Life Class Read Free Page A

irritation. He wasn’t in the mood for ‘the treatment’ – by which he meant the air of intimacy Elinor created between herself and any man she spoke to, though to be fair it wasn’t only men, he’d seen her adopt exactly the same approach to women. No, he wasn’t in the mood for Miss Brooke, but then she raised her gigantic blue eyes to his … ‘Gig lamps,’ his father used to say. ‘Eyes like gig lamps.’ It had been one of the magic phrases of his childhood.
    ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
    ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
    ‘Only I heard you’d walked out of the life class.’
    He wondered which of the men had told her. ‘I needed a bit of fresh air.’
    ‘Was it something Tonks said?’
    ‘You know Tonks. He more or less said I was wasting my time.’
    ‘Ouch.’
    ‘Ye-es, ouch. Anyway, after that I thought I’d better go away and do some thinking. I couldn’t just go on drawing.’
    ‘Where did you go?’
    ‘Hyde Park.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t exactly run away to sea, did I? Do you mind if I smoke?’
    ‘No, go ahead. I might even join you.’
    Her pupils shrank as the match flared between them. ‘What are you going to do?’
    No advice, he noticed. She often asked for advice from men, but never gave it. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s any point staying till the end of term. I mean, you could say, if I’m wasting my time the sooner I’m out of here the better.’ A dragging pause. ‘He likes your work.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, simply. ‘I know.’
    They smoked in silence for a while. Then she said, ‘Life drawing isn’t the be-all and end-all, you know.’
    ‘It is here.’
    ‘So perhaps here isn’t the right place?’
    He shook his head. It had taken so much determination to cut loose from his background and come to the Slade that he could hardly grapple with the idea that he’d made the wrong choice.
    ‘Anyway,’ Elinor said, standing up. ‘I’d better be getting on.’ She turned toward the door, then looked back. ‘A few of us are going to the Café Royal tonight. Would you like to come?’
    He hesitated, but only for a second. What else was he going to do except sit inhis lodgings and brood about his non-existent future? ‘Yes, I’d like that. What time?’
    ‘About eight.’
    ‘Good. I’ll see you there. Are you going home now?’
    ‘Soon.’
    He opened the door for her and watched her walk away down the corridor. With her cropped hair and straight shoulders she looked like a young soldier striding along, and for a moment he saw something in her, something of the person she might be when she was alone, not adapting in that sinuous way of hers to other people, not turning herself into a mirror to magnify whatever qualities he – it was generally he – fancied himself to possess. He’d have liked to know her, that secret person, but the mirror was also a shield and she’d be in no hurry to put it down.

Two
    Three hours later Paul was pushing open the door of the Café Royal. Lying in the bath at his lodgings, he’d almost changed his mind about going, but the moment he walked into the Domino Room his mood lifted. The tall mirrors in which the heads of smokers, drinkers and talkers were endlessly and elaborately reflected, the laughter, the bare shoulders of the women, the pall of blue smoke above the clustered heads, the sense of witty, significant things being said by interesting people – it was a world away from his poky little rooms in St Pancras. A world away from home, too.
    People glanced up at him as he passed, their faces illuminated by the small candles that flickered on every table. Everywhere, moist lips, glimpses of red, wet tongues, gleaming white teeth. How sleek and glossy they all were compared to the creatures who lived in the streets around his lodgings, scurrying about in their soot-laden drizzle, the women so tightly wrapped they seemed to be bundles of clothes walking. This was another England and, passing between the two,