SEVEN DAYS

by Silence Welder

  “Maggie will regret doing that in the morning,” Mark said, but Judy continued, speaking over him.

  “Why shouldn't your life be like that? Every single day of your life. Why would I destroy something beautiful by trying to trap it for my own selfish purposes?”

  “Because I'm asking you to.”

  Judy shook her head.

  “You can stay here tonight,” Judy said, “but you should sleep in Maggie's bed. I can't trust myself. I can be strong, but not that strong.”

  “Don't worry,” said Mark, heading to the door. “I'd rather sleep in the bus.”

  “You don't have...”

  The door clicked shut. It was for the best.

  She kept telling herself that, despite the tears, as the minutes turned to hours and the hours turned to daylight.

  Chapter Eleven: Friday—Finishing Touches

  Michelangelo: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

  Judy spent most of the following day in a daze. She told people that it was because she hadn't slept, but she didn't tell anybody why that was. People put two and two and two together though. They always did.

  Mark was missing. And so was Maggie. Theories as to what had happened the night before were being passed back and forth. Yvonne told Judy that according to some, Maggie and Mark were an item and they had gone off in the bus, finished the bottle of whatever illicit substance he had given them on Sunday night, and they had crashed into a tree. According to Bernard, Andre had turned up and there had been a massive fight between he and Mark. Maggie had broken it up and all three of them had gone off together, presumably to fuck.

  Conversations stopped when Judy moved within earshot. It was unpleasant, but she handled it directly.

  “Let's get on with our work,” she said. “The exhibition's tomorrow. Let's do Mark proud.”

  Fortunately, they were a self-motivated bunch. Mark had brought out the best in all of them and they were able to work together, encouraging, advising, assisting and critiquing each other throughout the day.

  “What will we do for lunch?” someone said and several others scoffed at the idea of stopping to eat, they were on such a roll.

  Bernard turned up then with an armful of pizzas.

  “I can't believe the exhibition's tomorrow and Mark's not even here,” Yvonne said.

  “Are you scared?” Simon said.

  “Terrified,” said Yvonne.

  “That's probably a good thing,” said Judy. “Some nerves will help you.”

  “Look who's the fount of wisdom,” said Bernard.

  “Better believe it,” said Judy, and they did.

  “The cat gave you your tongue back,” observed Simon.

  Judy stuffed a slice of pepperoni pizza into her mouth.

  “Gimme a hand with this,” she said with her mouth full and lifted her found object, the mannequin dummy, which she had resisted the urge to repair or paint or decorate in any way. It was a beautiful old thing and was covered in rips and tears and strangely fascinating stains, all in addition to the stitches and lines that would have aided the dress-maker.

  “Good,” said Mark, striding into the room. “That's the centrepiece. Get that on the bus.”

  Andre was at his side.

  “Everyone has at least three finished pieces?” Mark asked.

  Immediately, the mood lightened. At least for everyone but Judy.

  “Three pieces each,” Mark said. “We can fill the room with three pieces each.”

  He didn't look at Judy. Even when talking about the dummy, he managed to look at the dummy and Bernard and not at her. Andre was looking good, but he kept his eyes downcast.

  “Andre,” he said. “You're with me, and then I want you to come back here and help these good people.” Then to the group, he said: “Keep it up, your work looks amazing.”

  They worked hard, into the evening, until their hands were aching and their eyes and backs were sore, but with each passing hour, the body of work grew in size and solidity. This was really happening. They were putting on an exhibition and they really had something to say. The mixture of styles and personalities contributed to the whole.

  When Andre returned to give them a hand, he divulged that Mark would sadly be unable to exhibit with them after all, because his room had been trashed the night before and all the pieces he had intended to show had been destroyed.

  “Everything?” said Bernard.

  Andre winced. “Everything.”

  “Jesus. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  At this, everyone looked at Judy.

  “Wrong woman,” said Judy.

  When she got a chance to talk to Andre alone, she told him that she was glad to see him.

  “He'd been so good to me,” Andre said. “I was distressed that I might have hurt him. I was...how do you say?...mortified.”

  “Yes,” said Judy. “Mortified.” She knew that word well. “You're a sensitive soul for a big guy, aren't you?”

  “Mark says I have the heart of a poet and that he wants it back.”

  Though they were all tired, the atmosphere was so electrifying that even Judy thought she might enjoy the following day. What she wasn't looking forward to was returning to her room. Alone.

  She needn't have worried about that. Maggie was there to greet her.

  * * * *

  Maggie grunted when Judy entered the room. The girl's clothes were all over Judy's bed and Maggie apologised for the mess, grabbing up the slips of black clothing and shoving them haphazardly into her bag.

  Her eyes were red from crying.

  If she hadn't known that that bottle of clear liquid was actually sugar and water, Judy might have suspected that Maggie really had downed the entire bottle.

  While Maggie kept packing her bag, Judy washed, undressed and climbed into bed without ceremony. She was more tired than she had been for years. Emotionally. Physically. In every way.

  Maggie zipped up her bag, hefted it onto the floor and sat heavily on her bed.

