The Art School Dance by Maria Blanca Alonso Read Free Book Online Page A

orang-utan. During the morning break I took Maggie to one
side and explained my dilemma to her. She was usually the most
sympathetic of the three tutors and she listened attentively to
what I had to say, rolling herself one of her awful cigarettes
wrapped in liquorice paper. In her mid thirties, I suppose she
could have been attractive if she tried, but she never seemed
prepared to make the effort; her hair was always in need of a wash
and brush, her clothes were scruffy and she stank of the foulest
smelling tobacco imaginable.
    Pushing her
glasses up the bridge of her nose, puffing out a noxious cloud of
smoke, she said, ‘Look here, Ginny darling, who do you want to
please, yourself and your peers or your boyfriend and his folks?
The painting is good, so why do you want to spoil it by making it
look like some bloke from the pages of a fashion magazine? If you
want to be an artist you can’t think about other people’s feelings,
only the truth.’
    ‘ But the
truth of the matter is that Stephen doesn’t look like that,’ I
pointed out.
    ‘ I
should fucking well hope not!’ she laughed, choking on the
yellow-brown fog she exhaled. ‘Christ! I wouldn’t like to wake up
in the morning with a face like that on the pillow next to mine!’ I
was about to tell her that I never woke up with any face on the
pillow next to mine, when she went on: ‘The further truth of the
matter, the most important truth, is that the painting says
something about people in general and not just the particular
person you know as Stephen. It says that there are people who are
predatory, people who are cunning, people who are driven by animal
instincts. You leave the painting as it is, Ginny; it’ll go a long
way to getting you a place on a degree course.’
    This was the
deciding factor, of course, leaving Sleepers Hill for some place
better, but still I was a little troubled. ‘What about his
Christmas present, though?’ I asked.
    ‘ For
fuck’s sake, girl!’ Maggie said, impatient with what she saw as a
confusion of priorities. ‘Buy him some cheap bloody
aftershave!’
    ‘ But he
was expecting something special.’
    ‘ Calvin
bloody Klein, then!’
    I stayed
silent for a moment, deliberating, plucking up courage; then I took
a couple of photographs from my pocket and showed them to Maggie.
‘This is Stephen,’ I told her.
    ‘ Yes,
very handsome, though perhaps a little too chubby around the
cheeks.’
    ‘ I don’t
suppose you could, er, knock something up for me from one of these
snaps? You know, a portrait he might like.’
    ‘ Knock
something up’? Don't be so fucking insulting!’ she said, standing
and storming off in a temper, muttering to herself, grumbling that
I, an art student, should have known better than to ask.
    There was no
one else I dared approach, I was stuck, I met Stephen that night in
the ‘Crofters’ where the lights were so bright that they hid my
burning cheeks; I told him that the portrait was finished and he
was pleased, he naturally wanted to see it.
    ‘ There’s
a slight problem there,’ I said. ‘You see, the tutors all think
it’s so good that it could be the one piece that swings a place on
a degree course for me.’
    ‘ That
good?’
    ‘ That’s
what they say, and if I’m going to take heed of their advice I
really need to keep it with the rest of my work, include it in my
portfolio. So you see, it’s not going to be possible to give it you
for Christmas.’
    ‘ I’m
disappointed,’ Stephen confessed, and this was obvious, his head
was bowed and his lips were pouting into a sulk. ‘I understand,
though.’
    ‘ You
do?’
    ‘ Of
course,’ he said, looking up and smiling. ‘You’ll still let me see
it, though? You’ll let me show it to Mum and Dad?’
    ‘ Certainly,’ I lied. ‘I’ll bring it back from college just
as soon as the varnish has dried.’
    *
    Though the
problem of the portrait was solved, though I had found an excuse
not to give it to Stephen as a Christmas