Teach Me Dirty

***

Mark

Every morning I walked to Kenneth’s office to hand in my resignation, and every morning something would stop me. A student with a question, some meeting or other, or Helen. Mainly Helen.

She was morose, but resolute, with the tenacity of a bloodhound. Her pretty eyes defied me every fucking day. She was my first thought, and my last. She was my only thought.

Life had faded to a ghostly shade of pale which no employment contract could ever fix, but she wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to listen.

She wouldn’t even give me chance to speak.

She wouldn’t paint, either. She’d make scratchings of nothing, with no substance, no texture. I’d stand at her side, and I’d do everything I could to reach her in that place, but it was beyond me. In all my years of doing this she was the only student I couldn’t reach.

She broke my heart every day. But never so much as she did when I watched her stare at an empty canvas for hours on end. She was losing weight, too. I could see it in her drawn face, the bones in her fingers. I wondered what life at home was like for her. And I felt so bad, so guilty for putting her through it all.

I hated the house. I hated being in there. I hated pulling my car into the driveway at night, knowing she was gone from me. The house was dead, again. I was dead, again.

So, I’d walk. Pull up the car and walk in the opposite direction, through the fields and the woods until I couldn’t walk any further. Sometimes I’d be lucky and walk faster than my thoughts, other times I’d race them and lose.

Most of the time I’d end up in the alleyway at the back of Helen’s, and I’d ache to charge in there and lift her into my arms and take her away and put this stupid situation to bed, once and for all.

But she’d hate me for it, maybe not now, but someday. Just another example of someone making her decisions for her, telling her what’s right and wrong and insisting she toe the line.

She was worth so much more than that.

I thought it would be a matter of days before she saw sense and asked me to hand in that letter, but days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into a serious lack of coursework. It just added another colour to the rainbow of anguish that Helen Palmer caused me in those horrible weeks.

Professional concern.

The icing on the fucking cake.

***

Helen

“How’s your art going, Helen?” Mum’s voice was a whisper at dinner.

I didn’t even look at her. Only shrugged.

“I haven’t seen you paint anything for a while, love.”

“I’ve nothing to paint.”

She sighed. “Oh, love, there must be something.”

“Art comes from my soul,” I said. “And mine is broken.”

Dad left the table with a scowl. Again.

I’d hear them arguing late at night. Mainly about my coursework.

We have to do something, George! This isn’t right!

She’ll fucking snap out of it, Angela. She has to fucking snap out of it!

They really didn’t know me at all.

***

Mark looked tired, and drained, and sad.

He knelt at my side and my skin prickled. It hurt.

“You need to paint,” he said. “I need an assessment piece before the break.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think I can.”

And he was angry, too. His anger was under his breath, not like Dad’s that blew and bellowed and roared. Mark’s anger was quiet and full of sadness.

“You wanted me to help you through your exams. That’s what you said you wanted. But I can’t, you’re not letting me.” His whisper was so harsh, so raw. He looked around the room and as usual nobody was listening. Just as well. “What good is all this if you’re going to fail anyway? Just let me hand in the fucking letter, Helen. For pity’s fucking sake, just let me hand it in.”

I shook my head.

“Christ, Helen. I have no fucking words.”

I thought he’d given up on me, that even Mr Roberts had limits of patience, but he hadn’t. The others left at the end of the afternoon, but he blocked me off. He blocked me off with his hands around my wrists and he didn’t even care who saw. He marched me back to my seat and he got me the most ridiculous sized canvas and the sheer whiteness of it broke me. I cried all over again.

“I have to go! My dad!”

“Fuck your stupid father,” he hissed. “Jesus, Helen, you have to fucking paint something. For God’s fucking sake, Helen, please.”

He took my hand in his and it was the most beautiful pain in the world. He set out my palette and he pulled up a stool and he waited.

“I can’t…”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you can.”

“There’s nothing there…”

“You have to feel it. If you can’t beat it then use it. Fucking hell, Helen, just use it. Take that pain and feel it, and make it real, and use it. Please, God, just use it.”