Mass finished and we filed out of the church, but in the porch and on the steps there were people to offer the season’s greetings to, so many Gran knew that it was a while before we got back home. Once there, and before my mother made breakfast, we opened our presents in accordance with custom; from my mother I got a dress I would probably never wear, underwear off Gran, and a sweater, as I guessed, from Stephen. The sweater wasn’t too bad, though, all black, very beatnik, very early-Beatles.
Gran and my mother were predictably happy with their gifts –slippers and scarves and the usual things they expected- and we sat down to a jolly Christmas breakfast, a big fry-up with dollops of sauce. Inevitably, though, there came that miserable spell when we remembered the people we missed; it came in the afternoon, just after Christmas dinner. My mother had made the mistake of buying a turkey that was too big, as if there was still a man of the house to feed, and the error only occurred to her when she remembered that he wasn’t there to carve the bird; I saw her mood change as we got to the Christmas pudding and immediately we’d finished both she and Gran disappeared, claiming that they needed to lie down to digest all they’d eaten. I did the washing up, then, switched on the television, and that was all that Christmas would be for me, a full stomach and mindless hours spent watching old films.
*
We never had visitors on Christmas Day itself, everyone stayed with their families, even when those families had all but died out, so that night it was just the three of us in front of the television again. I drank a few of the bottles I’d bought and we had turkey sandwiches and Christmas cake for supper. Well before eleven o’clock we were all dead beat and in our beds.
Boxing Day was the day when people called round, and it was always a trial for me. In the past we would make the rounds of aunts and uncles, but with Gran getting on in years, and my mother widowed, the uncles and aunts now came to us. It was a wearying day, though the two women enjoyed it. The older folk talked to me about my future and remarked on how I’d grown, trying not to show their displeasure or disappointment at the way I was turning out, while the younger brats of cousins were a little more open, saying I looked funny, like a bloke, with my short hair. I wanted to kick them as they dashed about the house with their noisy presents, toy guns that sparked and rattled and dolls that cried and wet their nappies. Everyone drank sherry or port in the front room, the best room, which has been cleaned and polished especially for the occasion, and the only exception is Uncle Jack who drank the half bottle of rum which my mother had got especially for him.
Jack was the most prosperous of the relations, only a butcher but lucky to have made a bit of money at it; he’d got himself a nice car, a semi-detached with gardens front and back, and though mother had been getting her Christmas meat off him for years he still charged her full whack, never once saving her a penny.
‘All the best!’ he said, filling the doorway as he entered, all hale and hearty and full of bonhomie. There was something a little false about the greeting, he always struck me as being so bombastic; though he pretended not to, he was forever judging people by what they earned and what they had, despite growing up in a terraced house just like ours he regarded his present comfortable home as a sign of his worth rather than an indication of his good fortune.
‘Merry Christmas, Jack,’ my mother greeted him, as he led his wife into the front room. ‘And you too, Doreen.’
Doreen was a primary school teacher and Jack regarded her in much the same way that he regarded his home and his car, as something earned, a symbol of his exalted status; teachers were well respected in Sleepers Hill, much as university professors might be in a more civilised place.
Kisses were exchanged all around, then Jack took my hand, gave it a squeeze.
‘And how are you, Ginny?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ I answered.
‘And the art studies? They’re going well?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
He tried to strike up some conversation on matters aesthetic, feeling that he was qualified to do so because he had a Tretchikoff in his sitting room and a print of ‘The Haywain’ in his dining room; he inevitably had advice to offer on my further education, again speaking with authority since he had just sent his eldest daughter to teacher training college. I was patient enough to respond politely, Christmas was the only time I saw him and it was the least I could do, but inwardly I was wishing he'd wander off and speak to the others, leave me in peace.
As my patience began to wear thin -I got the impression that he felt obliged to speak to me, acting in loco parentis now that my father was no longer there- I had to admit to some relief when Stephen came around to the house.
‘This is Stephen,’ my mother introduced him to the visitors. ‘Ginny’s boyfriend.’
‘Ah!’ said Jack, with a smirk which I didn’t much like. ‘Well I hope you’ve got a lucrative career planned for yourself, Stephen. You’re going to need one if you’ve got yourself involved with an artist.’
Stephen smiled, says, ‘I work in finance.’
‘Useful!’ Jack laughed. ‘Very useful!’
The talk dragged on, Jack joked about calling for a loan to expand his business, then boastfully admitted that he didn’t really need one, that business was going quite well, thank you very much. Time and again he dropped vaguely disguised hints about how comfortably off he was. As if it wasn’t enough that we had to hear all this -as if we might not believe him unless he continually reminded us- he suggested that we all might visit him at home to see for ourselves; this was not said in so many words, of course, what he offered us was an invitation to a party he was giving on New Year’s Eve, but the intention was there, a desire to stuff down our throats just how grand he had become.
‘You’ll come, of course?’ he said to Gran and my mother. ‘I’ll send a taxi round for you. And you too, Ginny. Bring your boyfriend along, why don’t you?’
