Life Class Read Free

alternative. ‘Here’s a board. You’ve got paper? I’ve asked everyone for an accurate drawing. Pencil.’ Thankful to be able to settle quickly, and with minimal added disruption to the rest of the class, she was not about to object to her view of the model, even if she’d known it would give her extra problems. ‘Don’t get bogged down with detail.’ Again the tutor checked his watch. ‘Forty minutes left.’ With no time to feel intimidated, she just had to put pencil to that first virgin sheet of paper and start.
    Apart from her sister, there was no one in the class she knew. She was on her own in this private struggle. Story of my life at the moment, she reflected, wondering why she was even doing this. She had recently made a resolution not to allow others to organise her life for her, and yet here she was, doing something her sister had pushed her into. Typical of Fran to come up with an idea that she thought was good, then steamroller it through.
    It was early summer, and the two of them had been on the common, taking the Chihuahuas out for their exercise when Fran first came up with the idea.
    ‘Hang on a minute,’ Dory had objected. ‘I’m only here on a flying visit. I’ve not even made up my mind about leaving London. It’s a bit soon to be signing me up for adult education classes!’
    ‘You have made up your mind about moving back. You know you have. It’ll be great. You and me, babes …’ Fran squeezed her arm. ‘And if you are interested in doing the life class, you can’t afford to wait for official enrolment. There’s a waiting list. We all re-enrol directly through Sandy, our teacher, before the end of the summer term. I’ll sign you on as well. You’ll adore Sandy. She’s a real sweetie.’
    ‘However nice she is, you’re jumping the gun a bit.’
    Dory had been staying at her sister’s. There’d been another funeral to go to – one of the few reasons the family all got together these days – and suddenly it had seemed like a turning point, a time to reassess her life. The money from the split with Malcolm might not yet be in her bank account, but the amount had been grudgingly agreed. What was there to keep her in London? But this walk was the first time she’d articulated the thought, and Fran had run with it.
    ‘If you want to sign on for a class, particularly the life class, you might as well make the decision now,’ Fran persisted. ‘And you know what they say. You have to get back on the horse.’ A couple of helmeted women began to rise up above the edge of the plateau, as if emerging up through a stage trapdoor. Then, in a surreal coincidence, their mounts appeared. The horses crossed the path sedately. Their riders, elegantly imperious in full riding gear, scarcely glanced at the sisters, who’d stopped to let them pass. Fran’s dogs began to yap.
    ‘Hush, Nelson, hush, Jimbo!’ She threw a rubber bone in the opposite direction and the dogs raced off, disappearing into a dense forest of grass in frantic pursuit of the jingling toy.
    Dory angled her head towards the retreating riders. ‘Did you clock the kit?’
    ‘Part of the attraction, an expensive uniform that sets you apart … and being elevated above the hoi polloi. There’s no alternative but to peer down your nose.’
    It was a typically chippy Fran response, Dory noted. She looked about her. The common offered views in every direction.
    ‘Hey, do you remember that time we picnicked up here? There was a gang of us, plus our mums. I must have been seven or eight. So you were around ten. I’m sure it was near here. We clambered down that bank.’
    ‘Nearly thirty years ago!’ Fran smiled in recollection of the adventure. ‘And we climbed into the garden of the witch’s house. Where was it?’ The sisters strolled over to the edge of the hill. Beyond the steep slope, diagonally slashed by the bridle path the riders had just ascended, there was nothing to see but the densely wooded slopes. The