Life Drawing for Beginners

by Roisin Meaney

  “Oh,” Audrey said, recalling Pauline’s upset at the time. “Oh, I’m so—”

  “It’s just cruel, to snuff out somebody’s life, just like that. What kind of a God does that? Ethan didn’t deserve it—and Kevin didn’t deserve it either.”

  “No.”

  “I blamed my father,” she said, half to herself. “On some level I think I still do, but…” She stopped again, and looked apologetically at Audrey. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be saying all this, we hardly know each other.”

  “I’m Audrey.” Putting out a hand, which the woman took.

  “Val,” she said. “I know your name, Pauline often mentioned you. You were good to Kevin.”

  Audrey demurred, but the woman said, “No, you were. She was very thankful. He used to chat to you over the hedge all the time, she said.”

  The tears rose in Audrey’s eyes then, and she fished a crumpled tissue hurriedly from her sleeve and pressed it to her face. “He did,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” Val said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, no, no—” Audrey blew her nose and got to her feet, pushing the tissue back up her sleeve. “Well,” she said, attempting a smile, “I’d better get on. So nice to finally meet you.”

  She left the room as quickly as the crowd allowed and set the teapot on the draining board in the kitchen. She walked straight out the back door, avoiding anyone’s eye, hoping nobody was taking any notice of her as she pulled it closed.

  She took great gulps of the night air, feeling the frosty nip of it steadying her somewhat. Winter on the way. She walked to the hedge that divided Pauline’s garden from her own, and she stood where Kevin had so often stood—and the thought of him undid her again, and she bent her face into her hands and allowed the tears to fall.

  Val was right, it was cruel. It was senseless and tragic and so unfair. Audrey cried in noisy, messy sobs, leaning up against the hedge where Kevin had stood so often.

  When her tears eventually abated, when her sobs lessened, she inhaled deeply again and again, trying to steady her breath. Her nose ran, her face was wet, everything inside her head felt heavy and cloddy. As she rummaged for a tissue again—not that it would be much use at this stage—the kitchen door opened behind her.

  She turned to see a man coming out, his frame silhouetted against the light from the kitchen, his features indistinguishable in the darkness of the garden. She swiped at her eyes quickly with a sleeve, willing him to go away and leave her alone.

  Instead he walked straight over to her. She attempted to regain her composure as he approached, as she recognized him. He reached silently into the breast pocket of his jacket, drew out a large white handkerchief, and handed it to her.

  Audrey accepted it wordlessly and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Eventually, when she felt a little steadier, she looked back at him.

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice was thick, as if she had a heavy cold. Her throat hurt from sobbing.

  “Paying my respects,” he replied mildly—which, of course, wasn’t what Audrey was asking at all. Had he taken her literally just to annoy her?

  Oh, who cared? She folded his handkerchief and pushed it into the pocket of her skirt. “I’ll wash it and return it.”

  “Keep it,” he said, his gaze directed now towards the bottom of the garden. “I have lots more.”

  The air was becoming steadily chillier, but Audrey didn’t feel ready to return to the house. She looked a fright, she was sure, her hair every which way, her eyes swollen, her cheeks burning, but out here in the dark it didn’t matter.

  “I assume,” he said then, “what you were asking was how do I know Pauline.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Audrey replied. It felt surreal, holding this quiet conversation with him in the darkness.

  “She was my housekeeper,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “After my wife died she kept house for me and my children. She was with us for ten years. They both were, her and Kevin.”

  In her befuddled state, it took several seconds for the implications of his words to sink in. Audrey was dumbfounded. This was the man Pauline had worked for, the man she’d held in such high regard?

  He was so good to us, she’d often said to Audrey. So generous. He paid me well over the odds, and insisted on us eating dinner with them before we went home in the evening. Up to his eyes with his business, but always a kind word for Kevin.

  Good? Generous? Kind? The man who’d been cranky and—yes, downright rude, the first few times Audrey had encountered him? Of course he’d changed a bit since then, he’d mellowed somewhat, but still.

