Life Drawing for Beginners

by Roisin Meaney

  “Right,” she said, setting her cup on the draining board. “See you later everyone, have a good day.” Brushing Martin’s cheek briefly with her lips, keeping up the pretense that they were a perfectly normal married couple, laying a hand on Emily’s head again as she passed.

  Upstairs she applied lipstick and blotted it. She stroked on eyeliner and two coats of mascara. When she heard a car starting up, she crossed to the window and watched Martin backing out of the driveway and heading down the street. She sprayed perfume and slipped on her silver bangle, and checked the cash in her wallet.

  A minute later the front door opened and closed. Irene listened to her daughter’s chatter that floated up to the open bedroom window—​“broke my red crayon, and Meg was cross with him”—​until her voice faded and disappeared.

  Irene took her phone off the bed and replayed the message the mechanic had left while she’d been in the shower. She remembered his dark eyes, the muscles popping on his arms as he’d braced himself against her car.

  She took her keys from her bedside locker and left the room.

  —————

  Jackie took off Eoin’s jacket and hung it on a hook. As she crossed the classroom in the direction of the teacher’s desk she waved to Charlie, who waved back.

  Mrs. Grossman was bent over a bundle of copies. Jackie waited until she looked up.

  “Jackie,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m trying to get in touch with Charlie’s father,” Jackie replied. “I always seem to miss him in the morning, so I was wondering if you could pass on a note.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Thanks very much.” Jackie pulled an envelope from her bag. “It’s just that Eoin has been pestering me to let Charlie come and play after school sometime.” In case Mrs. Grossman thought she had designs on the man with a lost wife.

  “Yes, I can imagine—they’ve been joined at the hip since Charlie came to the school. But she’s a lovely little thing.” Mrs. Grossman took the envelope from Jackie. “I’ll put it into her lunchbox when she’s finished—that way he’ll be sure to see it.”

  Jackie smiled. “Great, thanks again. I’ll get out of your way.”

  She glanced in Eoin’s direction as she walked towards the door, intending to wave good-bye, but he was too busy chatting with Charlie to notice her.

  —————

  “I assume you remember me,” she said stiffly.

  “I do.”

  Not looking too happy today. Still mad at him, no doubt, for sending her off to buy a book the other day. Ah well, she’d get over it.

  “I brought her to the vet on Saturday, and he needs to know what vaccinations she’s had.”

  “I can’t help you there,” Michael told her. “That dog was abandoned on my doorstep.”

  Two lines appeared in her forehead. “Abandoned?”

  “Tied to the door handle,” he said, “with a piece of rope.”

  She looked offended. Probably blamed him for someone dumping the dog outside his shop.

  “Look,” he said, as patiently as he could manage, “I think it’s safe to assume that she’s had no shots. Anyone who leaves a dog on a doorstep isn’t likely to shell out money at the vet’s beforehand.”

  She digested this in silence. She smelled of honey—or was it strawberries? Something sweet anyway. Maybe she’d been eating more ice cream. Maybe she had one a day, to keep the doctor away.

  “I also need a carrier,” she said, “and a rubber bone.”

  “Carriers in the far aisle,” he told her, pointing. “Toys there, on the left.”

  He watched her walk off. That was some rear view. Obviously loved her food, which was rare enough in a woman these days. Not that he saw anything wrong with a bit of flesh on a female. He’d always been trying to put weight on Ruth, but no matter what he fed her she’d never put on an ounce, and their daughter was turning out the same.

  This woman liked her bright colors, in that yellow skirt and blue flowery top. Not afraid to be seen, not attempting to hide her size. Maybe she was some class of a bohemian, one of those free spirits who didn’t care what anyone thought of her. Probably lit incense and meditated. Maybe that was what he’d been smelling, incense.

  He bet she talked to the dog too. Probably called it Krishna.

  She reappeared. “I’ll take these,” she said, laying the carrier and bone on the counter and opening her bag.

  “Twenty-six fifty,” Michael said. “I don’t have a bag that size.”

  Her round cheeks flooded with sudden color. She dug into her handbag and pulled out €30 and slammed the notes onto the counter.

  “And even if you did,” she burst out, “you’d probably make a song and dance about giving it to me. You are the rudest man I have ever met—and have you never heard of ‘please’ or ‘thank you’?”

  It was totally unexpected. Michael wondered if she was going to jump the counter and wallop him with her green-and-pink umbrella. “If I had a big enough bag,” he said mildly, taking her money and handing over her change, “I’d give it to you.”

  She made some kind of sound that was halfway between a snort and a disbelieving grunt as she snatched the change from him. “I don’t need a bag,” she snapped, “but a bit of common courtesy wouldn’t go amiss.”

  He watched bemusedly as she grabbed her purchases, hanging on to her umbrella with difficulty as she marched to the door without another word. He made no move to open it for her, sensing it might be safer to stay where he was.

  As she maneuvered herself and her goods through the doorway she glared back at him. “And thank you for opening the door, so mannerly of you.”

