16. Rome, October #4
As I walked toward the bathroom, I peered into the other classrooms, enchanted by their grand proportions and casual privilege.
The traditional materials the students used could only be bought from specific, exclusive suppliers.
Yet the oil paints were dried out and wasted; brushes were left out in turps overnight and destroyed.
At the Melrose, the first-year students learned draftsmanship from actual classical-era busts.
These, along with other fragments of ancient sculpture, were strewn about the classrooms as carelessly as children’s toys.
It was the same with the students’ own expensive possessions that I encountered in the bathroom.
Beautiful designer clothes were draped everywhere, oversized cashmere jumpers in bright colors balled up and left behind.
I put on an orange jumper and studied myself in the mirror, running my fingertips along my arms in amazement at its softness.
When I slipped it into my bag, the theft was easy to justify. I’d take much better care of it.
As I approached the classroom again, Lawrence’s voice floated toward me.
I wondered, at first, if he was speaking Italian.
But then I realized that his voice sounded agitated because he was upset.
I hung back at the door and saw them there together.
Lawrence standing behind Mary at the canvas, his blue glasses raised and resting on the middle of his forehead.
The room was darker now; it was lit by a pale globe light which hung down from a heavy chain.
Dead insects had collected along the bottom of it.
“Tell me, Mary,” I heard him say. “Why the fuck are you so afraid of paint?”
He was close, too close, behind her. Even from the doorframe, I heard his labored breathing.
I felt a painful connection to her then, as if the heat of his breath were on the back of my own neck.
Mary lowered the brush that she held in her left hand and stared at the portrait.
She brought the other lightly to her cheek. Her voice wavered.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
Lawrence sighed and reached for her left wrist, snatching the paintbrush from her. “You can lay it on much thicker—here—that’s it.” He pushed the brush into her palette, so hard that I could hear its hairs scraping through the thick oils. “ Fucking roll it around. Really cover it. Much thicker.”
Mary grasped her own forearms as she nodded and followed his movements.
She took the brush back from him and tried dabbing at the painting.
Lawrence remained behind her, his crotch pressed against the seat of her shorts, watching her carefully.
Several moments passed, and then he reached forward and took her wrist in his hand once more.
“You need to work into this area, make it more prominent,” he said. He shook her wrist. “Why are you so stiff here?” he said. “You’ve got to relax.”
I held on to the doorway, unable to breathe, as he guided her movements against the canvas, seemingly to correct the tension in her arm. They were standing so close together that her ponytail was pressed against his open mouth.
I checked up and down the hallway, in case anyone else was left at the school.
I knew I had to reenter the room, but I needed to choose the right moment.
So, again, I held back. I didn’t want to embarrass Mary, catching her like this.
Yet, at the same time, I had no idea whether this kind of thing was usual.
There was something routine about the way he stood practically astride her, something accepting in her response to him that prevented me from speaking up.
Eventually, he sighed and let go of her arm. But then he stood to the right of her and touched her face. With two fingers, he pressed and massaged her temples.
“Look at me,” he said, acting as if he was coaxing her. “Fucking look at me.”
Mary was directly facing the open door now. I stepped back, but it was too late; she’d seen me. Her eyes were lifeless. She glanced from me and met his gaze again.
“You’re tired, I can see it,” he said. “But you need stamina.” His tone grew kinder, but I could see that Mary was still uncomfortable. The toes of her bare feet were wriggling; her knee twitched involuntarily.
Now that she’d seen me, I had to go in. As I entered noisily, he jumped back from her.
“Don’t forget to use your mirror,” he said, his voice much louder than before. He picked one up from a nearby easel and passed it to Mary. I went over to my chair on the platform, careful not to disturb the folds in the black curtain behind me.
Law watched me get back into position. Then he called over to Mary. “Are you sure we can afford her to stay this late?” He turned to me, grinning. “At this rate, you cost more than a prostitute!”
Then, just before he left the room, he patted Mary’s shoulder. “Sweetheart,” he said, in a falsely pally tone. “I should have also said, your shadow lines are spot-on. What you’ve done beneath those cheekbones, it’s very good. Our practice last term paid off.”
I wrung my hands in my seat, wondering exactly what strange intimacy last term’s practice might have entailed. I tried to ask Mary if she was okay, but she just stared at the canvas, biting on the insides of her cheeks. Then she tossed down her paintbrush.
“Let’s leave it there, shall we?” she said, throwing a sheet over the canvas before I could see it. “Good to leave on a high.”
Her mouth was still twitching as she tidied her things away, and there were blotches of color visible on her neck above the collar of her mother’s shirt. For a second, they looked almost like the marks of someone’s fingers.
Then they faded.
“How did she seem afterward?” Jean asked calmly, when I rang her the next morning.
I remember feeling glad to have someone older and more responsible to talk to about it. Wriggling free of the duvet, pressing my feet against the damp cool of my bedroom wall, I told her all about how he had handled her and taken it way too far .
“Mary was very subdued all evening. We went for dinner with some of the others. Or rather, we ate dinner. Mary ordered this giant plate of truffles and didn’t touch her food.
She just drank and smoked and then got up and paid for everyone.
She said she couldn’t be bothered to split the bill, she just wanted to get out of there.
We were about ten people. Can you imagine being that rich? ”
“I told you before,” Jean corrected. “Her money’s a trap. But did you talk to her? Did you acknowledge what you saw?”
I sighed. “We talked around it on the way to the restaurant. I tried to see if she was okay, but…”
“But what?”
“She didn’t want me to press her. She made me feel really lame for thinking it was unusual.”
“Did she say it had happened before?”
“Nothing pervy like this. It’s weird. I was sure she said he was gay.”
“He sounds like a bully,” Jean murmured. “Abusive.”
“I know,” I said, noting the confusing hint of triumph in my voice. It unnerved me, how good it felt to gossip with Jean about the whole episode. Another experience that my own mother and I had never shared.
She kept on at me for more information. “So, what did you get up to afterward? Did anything else happen between you two?”
The handset heated my earlobes. I liked the sensation of it, the hot phone, one leg scissoring the duvet, Jean’s voice close in my ear. My mind darted back to images of Mary and me dancing in the club, green lasers bouncing off her clothes, her hair, her exposed clavicle.
“Nothing happened happened,” I said with regret. “We went on to some club in Pigneto. Circus-themed place. It was really fun, but she was absolutely gone . By the end of the night, she could hardly stand.”
“Traumatized, most probably,” Jean said, with a sigh. “Be patient. Mary’s going through a tough time. She needs you.” There was a pause. “And I also think she wants you.”
“Really?” I was smiling against the phone.
“Oh yes,” she said gently. “I’m sure of it. She just hasn’t acknowledged it to herself yet. But as with any relationship, first, we must open up to ourselves. I wish I could talk to her, because it’s the first step of what I teach in my sessions. The next stage is then much easier.”
“What happens then?”
“That’s when you open up to each other. Allow yourselves to be truly vulnerable.”