The Art School Dance

by Maria Blanca Alonso

  Halfway along the same corridor was a third door, slightly ajar; she tapped on it and entered.

  'Goomer? John Goomer?'

  A paper lampshade hung from the ceiling to within inches of the floor and in the dim orange light which crept apologetically from it she could see a young man squatting on the carpet, preoccupied with whatever was laid before him, his blonde hair burning beneath the coloured bulb.

  'Virginia, home at last,' he said in a matter-of-fact tone, unwinding his feet and standing, losing whatever had occupied his attention in the shadow he cast. He picked up a coat, took Virginia by the hand and pulled her back to the door.

  'I-'

  'Come on, Virginia, drop your things here. You’re just in time.'

  Virginia huffed as she was hurried from the room, a little peeved by the reception; she might just have come home late from the pub, rather than from a four month absence and a relationship gone sour.

  'My flat,' she said, anxious to know that it was still her flat and had not been rented out to anyone else, but Goomer did not stop to listen or reply; he scampered on down the stairs, tugging her along after him.

  Outdoors he held onto her hand, as though he worried that she might be carried away by the breeze which swept up from the river. Weaving between the early evening drinkers, past bars and restaurants down the cosmopolitan slope of Hardman Street, they headed across the city.

  Goomer had plans for Virginia.

  'You’re an artist, aren’t you?' he said, squeezing her hand to insist that she was.

  'No,' she answered, but he ignored her.

  'Well this friend of mine, Coral, she runs a wine-bar, the ‘Corkscrew’, and she wants some paintings to tart the place up for the jazz nights she holds, real Left Bank stuff.'

  'I’m not an artist,' Virginia repeated. 'I do Day-Glo posters for chippies and Chinese takeaways.'

  Goomer gave her a kiss on the cheek to silence her. 'You’ll cope.'

  The smile which followed, as if the kiss might not be enough, was a persuasive peeling of the lips, curling up at the edges as always in a manner which Virginia could never quite manage. But then Goomer had been perfecting the style for eighteen, no, nineteen years. He was nineteen, now. Virginia had been away since before Christmas and he had not even remarked on the fact.

  They hurried on, beneath St John’s Beacon and behind the shopping precinct. Virginia asked Goomer why he could not do the paintings himself, since he seemed so capable and struck all the right poses, but all he could answer was that she would cope,and they ducked beneath a green-striped awning and went down dark stumbling steps.

  Though the walls around them were painted the colour of wine they gave off a smell of damp, dripping with the condensation of nights of excess, like corridors on the way to some palace of wisdom; under their feet the carpet exuded a similar odour, a makeshift mattress which had known too many sweaty love sessions. Behind the bar, in the room they entered, perhaps looking larger than life in the dim light, stood Coral, a cuddly Cotswold figure with a shock of untrained hair. She tugged stubby fingers through this wiry mass and then offered a hand to Virginia, one obstinate curl lodging beneath a fingernail, then falling to the bar as they shook hands.

  'How do?' she said. 'How about a drink?'

  Goomer rested a hand on Virginia’s to warn her. 'Don’t touch the beer, it tastes like it came out the wrong end of a cat.'

  'Is there a right end to a cat for beer to come out of?' she wondered absently.

  Coral smiled, said, 'It’s alright, Goomer, especially for you I’ve got some Red Stripe.' She foraged about behind the bar and came up with two cans. 'Only for my most favoured customers,' she stressed to them. 'This is supposed to be a faffing wine-bar, after all. Folk aren’t supposed to come in here expecting real ale.'

  They opened their cans and poured the beer into glasses while Coral spoke of how she saw her bar, with portraits of the jazz greats lining the walls while their music swept sweetly about the room.

  'I’m not really an artist, you know,' Virginia pointed out, in what was for her an admirable display of honesty.

  'That’s alright, I’m not really a patron,' Coral countered. 'If the work is good, then... good; if it’s not so good, well, at least it’ll cover up the flaking plaster.'