  Michael came out from behind the counter, wanting to say I was afraid of getting a wallop but deciding to leave well enough alone and hold his peace. By the time he was halfway across the shop floor the door had slammed behind her.

  He scratched at his beard. What had he said? As far as he was aware, he’d been perfectly civil. Was she upset because he couldn’t say for sure whether the dog had been vaccinated? What did she expect him to do, make the information up?

  He shook his head and went back to his newspaper. Having a bad day by the sound of it, which everyone was entitled to. No call for her to take it out on him though.

  —————

  “Cooee! Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  James pegged a sock before turning towards the sound. Not for the first time, he wondered if Eunice lay in wait behind her net curtains, watching until he went out to the garden. He never seemed to manage a trip to the clothesline without her putting in an appearance across the fence.

  “Hello there.” He lifted a second sock from the bundle of damp washing and hung it next to its partner.

  “You’d never think it was October, would you? Mind you, it’s not as warm as yesterday—that was a real scorcher, wasn’t it? Gerry and I went out to the lake. You haven’t been there yet, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Oh, you must take Charlie, she’d love it. You could bring a little picnic and go for a swim; it’s quite safe if you stay near the shore.”

  “Sounds good.”

  James had heard of the lake from someone at work. About ten miles from Carrickbawn, popular with families, apparently. A good place to bring children, he’d heard, with its little pebbly shore and a walking trail that went all the way around.

  “So,” Eunice went on, watching as James hung a shirt on the line, “you’re settling in to Carrickbawn?”

  “We are, Charlie has made lots of friends at school.” He picked up a towel and flapped it out of its folds.

  “And you’re finding the job all right?”

  “Grand.” Two more towels, a couple more shirts, a few T-shirts of Charlie’s. “Will the weather hold, d’you think?”

  “Oh, it can’t really, can it? I mean, it’s October. Although the forecast is good for the week, but then they often get it wrong, don’t they?”
r />   “Sure do, aye.”

  “So you’ll be off to your class again tomorrow night.”

  “I will, as long as you’re okay to babysit.”

  “Oh, I am, she’s no bother at all—and your bedtime story over the phone was a great idea, she went off right after it.”

  “I used to do it,” he said, “when she was younger, and I was working late.” Kicking himself as soon as the words were out, breaking his own rule of never mentioning his life before Carrickbawn.

  “This was when you lived up north,” Eunice said. “What part was it again?”

  “Donegal.”

  “And was it the same kind of work you were doing up there?”

  “More or less,” he said, picking up the empty laundry basket. “Now you’ll have to excuse me, but I’d better go and check on dinner—it’s probably burned to a crisp.”

  Dinner had been eaten half an hour ago, but what Eunice didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  —————

  Audrey climbed into the steaming, scented water and settled down, positioning the little inflated pillow behind her shower-cap-covered head. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and waited for the feeling of contentment that her nightly bath normally afforded her.

  Nothing happened.

  She inhaled again, breathing in the patchouli fragrance that she’d loved since her teens. Relax, she told herself, let it go. But of course she couldn’t.

  You are the rudest man I’ve ever met. Had she really said that? In her whole life Audrey Matthews had never openly confronted anyone. When she encountered a lack of manners she made allowances, she gave the benefit of the doubt, she tried to placate, or held her tongue and offered it up.

  Until today.

  Have you never heard of “please” or “thank you”? She groaned aloud. What had possessed her? A bit of common courtesy wouldn’t go amiss. How could she have lost her composure so badly? Thank you for opening the door, so mannerly of you. Her mother would be mortified. “Be polite,” she’d drilled into her only daughter as Audrey was growing up. “Never stoop to the level of anyone who annoys you. Never forget that you’re a lady.”

  Well, today it had been well and truly forgotten: Audrey had been more like a fishwife than a lady in that pet shop. And banging the door on her way out, like a spoiled child. She pressed hot, wet hands to her face, squeezing her eyes closed, trying to push the awful memory away.

  Not that he didn’t deserve it, mind. He was the rudest man she’d ever met. Everything he said, everything he did was designed to provoke. Look how unhelpful he’d been on her previous visit, when she’d simply asked him for advice. Get a book, he’d said—no, not said, snapped. As if Audrey hadn’t paid an outrageous sum for Dolly the week before, as if she weren’t entitled to a modicum of respect. The man was a buffoon; of that she was convinced.

  But all that was beside the point. The point was, Audrey had lowered herself to his level; she’d been just as rude as he was. She’d let herself down badly, there was no excuse for it. She groaned again, sliding deeper into the water.

  And the worst of it all was that she’d blown up at the most innocuous remark. All he’d said was that he didn’t have a big enough bag for the carrier, which was perfectly understandable. It didn’t even need a bag, for goodness’ sake, with its own handle. In fact, she’d probably have turned one down if it had been offered.

  But she’d been so irritated by his blithe admission that a dog he’d charged her €50 for had been abandoned on his doorstep—​such a nerve the man had, not an ounce of shame—​that she was just waiting for him to open his mouth again before she exploded. If he’d commented on the weather she’d probably have found something objectionable in that.