‘Well actually,’ said Stephen, as I was desperately thinking of excuses to decline the invitation, ‘New Year’s Eve was one of the reasons I called.’
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘The firm’s holding its dinner dance that night. I really can’t get out of it, so I thought I ought to tell you before you made other plans.’
Whether he was able to invite me along or not, he was tactful enough not to do so, perhaps understanding how some of my more sarcastic relations might react to the idea of my dining and dancing in an evening dress.
I shrugged. ‘Never mind. I hadn’t arranged anything.’
‘You’ll still be welcome at our place,’ Jack told me. ‘Come along with your Mum and Gran.’
‘I might,’ I lied.
Doreen asked Stephen where the dinner dance was to be held, nodded approvingly when she was told, said, ‘It’s a lovely place, you’ll enjoy it. We go there quite often, don’t we, Jack?’
The posers.
When my duty had been done, when I’d suffered enough of the inane talk and Stephen had patiently listened to Doreen’s advice about what he should wear, the two of us sidled off to the other room.
Alone, Stephen drew me into his arms.
‘Thanks for the present,’ he said. ‘It’s great, classy stuff.’
‘I'm just sorry it couldn’t have been more,’ I said modestly.
‘But Calvin Klein aftershave! It must have cost the earth! I’ll treasure it, Ginny, I’ll only ever wear it for you!’
Yes? Well if he kept to his word he must have the bottle still, it might never run dry.’
Chapter Nine
If Christmas had been its usual self, becoming ever more miserable and depressing, like a party balloon deflating, then I could only think that the heralding of another new year would be so bad as to make me downright suicidal. Stephen had been brave enough to invite me along to his dinner dance, but was obviously sure that I would never accept; the offer of a taxi ride to Jack’s party was still there, but there was no chance of me accepting that, either. With the people from the
art school scattered all over Sleepers Hill and district the chances of bumping into any of them was remote, so I was resigned to seeing in the new year alone. I stocked up with a few more bottles of beer, watched television for a while, then switched on the record player before the customary Hogmanay drivel came on the screen.
After I’d finished the beer I had a couple of glasses of port, too lazy to make another trip to the off-licence, and by nine o’clock had drunk enough to see me through that miserable phase of self-pity and bring me to a state where I was quite content –if not deliriously happy- with my own company. The drink made me a little tired but I thought that it would be a sin to go to bed before midnight, felt that I really should stay up until the factory whistles blew to announce the new year, take a peek at the door on the stroke of midnight to see the ‘first footers’ lining the street.
Struggling towards that time, fighting to stay awake, I was feeling a little dozy when the knock came on the door. Close to sleep, I couldn’t think who it might be, unless perhaps it was Stephen feeling guilty or already bored with the dinner dance. The knock came again, impatiently, just before I opened the door, and there stood Paula.
‘Paula?’ I asked, in case I was so tired that I was seeing things. ‘Is it you?’
‘Oui, c’est moi,’ she smiled, and she seemed a little tipsy herself, had a dreamy heavy-lidded look to her eyes. ‘I’ve been to every place I can think of and can’t find a single person I’d like to see the new year in with.’
‘So-?’
‘So the least you can do is treat me to a drink. Have you got anything in the house?’
‘Not a drop,’ I hurriedly said, not wanting her to see inside a place which must seem squalid enough from the outside.
‘Then come on, we’ll drink out,’ Paula said, reaching for my hand.
‘Hang on a minute, let me get my coat,’ I told her. ‘You go warm up the car.’
I ran back inside the house and grabbed a coat. Luckily I didn’t need to waste time changing, I was dressed respectably enough to keep my mother happy over the holiday, wearing decent black trousers and the sweater Stephen had bought me. When I got back to the door Paula was in the car and had the engine running.
‘All revved up and raring to go,’ she grinned, as I climbed in beside her.
*
We drove into town as speedily as on the last occasion but I could see that Paula wasn’t drunk, simply exuberant and quite in control.
‘How did you know where I lived?’ I asked her.
‘I’m the college secretary, remember, as well as the woman who takes her clothes off. I know all there is to know about everyone in that place.’
‘So what prompted you to call around?’
‘Company. Everyone needs company on New Year's Eve,’ she said, and laughed as she braked to let a drunkard step back onto the pavement, gave him a friendly wave as she drove past. ‘Now where should we go?’
Paula parked the car in the town centre, convenient for most places, and the streets were even worse than they had been on Christmas Eve; there were arguments everywhere, people shouting and reeling and throwing up in the gutter, and it disturbed Paula as much as it did me, we held onto each other as we walked along the street, holding on more tightly whenever there was trouble ahead, someone staggering too drunkenly or a crowd suddenly breaking into an argument, our bodies so close that I could feel those contours that I’d previously only traced in pencil or charcoal.
‘Disgusting, aren’t they?’ Paula said.
‘They are,’ I agreed.
‘Still, if it’s their only pleasure then I suppose you’ve got to pity them.’