  Of which there was rather a lot, Virginia saw, now that her eyes were becoming accustomed to the low light and were able to penetrate the shadows. Money might have been better spent on redecoration than on art works.

  An optimistic customer rattled a coin against the far end of the bar, explaining why the counter was so pitted, and Coral responded slowly, puffing as she ambled away, as if to blame her weight.

  Virginia thought she resembled a bear.

  Goomer saw her more as a panda, friendly, but she was grumbling when she returned to them.

  'The faffing buggers, they expect me to cream my knickers with excitement at the prospect of serving them.'

  She had a particularly scornful way of looking at people, swivelling her eyes in their sockets without moving her head until the whites became almost full moons of contempt. Then she would suck in air, greedily, in a grimace between clenched teeth.

  When her eyes came back to Goomer and Virginia she laughed and asked how the beer was.

  'Lovely,' said Goomer.

  'Well best enjoy it while you can, because that’s your lot. The rest goes away for a special occasion.'

  'Like my birthday perhaps?'

  'Oh yes, and when might that be?' Coral asked, but Goomer shrugged, not saying. Coral laughed again. 'If his name was Ruby I’d call him Tuesday,” she told Virginia. 'You know the song... ‘she would never say where she came from’. Getting anything out of him is like getting blood out of a stone.'

  'I’m an enigma,' Goomer smiled.

  Coral sighed, a sound something like ‘ho hum’, and took the case of Red Stripe down to the cellar.

  'She often says that, ‘ho hum’,' Goomer told Virginia, smiling as he watched the large woman lumber down the stairs, pleased with her predictability.

  'What does it mean?'

  'Nothing. I think she just uses it when she can’t think of anything else to say.' He watched Coral disappear below ground, then turned to Virginia. 'So? What about you? What have you got to say for yourself?'

  Nothing.

  Unfortunately Virginia had no expressions to match Coral’s miscellaneous murmur; when she was at a loss for something to say, she simply kept her mouth shut. This was not especially satisfactory, she had to admit, for people were often disconcerted by her silences, reading them as snubs, accusations, hints that their company was uninteresting. Still, her dumb silences were all that she had, and Goomer understood; rather than pursue the subject of Virginia’s four month absence he bought more drinks.

  The wine now served to them was poured by a young man who Virginia saw was blessed with a complexion which shone as if it had been caressed by a thousand hands; it had that glow which is seen in well worn marble, a statue which has been venerated. He was a vision, his face was that of a china doll but softer, with lips which Virginia would like to kiss. As if in a car showrooms, a prospective buyer, she let it be known that she would take that one, the model with the sculpted smile and the ceramic complexion.

  Goomer sighed, as if he could feel nothing but pity for her. 'Ah, but the passion can be a pig of a thing at times; it tickles away at your nipples, making them prick, and then...'

  'Yes?' asked Virginia eagerly.

  'Then screws them around like the knobs on a television set.'

  His hand shot out and Virginia had to step back quickly to escape the clawing fingers.

  'But he’s just what I need,' she said, from a safer distance. 'Aren’t you always telling me that I should find myself a man?'

  She was corrected.

  'If I did say that, and I’m not admitting that I did, then what I almost certainly meant was a good man, not a painted imitation of one. He looks as plastic as Barbie’s
Ken.'

  Virginia looked at the barman, at the cheeks which were tanned and smooth, and she could already taste his kisses which she imagined would be scented like strawberries. 'He’s good enough,' she drooled. 'He’ll do for me.'

  Goomer sniffed disdainfully. Virginia could not possibly know that the barman was as wonderful as she claimed, she was simply skipping over his shiny superficial surfaces and she just might crash. Thin ice, deep water and a chilled heart was how he described it.

  For Virginia, though, nothing could be as chilly as a single bed. Apart from ‘that other one’, the one she had just wasted the past four months with, it seemed like ages since she had last had sex with someone excitingly unfamiliar. Last All Saints, she thought that had been, in a strange house, at a party she had not been invited to, with a young sociology student she never saw again.

