s not a full-time thing, this grandmother business, just occasional.’
Stuart smelled of old cars, motor oil and mustiness, with an underlying hint of shower gel. She wondered if his wife found that mixture a comforting, home-familiar aroma. Possibly she even found it erotic. Or did she hate it and light scented candles or even have those plug-in room fresheners all over their house? Maybe she didn’t notice. There were a lot of things you didn’t notice about husbands and partners when you loved them and lived with them. It was a bit like overfond owners of cats, who managed to ignore the pungent whiff of unneutered tom. Over the years, friends who’d got drunk enough to be frank had occasionally expressed amazement that she could live so apparently easily with Conrad’s constant travels to paint commissions, which meant he missed birthdays and anniversaries; and there were all those hours he spent in the studio when he’d seemed to lose track of day or night, missing appointments, social events, a couple of dinners at his own house that he simply didn’t turn up to, through all of which Sara stayed calm and happy enough. Other people’s husbands had always seemed a predictable and unappealing lot by comparison. Now she wondered if they might simply be quite restful. She’d be willing to bet they didn’t pounce on you to discuss death while you were cleaning a table, or paddle in public fish tanks.
‘Got some new totty joined the class,’ Stuart told her as he perched on the sofa arm, leering a bit. ‘A little blonde-of-a-desperate-age with a perfect derrière.’ He cupped his hands round an imaginary something that Sara guessed to be a size 16. ‘She’s big, round and curvy in exactly the right places. I can’t wait to see her leaning over the Fiesta’s radiator, delving with the dipstick!’
‘Stuart! You never give up, do you?’
‘Well, you turned me down. A man has to get his fun somewhere. And besides, what else has she come to the class for?’
‘Ah, the old theory – women only go to car maintenance in search of a big choice of geeky dates.’
‘And what do they get?’ Stuart laughed. ‘Lots of women just the same as them and . . . me! Not all bad news then! Talking of which, must get going. I hope she comes back from the break even later than me, though. I can threaten her with the cane. Talking of which, fancy some nice fat cucumbers later this summer?’
Sara hesitated, wondering about an answer that would be straightforwardly non-suggestive. Stuart could find a double entendre even in a nursery rhyme.
‘It’s just that I’ve got the seeds in and I reckon I’ve over-done it. You can have too many, with cucumbers.’
‘OK, thanks. That’d be lovely,’ she told him.
‘No worries. I’ll do you some nice long ridgy ones.’ He winked. ‘We can work out terms of payment another time. Gotta go . . . got to show that new woman which way up to hold a spanner.’
What was keeping Marie, Sara wondered as Charlie was just, after what seemed ages, getting to the last drops in the bottle. Sending a text to her lover was taking a hell of a time. Maybe they were finalizing their tryst details. She shifted Charlie into a more upright position as a male voice in front of her said, ‘Is there room on this sofa for one more? Oh – hey, it’s you! Hello again!’
Sara looked up, startled. And there he was, the man from the White Swan garden. She could feel her skin warming uncomfortably, and she wondered if he’d bolt if he sensed her night-time thoughts. How was one supposed to keep a dignified demeanour and make polite conversation with someone you’d imagined trailing his fingers over every inch of your skin?
‘Oh! Hi! What are you doing here? Have you joined the staff ?’ Her voice sounded normal enough, if a bit shrill. She moved Charlie, who had slumped somewhat, into a more comfortable position, put Marie’s bag on the floor and the man sat beside her. He was wearing ancient jeans with the hems fraying and another linen shirt, dark blue this time, with the sleeves rolled up. No watch, just a small friendship bracelet made from plaited embroidery threads in shades of blue. It crossed her mind (with a surge of dis-appointment) that possibly, as Conrad rather quaintly put it, he travelled on the other bus.
‘I’m working!’ he told her, smiling. He did have lovely teeth. She stopped herself from staring at them; it was hardly seemly to gaze like that at a man’s mouth. ‘I’m a journalist. Freelance. I’m writing a piece for the Guardian on the social aspect of Adult Education classes. It’s not about the people who are here for extra academic qualifications that they need for work, but those who rely on it for friendships, networking and so on. I’ve just been checking out Advanced Yoga – there are people in there who must be pushing ninety who can tie themselves in knots. Terrifying!’
‘You should come and hang out in my art class,’ Sara laughed. ‘Today it’s eager pensioners giving hell to the naked life model. Not that he minds. It would take more than a lively eighty-year-old to upset Alan.’
‘Ah . . . you’re an artist?’ he said. ‘I should have guessed.’ ‘Guessed? How?’
‘Just the way you dress. Something about what you wear. You have an original, stylish look. I thought that the other day. I liked your blue skirt – all layers and pointy bits. And . . . aha! Today you’ve got red shoes! Didn’t we decide it was the sign of a madwoman?’
So he was gay, she thought. He’d noticed her clothes.
Feeling flattered but slightly uncomfortable at being so observed, Sara looked at today’s dress as if she hadn’t quite noticed it before. It was a shades-of-pink floral 1940s tea dress, a junk-shop discovery she’d had for years, worn with a pale green cashmere cardigan, slightly shrunken. She’d changed the buttons for tiny heart ones in rainbow colours. Her shoes were scarlet strappy wedges, found in a charity shop and probably circa 1973, though with a 1930s look. Underneath was a white antique cotton petticoat, with drawn-thread work and ribbon.
‘I don’t know your name,’ she said at last. ‘If you really are coming to see my class I possibly should be able to introduce you to the others. I’m Sara.’ She hesitated about adding her surname – here at the college she used her maiden name. Admitting to being a Blythe-Hamilton tended to invite the question: ‘Are you any relation to Conrad?’ She wanted to keep Conrad out of this, what-ever ‘this’ was, so – ‘Sara McKinley,’ she said.
‘Ben Stretton,’ he said, taking her hand with pretend solemnity. ‘And I’m delighted to meet you.’
Sara laughed, feeling slightly light-headed. Charlie pointed across the room and bounced excitedly on her lap as he spotted Marie returning. Sara caught Marie’s eye and saw a whole lot of questioning going on behind her gaze. ‘She thinks we’re up to no good,’ Ben whispered as Marie came towards them.
‘Marie thinks everyone’s up to no good!’ Sara told him. ‘Sadly, she’s nearly always disappointed.’
‘Only nearly always? Well then, there’s hope,’ he said. Men, Sara thought. So confusing.
He leaned towards her and murmured very quietly, ‘And you know what they say about red shoes, don’t you?’
‘Yes I do,’ she said, inhaling a heady mix of laundry scents and some kind of sharp, delicious citrus. ‘That old saying: red shoes, no knickers.’
She would leave him to guess whether it applied to her.