Life Drawing for Beginners

by Roisin Meaney

  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.

  Wednesday

  Irene picked her way across the graveled surface in front of the garage. Heels were a curse sometimes, but it would take more than a bit of gravel to make her give them up. She pushed open the office door and
there he was standing at the desk, writing something on a sheet of paper. He raised his head as she walked in.

  “Hello,” Irene said, ignoring the girl who sat behind the desk. “I believe you have a car for me.”

  “It’s out the back,” he told her, and led the way through the workshop and out the rear door. Irene’s car sat in the concrete yard with several others. She crouched and examined the paintwork.

  “That’s great,” she said. “It’s perfect.” She ran a finger along the metal. “I can’t feel a thing.”

  “That’s the idea,” he said. “Even rush jobs are done well here.”

  She straightened up and took a €50 note from inside her jacket. “I appreciate it,” she said, folding the money and slipping it into the breast pocket of his overalls. “Where do I pay the bill?”

  “Office,” he said. “They have the keys. Thanks for that.”

  “No problem.” She began to turn away, and stopped, as if something had just occurred to her. She reached into her bag and pulled out a card. “If you ever want a trial session,” she said, handing it to him. “Costs nothing, doesn’t tie you to anything, you don’t have to join up.”

  He took the card and read it. “Personal trainer,” he said, and she saw the different way he looked at her.

  “That’s right.”

  “Weights and stuff, is it?”

  “Exactly.” She held eye contact for just long enough before turning away. “Thanks again.”

  She wondered how long it would take him.

  —————

  “I’ll have…”—the girl played with a strand of her hair as she studied the menu behind Zarek’s head. Her fingernails were long and purple, with silver stars in the center of each—“…a chicken mega burger—or, no, a cheeseburger.” She frowned. “Or will I? I can’t decide.” She looked directly at Zarek, twirling her hair around her index finger. “Help me out here,” she said.