  'Since I last had sex,' Goomer sneered. 'Don’t be so prim, Virginia, it really doesn’t suit you. What you mean is a good fuck, a bloody good bang that’ll break your partner’s balls. That’s what you’re actually after, if you’re honest with yourself. And as for love, which I’ll mention before you do, well, if it should happen to come your way you’ll only dash off in the opposite direction.'

  Virginia shrugged off Goomer’s opinions, for her shoulders already had enough to bear. With her lips to her glass and her eyes peering over the rim she looked around at the faces in the bar, some pink and some pallid, all unaware of her gaze. The strange faces fascinated her, she wanted their secrets and their intimate company.

  'Fight it, Virginia, fight it,' said Goomer, recognising the mood and guessing what was running through her mind. 'Go play with yourself in the toilets or something.'

  'It’s not the same, Goomer. I want to feel arms around me and a broad shoulder to cushion my cheek. I want to feel a man getting excited because I’m there.'

  'Whether you play with yourself or play with a man the end result is going to be the same. The only reason your kind wants my kind is for that flash which comes with orgasm, that sudden slap to the senses that seems to give everything reason. It’s only a transitory thing, though. Be a poet instead, Virginia, their insight lasts longer.'

  Virginia emptied her glass before conceding that there might be some truth in what he said.

  'You’re bloody well right there is,' Goomer insisted.

  'You see,' she continued, 'I’ve often felt, after making love with a man, that I just want to get away and do something more important.'

  'That’s it exactly. If you stay too long with a person you find the knot is tied, around your neck most likely, and it’s so tight that it makes your eyes pop. You walk along the street with a hand clasping yours and a smile beaming at you, crisp and white, and it’s not to say ‘I love you’ but just to make sure that you’re there, in your place, where you belong. That’s the sort of bloke you always attract, Virginia. You bed them and then you belong to them. Before you know it that knot is the size of an engagement ring.'

  The impression gleaned from this sermon was that Virginia would have to tread a celibate path for the foreseeable future.

  Her shoulders slumped. 'So now I’ve got to forget all about men? I’ve got to give them up completely, is that it? Or just stick with women?'

  'Women would be safer,' Goomer agreed. 'But no, you don’t need to give up men completely. Just screw the ugly ones, so you won’t be tempted to linger too long.'

  That ruled out John Goomer, then.

  Chapter Two

  Goomer was five years younger than Virginia, as thin as she was slim, and possessed of a quirky heart; though in its right place, and functioning perfectly in terms of beats per minute and other medical criteria, it had always seemed to be held like a treasured possession behind cupped hands, ever his and never shared, never admitting affairs or involvements.

  Not that involvement had been in Virginia’s mind when she first saw him, wearily climbing the steps to the cathedral; she had been too fatigued herself, clutching another of those hastily snatched carrier bags of belongings and worrying over where she would spend the night. He was a shambles of a figure when seen from the rear, weighed down by the bulging pockets of his threadbare dufflecoat, and she was so intrigued by the sexless shape that she followed, noting that his head was suitably bowed beneath the hood as he plodded along with a steady monastic gait. Up the steps to the cathedral entrance she quite expected him to stumble and was ready to play Simon of Cyrene to his offbeat Christ. Her assistance was not needed, though, and it occurred to her that perhaps his body was actually bowed by piety and not by tiredness.

  He circled the sepulchre and she trailed behind, showered by the muted light of the stained glass which slowly became more resplendent as they reached the west side of the cathedral and he noticed her. He accepted her presence without question, without suspicion, and pointed to the colours which streaked the floor in reverent array.

  'Blue,' he said, facing a glass panel while apparently speaking to her, 'brings back the times I’ve been sad, obviously, and Guernica and the tired old guitar player.' He walked on slowly, assuming that she would follow, as he introduced himself. 'My name is Goomer.'

  'Goomer,' she repeated, seeing that beneath the hood of the coat there was long blonde hair but still no certain clue as to the sex of the person.

  He came to a sudden halt, said in surprise, 'Goomer? You, too?'