  The women glanced at each other.

  “Last day tomorrow,” Maggie said.

  “Yep,” said Judy, sad that she wasn't spending this one with Mark and trying not to debate with herself whether or not she had done the right thing by ending their fling prematurely.

  “Sad to go?” asked Maggie.

  “No,” said Judy. “You?”

  “No,” said Maggie.

  “That in itself is sad,” said Judy.

  “Yeah,” Maggie agreed. Then she added: “Sorry about being such a bitch all the time.”

  Judy sat up.

  “What?”

  “I've been a bitch,” Maggie said. “I couldn’t help it. I was jealous.”

  “Jealous of me and Mark?” Judy said.

  “Not just that,” said Maggie. “Look at you. You're so together. You know what you want. You know where you're going. You're pretty. Beautiful, in that dress with the zip. And look at me. I'm a fucking mess.”

  Judy laughed until her ribs hurt.

  “What?” said Maggie. “What's so fucking funny?”

  “Everything you said about me,” Judy explained, “I think about you. And I'd let you have the dress, but it's not mine to give.”

  “People are so fucked up,” Maggie said.

  “Yeah,” said Judy. “They are. Six nights later and we're all still wearing masks.”

  “All except Mark,” Maggie said, longing in her voice.

  “Maybe not him,” Judy agreed grimly. “Maybe not him.”

  Chapter Twelve: Saturday—Exhibitionism

  Vincent Van Gogh: “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”

  Judy woke the next morning thinking of that old chestnut about it being better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

  That philosophy had bitten her immediately.

  She tried to think of something less painful.

  You can't miss what you've never had.

  What
you don't know can't hurt you.

  Either of those.

  But it was too late for that.

  She packed her bag that morning and left it outside the door of her room, as instructed, so that Andre could load it into the minibus. After the exhibition, Andre would drive them all straight to the airport. They'd get on their flight, have a few awkward conversations on the plane and in the arrivals lounge, and then she'd never see or talk to any of them again, except perhaps a few email exchanges with Yvonne, who deeply regretted picking on her about her love bite and over-reacting about her having used all of the body paint.

  The taste of body paint seemed like something she'd discovered such a long time ago.

  She'd done more this week than she'd done in an entire year back home. It had been another life.

  People were saying pretty much the same thing over breakfast. Many of them recalled feeling that they had made an unwise decision during the course’s unusual opening weekend, but for most people it was all coming together by Monday and Tuesday.

  Judy thought back to making love to Mark for the first time. There was still so much they hadn't done. Positions they hadn't enjoyed. After-sex conversations they hadn't had. And more. So much more.

  On account of Mark not being able to exhibit his work, the group had all agreed to submit an extra piece each. Judy decided to exhibit a portrait of a woman that she had finger-painted using actual body-paint in garish colours, green thighs and neck, red spirals on her breasts, yellow flashes up and down her arms.

  “So that's where it all went,” Yvonne had said on seeing it.

  “Not all of it,” Judy had said.

  “Good,” said Yvonne. “Good girl.”

  At the venue, where they had had their masked 'ball' on the night of their arrival, the downstairs space had been converted into their gallery.

  Judy entered first and was breathless upon seeing her unadorned mannequin in the centre of the room, looking amazing, transported from the dump to an exhibition space.

  On a pillar nearby was her multicoloured woman, looking as if it had been created exactly for that spot. Andre and Mark had also positioned Simon's wardrobe, filled to the brim with wire hangers, and Bernard's play on words, a sketch of a goat being ridden by Lady Godiva, entitled 'Neigh, Kid'.

  “This is amazing,” Kevin said, whose collage of a sunflower made using hundreds of discarded seed casings was hanging next to Simon's beautiful and disturbing painting of a man peeling off a section of his cheek to reveal the white of a tragicomedy mask underneath.

  On the far wall of the exhibition, the self-portraits from their applications had been arranged in a row, along with a brief bio of the artists.

  The artists.

  Her self-portrait on mirrored glass was there on the wall, along with Bernard's cheque book and Maggie's painful-looking photos of her tattoo in progress. Even her hips were tattooed. Her ankles. Her buttocks. And, according to the annotation, her clit.

  After making such an effort to get on the course, it was a tragedy that she should now miss the climax, Judy thought.

  Each artist had also submitted their face mask, having adorned or augmented it with found objects.

  “I'd forgotten about this,” Judy said.

  Her facemask was here, covered in so many feathers, stones and shells that it was almost unrecognisable as a mask at all. Kevin had opted to use a few hundred seed casings to line his mask on the inside, but not the outside. Maggie's mask was white with black marker pen writing, proclaiming: “I've never been here right now, if you'd like to leave a message I'll get back to you after the beep.”

  “Fantastique,” someone said. Not recognising the voice, Judy turned and saw a man in a smart hat and carrying a cane. He hadn't been on the course. He was a real-life gallery visitor.

  Judy did a little leap of joy behind his back, but despite all this, her good mood waned, because it was all coming to an end.