  “And you?” he asked, turning to face her. “What’s your connection?”

  “I live next door,” she told him, indicating her house absently, still astounded at his revelation. Still piecing it all together. “So Val is your daughter.”

  A beat passed. “You know her?”

  “Only to say hello to, if I passed her on the road when she visited this house. I met her properly just this evening. She’s in the sitting room.”

  “Yes,” he said—and Audrey remembered that Val had given the distinct impression that father and daughter weren’t on the best of terms. I blamed him, wasn’t that what she’d said? She blamed her father for her brother’s death, whatever she meant by that.

  His son had died. First his wife, then his son—and somewhere along the way, he’d become estranged from his only remaining child. If anyone had earned the right to be grumpy, it was him.

  “My grandson has started playschool,” he said then, “thanks to you.”

  It took her a second to switch subjects so utterly. She’d completely forgotten about his asking her if she knew any playschools. “That’s good,” she said.

  His grandson. Yes, the small clothes she’d seen him buying. But he wasn’t Val’s child, was he? Whenever Val had come to Pauline’s she’d been alone—surely if she had a little boy she’d have brought him to visit her old housekeeper?

  Oh, it was too complicated to figure out, and none of Audrey’s business anyway. She gave a slight shiver, and immediately he said, “You should go inside.”

  But Audrey couldn’t face it yet. She still felt fragile, as if the tears might erupt again at any second. “I’ll stay out here a little longer,” she said, “but you go in if you want.”

  To her great surprise he took off his jacket. “Here,” he said, “throw that over your shoulders.”

  “No, really, I—”

  “Go on,” he said, “it’ll keep you warm. I don’t feel the cold.”

  Audrey took it, too weary to argue, and draped it across her shoulders, and the warmth of it—the warmth of him—settled into her. It smelled of peanuts.

  “Thank you,” she said. They stood in silence for a few minutes, listening to the muffled buzz of conversation from the house. When the silence between them stretched, Audrey stole a glance at him. His hands were in his pockets and his gaze was off down the garden again. Was he remembering his son, or his wife?

  She thought of her irritation with him, how she’d dreaded each visit to his shop. Well, she’d had reason enough, she supposed, not to want to meet him.

  But look at him now. Look at the two of them, standing together peaceably, if not exactly happily. Nothing like a tragedy to remind you what was important, and what didn’t matter at all.

  Eventually she slid his jacket from her shoulders and handed it back. “Thank you. I think I’ll go in now.”

  He accepted the jacket wordlessly. She left him there and went through the kitchen, squeezing Pauline’s shoulder on the way and telling her she’d see her in the morning. She walked back to her house and let herself in quietly, and gathered Dolly into her arms.

  She stood in her dark kitchen and looked out the window, but most of Pauline’s patio was hidden from her view by the dividing hedge. She turned away.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she whispered to Dolly, and the little dog licked her face.

  Satur
day

  Hello?”

  “It’s Irene Dillon,” she said. “Please don’t hang up.” She’d found Pilar’s number in Martin’s phone. She’d known it would still be there, and it was.

  Silence.

  “I’m calling to apologize,” Irene said. “I realize I was difficult to work for.”

  Another brief silence before Pilar said, “Is okay, Mrs. Dillon.” Another pause, and then: “How is Emily?”

  “She misses you, a lot,” Irene said. “In fact—” she closed her eyes “—we’re wondering if you’d like to come back. For Emily.”

  She waited for Pilar to say that she’d gotten another job, or to make up some other excuse—moving back to Lithuania, whatever. Or maybe just to tell Irene to go to hell, or words to that effect. A grey-and-white cat emerged from the hedge that separated them from the neighbors and padded across Irene’s lawn, stopping to sniff at something in the grass.

  “Mrs. Dillon,” Pilar said, “Emily is beautiful girl, and I miss her too. But I think I cannot work for you. I think it is too difficult for me to make you happy. I am sorry.”