  The voice was soft, it could have been either male or female.

  'Oh no, not me,' said Virginia, understanding the misunderstanding. 'I was just repeating your name because it has a nice ring to it, that’s all. My name is Virginia.'

  'Virginia,' he said, trying her name as she had tried his, like garments they were swapping, and they continued their circuit of the interior.

  He stopped before another window, now bathed in carmine and vermilion. 'Red,' he said, 'reminds me of times in Italy, with the housebricks ablaze and the earth scorched a similar colour. Have you ever been there, Virginia?'

  'Yes. Parma.'

  'It’s a rare place.'

  She stopped, to remember how it had been.

  'Green,' his voice came again, from some yards ahead, and she hurried back to his side. 'Green for the Warwickshire countryside that I remember from my childhood.'

  He almost sang this last recollection, his voice crackling back to some uncertain past, and Virginia, intrigued, wondered about religion, which she felt ought to come into this spectrum somewhere, ought to play a part in the colourful liturgy.

  'Well, I must be leaving,' said Goomer at length. 'Which way are you going?'

  Virginia shrugged. 'I’ve no idea. At the moment I’m without a flat.'

  'Then come with me,' he invited her. 'I know where there’s one to be had and it just might suit you.'

  *

  And the flat was still Virginia’s, still much the same, which was perhaps a little too much the same, for what she did on her return was commence to break holes in its fabric, claiming that privacy was what was lacking.

  The rooms, of which there were two, were an uncomfortable arrangement, for though they were adjacent they were unconnected; each had its own door fronting onto a communal corridor, and to get from the bedroom to the living room cum kitchen she had to pass along this thoroughfare in varying moods and varying states of undress, perhaps meeting someone and being forced to strike up an embarrassed conversation. There being no privacy in this setup, the obvious solution was to make her own door between the two rooms. A simple matter. Then she could move freely between sleeping and eating, these just about the limit of the functions which she exercised in the place she called home. (The bathroom was on the floor below, so she rarely used it; she peed in the sink when she had to, washed in there, and any more exhaustive evacuation of her body would generally have to coincide with the time she spent outdoors.)

  Virginia’s search for privacy proved to be a tiring business. After removing half a dozen bricks in as many hours the hole was little more than a foot high. S
he had to work quietly, that was the problem, scraping away with a once stainless steel table knife and wondering what it must be like to attempt to escape from a penitentiary; a mammoth undertaking that must be, and she vowed always to stick to the straight and narrow to avoid such places. This was the wise thing to do, and wisdom was one of Virginia’s fortes.

  She was not terribly well up on the science of the building trade, however, and she thought that there must be structural stresses and such things to be considered. She sat back for a while, to dwell on these and to rest.

  Moments later a tap-tap on the door interrupted her deliberations and she froze, hoping that whoever it was might go away, but the dust from her efforts seemed to fall noisily to the floor, a thundering cascade betraying her presence.

  The knock came again.

  'Virginia? Are you in there?'

  It was Goomer. Or a good impersonation. But then he was one of a kind and could not be copied.

  She opened the door and ushered him in. 'I thought you were the landlord for a moment,' she said.

  'It’s lucky for you that I’m not.' Goomer looked at the room, at the worn carpet and the debris which covered it, at the drawings of the jazz greats and the dust which coated them, at the hole in the wall and the bricks stacked beside it. 'What on earth are you doing?'

  'Making a door,' she replied, explaining her need for privacy.

  Goomer, though he would never go to quite the same extremes of introversion, was sympathetic, appreciating the reason and the method. 'You still have the hassle of getting in and out of the house, though,' he pointed out. 'There’s not much privacy there, having to use the common entrance.'

  'True.' This was a problem which had already occurred to her. 'But I’m on the third floor. What can I do?'

  Goomer strode over to the window, opened it with difficulty and looked out at the rear of the house, at the overgrown garden with the coach house at the rear and the cathedral beyond. Then he turned, his arms spread like a saint giving a benediction, and smiled in his most beatific way.