  There was no way she could leave things as they were. He might have taken her outburst in his stride—she wouldn’t be surprised if people verbally abused him on a regular basis—but Audrey was thoroughly ashamed of it. Her conscience, or maybe her mother, simply wouldn’t allow her to move on until she’d gone back and apologized to him.

  She slithered down until her head was under the water. She lay there, hearing the dull thrum of her own blood in her ears, trying to blot out the awful prospect. When her lungs felt as if they were going to burst she wriggled upwards again, spluttering and gasping and causing a wave of water to splash over the side of the bath, drenching her purple mules.

  The thought of apologizing to him was horrifying—picture her humiliation, imagine his satisfaction. But it had to be done, she had to make amends and recover her dignity. Audrey heaved herself from the water—the bath simply wasn’t working its magic tonight—and reached for a towel, ignoring the puddles on the floor.

  She’d open a half bottle of red when she went downstairs. If she had a headache in the morning she’d know exactly who to blame.

  Tuesday

  Michael scrolled down the page until he found what he was looking for. He clicked on the icon and waited. After a few seconds a new screen popped up. He bent closer and peered at the annoyingly small print:

  Through a DNA grandparentage test, one or both of the biological parents of the alleged father can be tested to determine if there is a biological relationship to the child. Normally, we also recommend that the sample of the other parent is included.

  He closed the website and shut down the computer and leaned back, rubbing his face wearily. What was he doing, where was the point in torturing himself with what-ifs and maybes, when in all likelihood he’d never lay eyes on the pair of them again?

  And did he even want to? Was he prepared to find out that an uneducated, semi-delinquent creature was the mother of his grandchild? The thought filled him with distaste. On the other hand, the idea that Ethan might have left an issue, that there was something of him still on this earth—how could Michael not hope that was true? How could any father not yearn for some validation of his dead son’s life?

  Every day the pain of losing Ethan was there. The torment that Michael had undergone with his son’s slide into drug abuse and consequent death never left him. It was as much a part of him as the beard he’d grown after Ethan had died, the beard that his daughter detested, but that for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to shave off.

  What was he to do with these conflicting emotions? Was he never again to enjoy a night’s sleep? What in God’s name was he to do? He listened to the rain pattering on the window and he wondered yet again if they had a roof over their heads, if they had beds to sleep in.

  He got to his feet, running a hand through his hair, and went out to the kitchen to check on the progress of a pork steak that he had no appetite for.

  —————

  “Look at the negative spaces as well as the positive ones—what shape is produced in the area between Jackie’s left arm and torso, for example? It’s a triangle, isn’t it? Can you see it?”

  From her position Jackie was able to watch Audrey surreptitiously as she moved around the room, bending occasionally to murmur a comment, exchanging places with a student now and again to demonstrate a point, every so often throwing out a general remark.

  “Don’t forget to map out the holistic form first—otherwise you’ll get bogged down in trying to get one part exactly right and then find that you haven’t allowed enough space for the rest, and have to start all over again.”

  Jackie was amused to see that Zarek had brought along a dictionary this evening. Poor guy must have been lost last week. She’d heard Meg asking him about his family during the break, and his response had been comically full of mistakes, although you could understand more or less what he was trying to say.

  No problem with his drawings though—from what Jackie could make out, he seemed to be doing just fine. She supposed you didn’t really need language if you had artistic ability.

  Thankfully, she felt a lot more relaxed this evening. Not that she’d been totally nonchalant when it had come to peeling off the dressing gown—there had still been a degree of embarrassm
ent, she’d had to steel herself not to meet anyone’s eye again—but really it had been nothing compared with the awfulness of the previous week. And now, nearly an hour into the class, she thought she might actually be starting to enjoy the experience.

  I am an artist’s model, she told herself as she draped her limbs over the table that Audrey had covered with the sarong. Yes, I pose nude for art students. It’s nude, you know, rather than naked. That’s the artistic term. No, I don’t find it in the least intimidating—there’s nothing shameful about the nude body.

  And none of the five people who were studying her looked at all concerned about her breasts not being very full, or how many ripples they could count across her abdomen, or whether she had too much pubic hair. To them she was an object, a shape to be reproduced on the pages in front of them, nothing more. Which was fine by her, of course, and which made it so much easier not to be embarrassed.

  Or which would be fine, if she didn’t want one of them to see her as something other than just an artist’s model.

  —————

  “I run my own playschool,” Meg said. “Just opened it last month. Still trying to catch my breath.”

  “Gosh, I’m sure that’s demanding,” Audrey replied, eyeing the Jersey cream biscuits and wondering if it would seem greedy to take a third. Meg hadn’t had any at all.

  Not that Meg would notice if Audrey polished off the entire plate of biscuits, the way she kept looking across at Zarek and Fiona.

  —————

  “In Poland I work with computers,” Zarek said. “I make the programs. Here I work in chip shop.”

  “That must be a big change,” Fiona replied.

  He shrugged. “Is okay, but sometimes at night is not so good. Lots of drunk peoples.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “And you? What is your job?”

  “I’m a teacher,” she told him. “Primary school.”