  As Irene watched, the cat sat on the lawn and raised a hind paw to scratch under its chin.

  “Pilar,” she said clearly, “just give me a minute. Let me explain.”

  —————

  “Dad,” she said quietly.

  Michael turned. They were in the church grounds, waiting for Kevin’s coffin to be brought out. People were scattered in small huddles, talking quietly. Michael had seen his daughter earlier in the church and avoided her, thinking he wouldn’t be welcome if he approached.

  “Hello,” he said. “How are you?”

  She wore a purple coat he hadn’t seen before, and a green scarf splashed with purple daubs. Her hair was caught up at the back of her head. Her face pale, the tip of her nose pink, a slick of something shiny on her mouth. Beautiful, she’d always been so beautiful. The sight of her made him want to weep with love.

  “Dad,” she repeated, “I’ve been horrible to you.”

  Michael made a small dismissive gesture.

  “No, I have,” she said. “I’ve been horrible.” Her eyes welled up, and she blinked rapidly. “I know you did the best for us, I know it wasn’t easy…with Ethan, I mean.” She bit her lip as she waved a hand vaguely towards the church. “This has made me realize how stupid, how petty I’ve been…I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to have anything to do with me again.”

  Michael smiled. “Well,” he said, “I’m afraid that’s never going to happen.”

  She gave a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh. “I was hoping you’d say that.” Thumbing tears from under both her eyes, blinking again. “Dad, I’d like…can I come and meet them?”

  Michael felt something lift away from him, something he hadn’t even known had been weighing him down. “Of course you can, anytime you want. When were you thinking?”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” she said. “I’m working later today, but I’m off tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s fine,” he told her. “What time would suit you?”

  “Maybe around five?”

  “Five would be perfect. You could stay to dinner if you liked.”

  Over Val’s shoulder he saw the woman who’d bought the little dog. Audrey. He didn’t have to think for her name, it just slid into his head. He lifted a hand and she smiled at him, a watery version of her usual smile. She wore a pink jacket and a red-and-blue flowery skirt. She looked summery, at the end of October. She probably looked summery all year. She probably didn’t own any black clothes.

  Val followed his gaze. “You know Audrey?” she asked.

  “I do,” he said. “She bought a dog from me.”

  “You know she’s Pauline’s next-door neighbor?”

  “I do.”

  “Small world,” Val said. “She seems lovely.”

  There was a stir at the church doorway then and they turned to watch Kevin being brought out. When the hearse began to drive away, Michael looked back at his daughter.

  “Are you walking to the cemetery?”

  She nodded and they fell into step with the rest of the crowd, and after a while she tucked her arm into his and he covered her hand with his, and in this way they traveled the short distance to Carrickbawn cemetery.

  —————

  There was nothing on television until the late movie, and that was still hours away. Audrey stopped flicking through the channels and turned to the newspaper she’d bought on her way home from the funeral. It had sat untouched all afternoon while she’d mopped floors and scrubbed sinks and pushed the Hoover under beds, trying to shake off the gloom that had settled around her. She hadn’t even lit the sitting room fire, so busy she’d kept herself, and now it hardly seemed worth the effort.

  She leafed dispiritedly through the newspaper but nothing lifted her spirits. The letters page full of complaints, the usual spate of road accidents, the ongoing unresolved conflicts around the world, the never-ending political scandals. Really, why did anyone want the news?

  She turned to the crossword and found a pen in her bag. Maybe it would distract her for half an hour. The first clue was brief recap of material. As she thought about it her mobile phone beeped. She took it off the coffee table and read Audrey, I will come to your party—Zarek.

  I will come to your party. She looked blankly at the screen.

  Party?

  And abruptly, she remembered.