We stopped off for drinks here and there, at a number of pubs and bars; they were all so full that we could only stand, so noisy that it was difficult to talk. I wanted to ask Paula why she had called for me, for me rather than someone else if she had everyone’s address, but the cacophony made it impossible; I suspected, though, that if I did question Paula she would only answer as before, that she had wanted company, someone to share a drink or two with. We didn’t stay in any one pub for long, we moved on quickly, and after the fourth or fifth drink we both agreed that our eardrums were aching with all the noise, so Paula led me on to a place which she said will be a little more peaceful. Her arm around my waist, mine bravely around her shoulders, we walked by the side of the park, away from the centre of town; we were both a little drunk and it seemed only natural that we should support each other.
‘Where is it you’re thinking of going?’ I asked Paula.
‘The ‘Bellingham’.’
‘You have to be joking!’ I said.
‘Why? What’s wrong with the place?’
The ‘Bellingham’ was more of a select club than a pub, a restaurant, a hotel, everything to anyone who can afford it; a favourite haunt of town councillors and Rotarians and the like, I’d worked there as a waitress the previous year.
‘You don’t have to go in to dine. There’s a regular bar where you can just have a drink.’
‘They’ll never let me in there,’ I told Paula. ‘Not after some of the arguments I had with the snootier customers. Those councillors very nearly got me the sack last summer.’
‘Don’t worry, they’ll have forgotten you by now,’ Paula assured me. ‘You know what town councillors are like, senile to a man, every last one of them.’
Paula was insistent, she took my hand and led me into the cocktail lounge, and I couldn’t help but give a smug little chuckle at being back in the place in such circumstances. We bought drinks at the bar -I let Paula get them, she more at ease in the place- and sink into the soft upholstery of the chairs. It was a lot more dignified than the other places we’d visited, there was a gentle hubbub of conversation, women coming and going with their escorts, some stopping for a drink in the lounge before floating through to the restaurant. Some even wore evening dresses, it was that kind of place, and I asked Paula what I was doing there.
‘Should I say that you’re having a drink with me, that we’re enjoying each other’s company? Or don’t you think that's getting a little repetitious by now?’
‘I suppose it is, rather,’ I agreed.
Paula shook her head slowly, defeatedly, as if I wearied her; she leaned forward, her head a little to one side, her smile inexplicable and her gaze fixed on me. As an excuse to shift my eyes from Paula’s, I took a sip of my drink.
‘So, you gave Stephen aftershave for Christmas?’ Paula said.
‘That’s right. I couldn’t give him the painting he wanted, could I?’
‘And what are you going to give me, Ginny?’
I laughed. ‘It’s a little late for Christmas presents now, but what would you like?’
‘I was rather taken with that last drawing you did of me.’
‘Then you can have it,’ I said without hesitation, but Paula refused, reminded me that I would need the drawing for my portfolio. ‘What, then?’ I wondered.
Paula’s head came closer to mine, her hair tickling my cheek, and I found it difficult to focus on her face as she said, in a soft, secretive voice, ‘Do you know what I usually like, right on the stroke of the new year?’
‘No. What?’
Paula gripped mind hand tightly, pulled it towards her as if guessing that I might recoil, and answered without a hint of shame, ‘An orgasm.’
I blushed, as if everyone in the room might have heard, glanced anxiously around but saw that no one was looking; Paula laughed at my embarrassment and I searched her eyes for any sign of drunkenness, saw none, only merriment. I wondered if Paula was serious.
*
It was only when I was sitting on the edge of Paula’s bed, in her flat, my fingers trembling as I removed my shoes, that I realised that the woman was perfectly serious. We had kissed on the walk back from the ‘Bellingham’, kissed on the doorstep and in her flat as Paula led me through to the bedroom.
I didn’t hear her come from the bathroom, stepping bare-footed acro
ss the thick pile of the carpet. I sensed rather than saw that she was there, could smell her warmth at the same time as her perfume. She stood before me and as I looked up she began to unfasten the buttons which ran down the front of her skirt, parted it when it was held only by a single button at the waist to reveal her thighs and the darker blonde clump of hair which I had seen so many times before in the life class. She cupped her hand there, stroking herself gently, then ran a finger across my lips, feeling slightly sticky and smelling a little stale. I had never known a woman do this before and it excited me, I saw Paula smile down at me and though I ought to have been revolted still I found that I was kissing the fingers which were offered, licking at the soft tips and smooth nails.
Paula moved closer so that my cheek was resting against her thigh, my lips against the prickly hair, and the pressure of a hand behind my neck coaxed me on. I kissed Paula, forgetting where it was that I kissed, had my fingers behind her thighs and beneath her buttocks. Her two hands held my face and she shifted a little to place me just where she wanted me, her body tensing. She kept holding me away from her and then clutching me close, as if fighting whatever it was she feels, until finally the factory whistles blew in the distance and she grasped me to her even more strongly. I was held there for what seemed a dark interminable period, so close to Paula that I felt a part of her, until her body slowly softened, her embrace relaxed and she slipped down to sit astride my lap.
‘Lovely,’ was her eventual response, an acknowledgement of pleasure rather than a statement of affection. She grinned, said, ‘And a happy new year to you, too, Ginny.’
The Art School Dance Page 9