  Mark had spent too much time trying to get her to let go of herself, when really she needed to let go of him. What inevitably happens when you grip a bar of soap as hard as you can?

  Everyone walked around the room, admiring each other's work, sometimes attempting to explain the unexplainable, congratulating each other for their complexity or their simplicity. Everybody was proud of what they had done. Nobody should have been more pleased than Mark, but he who had been so free and easy most of the week was now the one who appeared guarded and distant. He shook hands with gallery owners and made small talk with suited people. He mingled with the students and congratulated them on a job well done, but he was subdued.

  “What's wrong with this picture?” Simon asked.

  “He's not pissing anyone off.,” Bernard answered. “That can't be right.”

  He was joking, but there was truth in it.

  Mark was keeping a low profile. Getting through it. Judy recognised his smile. She'd performed it a thousand thousand times. It was a mask.

  She started towards him, not wanting anything that was or was not going on between them to dampen what should have been a magical moment for him, but as she crossed the room, he shook his head, stopping her in mid-stride. Instead, she accepted a glass of wine and turned away.

  Later, they were asked to don their masks one last time for a group photo. She was glad of the mask and not having the need to smile when she felt like crying. Pretending one emotion while feeling another was the most draining thing of all. The strain was showing on Mark. Judy's chest ached at the sight of him.

  He chose that moment to leave the room. It was as if he knew.

  * * * *

  Maggie was waiting for them at the airport. Everyone had missed her and they told her so. She cried, her tough persona crumbling, her mascara running down her face.

  While the group busied themselves with making sure that Maggie was all right and filling her in on what had happened, Judy faced off with Mark.

  “I don't like goodbyes,” Judy said.

  “Then don't say it,” said Mark.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Goodbye, Mark.”

  He watched her go, slipping away from the rest of the group, slipping out of the foyer, slipping out of his life.

  She put one foot in front of the other, over and over, despite the rubbery feeling growing in her legs, and she kept going, until it was done.

  Chapter Thirteen: The End

  Auguste Rodin: “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.”

  “Did you miss me?” Judy asked.

  “Of course,” Barry said. He was holding a sheet of paper, but this time it actually had something typed on it and today's date.

  “You're really working,” Judy observed.

  “It's been rough,” Barry said.

  Judy opened her email and saw that there were over 1,500 messages waiting for her attention. Still more were waiting to come in, but a message had popped up saying that she had to delete some messages before she could receive any more.

  “No shit,” Judy said to her machine.

  “Excuse me?” said Jules. “I don't think I've ever heard you swear before.”

  “Get used to it,” Judy said. “I've got over a thousand fucking emails and can't be fucking bothered.”

  Jules' mouth dropped open.

  “I'm just kidding,” Judy added, but an hour later, when she was still wading through emails of people who had cc’d her into their conversations or bcc’d her for feedback, or who were requesting solutions to problems that were either self-invented or had since solved themselves, she realised that there was more truth in what she had said than she thought.

  She missed the smell of oils and acrylic. The feel of 250 gsm, feathers and seed shells.

  She missed the smell of Mark's cologne. The feel of the hair of his chest against her breasts. His lips against hers. His body on top of her. His arms around her.

  At four forty-five, she found herself staring at the clock in the bottom right of the sc
reen. She was sure the computer had a virus, because it had been four forty-five forever.

  If I was in France now, she thought, it would be five forty-five and class would be over. I'd be up in my room, showering, changing, and be down in Mark's room by five fifty-five.

  Jules stopped by her desk again before leaving.

  “You look different,” he remarked.

  “I am different,” she replied.

  “What did you do on this art course? Want to tell me about it? Tonight? Over dinner?”

  “Busy,” she said. “Sorry. Thank you.”

  “Another time,” he said.

  She said nothing. She didn't have to.

  Another colleague, George, stopped by at just before five, surprised to see that Judy had her handbag packed up and was waiting for the clock to release her, when she was normally at her desk until at least six.

  “What are you looking at?” George asked. He was sweet, with sad, knowing eyes and a cute smile. But she wasn't interested. There was only one man for her and...he wasn't for her.

  “I've been checking my emails,” Judy mused. “All day. I haven't actually done any work. Not a bit. And the building didn't fall over.”

  “Well, not today,” George agreed, “but tomorrow is another day.”

  “What do you think would happen,” Judy said, “if I highlighted every remaining email on this page and pressed 'delete'.”

  George leaned in and saw that there were about four hundred emails still unread.

  “I think hell would freeze over,” he said. “And then your computer would freeze too.”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Go home,” he said. “Connect remotely. Do it while watching Corrie.”

  “A life is a terrible thing to waste,” she said. “I couldn't possibly do either of those things.”

  “You could do it at mine,” he suggested. “I'm connected.”

  “I'm not going to work tonight,” she said. “Really.”

  As she got nearer to home that evening, however, she knew that she would connect remotely and check out those emails, just to pass the time. She might even flick on the television, as George had suggested, to dispel the cloying silence. If Corrie was on, then that would be okay. It would help fill a gap.