  “Oh my God!” she cried, springing from the couch, causing Dolly, who’d been dozing beside her, to leap to the floor with a startled yelp. Audrey raced upstairs—“Oh God”—kicked off her slippers on the landing, dashed into her bedroom, and scrabbled under the bed for her shoes—“oh my God”—flew back across the landing and scrubbed at her teeth in the bathroom—“oh God”—ten past seven now, fifty minutes before they’d start arriving—​“oh God”—not a drop of alcohol in the house, not a scrap of party food, impossible, completely impossible to buy anything now, no time to queue in a supermarket, what in God’s name could she do?

  She rushed downstairs again, almost tripping over Dolly, who galloped along beside her. She raced into the kitchen and began yanking open presses, riffling frantically through their contents. Spaghetti hoops, instant mash, steak and kidney pie, raisins, carrots, tomatoes—nothing, nothing she could possibly use. Could she phone everyone and cancel? No, she could not, at this late stage. But she had to serve something, you couldn’t have a party without food, she must have something to give them—

  She opened the freezer and pulled out drawers—and discovered, to her enormous relief, a just-opened bag of oven chips and two pounds of sausages.

  “Oh, thank God,” she muttered, scattering the chips onto a baking sheet, grabbing a scissors to cut the sausages in half. While the oven was heating she tore upstairs again and replaced the towel in the bathroom and changed her skirt and combed her hair and applied lipstick with a trembling hand.

  Back downstairs she did what she could in the sitting room, put a match to the heap of kindling in the fireplace, added half a bucket of coal when the flames licked, plumped cushions, shoved magazines under the couch, bundled away her book and her reading glasses, shuffled the CDs into some sort of order, and raced back to the kitchen with two empty cups.

  Twenty-five past seven. She slid the baking sheets of chips and sausages into the oven, corralled Dolly in the kitchen, grabbed her bag and moped keys, and left the house, pulling on her helmet.

  The off-license was ten minutes away.

  —————

  Zarek hoped his text to Audrey hadn’t been too late. He’d meant to send it earlier, but the café had been busy and it had slipped his mind until he was leaving work.

  His initial reaction when Audrey had invited him to her party was to decline. The prospect of an hour or two of struggling to understand his classmates’ conversations—not to mention forgoing his DVD night with Anton—didn’t tempt him. So he
’d demurred, using work as his excuse, although he’d known quite well that he was off at seven that Saturday.

  But as the week had worn on and he’d prepared to send his regrets to Audrey, he’d begun to feel slightly guilty. He liked his art teacher, and she’d made a kind gesture, and he was about to reject it with a lie. And however preferable a night in with Anton and a DVD might be, they would both still be there next Saturday. And surely he should experience one Irish party, at least. So in the end he’d decided to go along.

  Twenty to eight. He should leave in the next few minutes if he wanted to arrive on time—because it would be impolite, surely, to turn up late. Audrey would no doubt have everything in place by now, was perhaps having a glass of wine as she waited for her guests to arrive. Zarek knotted his tie and polished his shoes, mildly curious, now that the time had come, about what the evening ahead would entail.

  —————

  Twenty to eight as she stood in line at the off-license, her heart in her mouth, her skin prickling with impatience. The wine hurriedly chosen, two red, two white—would four be enough? She had no idea, but it was all she could fit in the moped’s basket, along with the cartons of orange juice and bottles of sparkling water. The white wine wasn’t chilled, she’d have to put it in the freezer when she got home.

  What if they all drank red, or white? What if her four bottles ran out after half an hour? Oh, what had possessed her to do this? But the guests would surely bring some wine with them, wouldn’t they? Didn’t everyone bring wine to a party?

  “Next,” the man at the cash register said, and Audrey hoisted her basket onto the counter and resisted the impulse to check her watch again.

  They’d be late, nobody ever arrived on time. She’d be fine. She took her change and grabbed her purchases and fled outside.

  —————

  Irene regarded her reflection in the full-length mirror. Pretty damn good for forty-two. She thought of the concentrated effort that had gone into ensuring that she still looked well in her forties. The punishing gym schedule, the constant calorie counting, the endless massages and facials.