Art for Beginners

Room 19, level three. It would have been a lot easier for Jessica to find if the architect of the campus hadn’t seemingly been channelling M. C. Escher tripping on mind-warping hallucinogens. Or if the interior designers had been more direct with their signage, instead of littering the place with vague arrows. Was that one pointing to the stairwell, or around to the left? She’d finally given up when she’d found herself in the dusty basement, where a sour-faced janitor snapped out a route for her.

“At least I’ve achieved my aim of speaking to a new person tonight,” Jessica muttered to herself as she waited for the elevator. She figured she was allowed the treat of it, having surely burned off the ready meal she’d hastily-inhaled before leaving home, in all her running around the building.

She checked the time. The class was seven minutes in already. Jessica usually prided herself on her punctuality. And on not arriving to an appointment with sweat marks and her fringe stuck to her forehead. She looked at herself, reflected over and over in the multiple mirrors of the elevator. She saw the smallest version of Jessica, and envied her.

“You’re going to be fine,” she tried to persuade the largest version. Her 26-year-old flushed face didn't look entirely convinced.

She looked at her phone once more before opening the door of room 19. Nothing from Paul. She got the feeling he didn’t approve of his fiancée's first foray for years into a new hobby. Nothing mattered to Paul unless there was guaranteed money to be made from it.

The morning she’d received the email informing her that her application had been accepted, he shut down her excitement, complaining it was interrupting his watching of the news. The news that he, of course, was allowed to shout and swear throughout all he pleased. At the time, she had comforted herself by silently thanking the stars (apart from that one on the screen being busted for his involvement in a paedophile ring) that said shouting and swearing wasn’t directed her way for once.

“Hi, sorry I’m late,” Jessica mumbled to the teacher, trying not to look back at any of the 12 pairs of eyes looking with interest at the newcomer.

“As the rabbit said to Alice,” Mr Beecham drolly replied. “Pull up a chair. And then pull that up to an easel…” he consulted his notes. “…Jessica, is it?”

Jessica pick between ‘yes’ or ‘that’s right’, so her mouth made the decision on her behalf. “Yes right.”

He shrugged and checked her name off his list, putting his pencil into a pocket of his waistcoat. An item Jessica noted to be adorned with small pictures of dogs and looked like it had been made out of one.

Mr Beecham winked at her. “Welcome to Art for Beginners. Now, where was I…”

It was a welcoming wink. Not a wink that suggested he wanted Jessica to strip down to her birthday suit and be a life model for the evening as punishment for her tardiness. Not that Paul would’ve interpreted it that way. He rarely showed any interest in her other than when he perceived other men to be, and was always telling her to stop being so clingy and why oh god why couldn’t she find a damn hobby or something. Which proved to be the brush off that had swept her into that very building.

Jessica spotted a free easel and chair combo and made her way over to it. Her neighbour, a white-haired woman who looked to be in her 70s, in a denim bucket hat straight out of the 90s, orange dungarees from the 80s, nodded at her. While Jessica was straightening the easel and trying hard not to scrape her stool too loudly on the floor, she snuck glances at the pin badges on the other woman’s coat. A lot of rainbows and a lot of love for prog bands. She hoped the first lesion wasn’t going to be to buddy up and draw each other. She knew she would never be able to do this vivid display justice.

*

Four weeks later, they’d covered light and shade, depth perception, and everyone got to keep (or destroy) the paintings they’d done of each other.

Jessica’s initially most feared part of the sessions – the twenty minute break in which she had expected to falter her way through small talk – was now her most looked forward to. She and the owner of the bucket hat, Julia, had bonded over intense inspection of each others hard lines and soft ones and additionally bonded over the brown stains that passed for cups of decaf from an ancient machine down the hallway, which would only exchange drinks for coins when it was in the mood. Julia, the self-described stronger of the “J-squad”, had had to stop the janitor about it once or twice, whose looks almost soured the milk.

“So, how’s things with You Know Who?” Julia had her cup raised to her mouth, in a half-hearted attempt of concealing her distaste for Paul. Or the drink. Probably both.

Jessica had learned quickly enough that Julia did not deal with small talk, she went straight to the big stuff. Excavating the skeletons from Jessica’s life in minutes, where Jessica had taken weeks, if not months, to share the same with friends she known for years. Back in the second lesion, Mr Beecham had posited that the pen may be mightier than the sword, but with the paintbrush one could splash red over one’s enemies too. Julia had speculated in the volume of a lady of a certain age who is still in denial of her deafness that Mr Teacher might be well overdue a good lay. Jessica had to hide behind her palette for the rest of the task. She made her oil painting at risk of becoming a watercolour with her tears.

“He’s stopped pushing the ‘get a hobby’ line, at least.”

“That’s progress,” quipped Julia.

“He’s now back on to the ‘when are you going to give me children’ line.”

“Ah. And I suppose that is entirely your responsibility, and requires no input from him.”

Jessica laughed at the twinkle in her new friend’s eye. She was laughing a lot more lately and was enjoying it. It sounded strange and foreign to her at first, like a tap that hasn’t been turned on for a while, full of rust and squeaks and limescale. But with Julia’s encouragement, she was getting back in the flow.

“How about you? How’s the digging going?” Jessica asked.

“I’ll be up to my eyeballs in spuds this autumn. If I can just get the voles and foxes to keep their grubby little paws off them.”

Another thing she loved about Julia: the pictures she painted with her words.

“What do you think of today’s task so far?”

Julia wrinkled her nose. “Screen printing? Not really my cup of tea. Makes me feel like a photocopier, and I handled enough of those in my secretarial days. I’d rather be wielding a brush. But you! You on the other hand…I can tell you’re really liking it. You had this fierce concentration going. I had to ask you to pass the scissors twice. Went and got a pair myself in the end.”

Jessica blushed.

“And I honestly think, if you wanted to put some of those designs up for sale…people would fall over themselves to have copies.”

Jessica cocked her head to one side. She’d never thought of making something sellable. That was never her intention in signing up for the class. But it was a real boost to hear.

When she returned to her prints, she looked at her work with fresh eyes. Tried to allow herself to see the potential that was so obvious to Julia.

Fifteen minutes before class wrapped up, Mr Beecham announced a time trial. Students had to rapidly sketch an item on their person of their choosing.

“Is he setting us up to be courtroom artists or something?” Julia stage-whispered.

Jessica snorted, then patted herself down. She realised the perfect item was already in her hands. She took the ring off her finger and set it down in front of her.

“My precious,” hissed Julia, who was busying herself by removing her shoes.

No, not precious, thought Jessica. She now saw the ring in a different light, for what it was. A hollow promise.