lazy arcs. I can still see them falling like outstretched hands, hear them crunching underfoot. It is a scene, a mood, still fresh and bright in my mind, recalled with the bittersweet taste of youth, of lilacs and lavender in the air: the campus entirely idyllic, and utterly charming.
Except, that is, for the dining hall. There is good reason why this area is never shown on the prospectus or to visiting parents: it is the underbelly of the school, necessary and crude, one of the few parts of campus where function is allowed to outweigh form.
The fluorescent-lit canteen rattled and hissed, emitting the rancid tang of meat in rendered fat; the vending machines rang and rattled with constant use. Students gathered in heaving clusters around laminate tables, surrounded by an odd mixture of cheap plastic chairs and a repurposed pew dragged up from the basement for a drama rehearsal several years before. It is still in place now, decades later, more cracked and bruised still.
I settled into a corner, watching my classmates hungrily, mining them as one might an anthropological study – this approach perhaps indicative of one of the many reasons why, while not entirely isolated at my previous school, I had still found it a struggle to make friends.
I looked at the casual way they’d adapted their uniforms – all made, it seemed, from materials designed to scratch and needle the skin beneath – Doc Martens, black, red and tan; butterfly clips in pastel shades holding fraying braids. Tartan, denim jackets tied tight at the hips. Velvet headbands, earrings, strings of beads and silver chains, all signifying personalities and secrets which I – wearing my uniform simply as the handbook prescribed – seemingly did not possess. I felt woefully underdressed, and hid lower behind my book (a novel whose simpering heroine I had begun to find irritating, and which I would soon abandon, never to be finished).
Still, it seemed I had not gone entirely unnoticed. I felt the eyes of the girls on me, though each time I looked up, they’d already looked away; heard, too, the whispered words ‘She looks like …’ passing from one group to the next. I could imagine their thrust. Some creature, a farm animal: dog, pig, or cow. As the clock tower rolled one slow minute to the next, the whispering seemed to grow louder still, a growing hiss, a menace, as I blushed and sat lower, longing to disappear.
As I blinked away tears, staring blankly at the words on the page, three figures passed by the large windows at the other side of the cafeteria. My eyes followed the shock of red hair as the girl bobbed alongside two others, who smiled and talked as they kicked the fallen leaves underfoot.
I imagined them turning back to look at me; willed the girl to give me the same, playful smile she’d offered earlier, and shuffled in my seat, my pose determinedly relaxed.
But she didn’t turn back, and they walked on, disappearing into the sunlight, their shadows trailing tall and proud behind.
The studio was covered in creamy paper, pastel drawings crawling from corners like creeping clouds of smoke. I felt a cool smudge at my elbow, a violet stain smeared across the cuff of my shirt.
Over the course of the week, those of us in the practical classes had filled the space, until it was impossible to leave the room without a coating of pink and blue chalk on our uniforms. Our hands left pastel prints in homage across the school: library books with green thumbs, a peach palm around a test tube, blue lips printed on coffee cups and each other’s cheeks. The lesson, I suppose (Annabel, the art tutor, rarely leading us to an obvious conclusion – or any conclusion at all) was that the artist leaves her mark on everything she touches. It would be many years before I would realize just how true that would turn out to be.
She sat on the edge of the desk, feet swinging just above the floor, while those of us in her Aesthetics class sat breathless, waiting for her to begin. Dressed entirely in black, her hair in silvery curls that hung heavily over her shoulders, she seemed drawn from another world. Even in memory, she seems possessed of a wordless authority: the power of one who could silence a room with a single breath.
‘Oscar Wilde,’ she began, at last, ‘described the discipline of Aestheticism as “a search after the signs of the beautiful. It is the science of the beautiful through which men seek the correlation of the arts. It is, to speak more exactly, the search after the secret of life.” And that is what we are here to do. Make no mistake. You may be young, and time may seem to be endless, but you’ll learn – hopefully before it’s too late – that those singular moments of illumination are what make life worth living. It is up to you to seek them out, to see them for what they are. And the sooner you begin, the richer your life will be.’
The door clicked open, a short, blonde girl in sports colours muttering a hushed apology as she entered. She sat in the empty seat beside me, mouthing ‘hi.’ I smiled numbly back, surprised to be greeted at all. Annabel looked at her coldly, and the girl looked away, abashed.
‘You should be developing your aesthetic appreciation of what is beautiful, or worthy of your attention,’ Annabel went on, ‘by creating your own philosophy – your own theory of art – that serves to explain your tastes, and the way these intersect with the rest of your life experience.’ She leaned back, rolling her shoulders; her silver pendant sparkled in the light.
‘After all, this is not a course for the lazy student who wishes to sit around and have me talk at them for four hours a week. Quite the opposite, in fact. I expect you to posit your own judgements, and explore your subjective appreciation of art. Those of you taking my practical course – which I believe is most of you – should take the opportunity to develop these ideas beyond what Wittgenstein called the “limits of language”, which, I am sure, you will grow familiar with in this class.’
A ripple of excitement ran through the room. For all their bitterness and dramatics, it is a fact known only to the very best of educators that teenagers are uniquely susceptible to the poignant phrase, the encouragement of their own, individual talents. It may be a cliché – but I am sure a great many creative spirits have been forged through the power of a single glimmer of inspiration at this age.
Certainly in the moment, it seemed as though each of us was alive with potential, though none of us knew, for instance, who Wittgenstein was (even now, I will admit my knowledge is rudimentary at best, his theories a little esoteric for my tastes), or why such a limit to language might exist. Or, for that matter, why a group of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds might be somewhat unqualified (to say the least) to create our own theories of art. No – in the light of this encouragement, we saw ourselves anew, thrilled with the sense of possibility.
‘Marie,’ she said, turning to face a dark-haired girl – recognizable as she spoke for her reedy, high-pitched voice, the shadow of a nervous laugh familiar from the canteen. ‘Give me an example of a work you find beautiful.’
‘Michelangelo’s David,’ she said, confidently.
‘Why?’ Annabel said, wry smile revealing gums almost white, fading into teeth.
‘Because it’s a symbol of strength and human beauty.’
Annabel said nothing, the silence deathly, yawning like a trap.
‘Is that what you think, or what I think parroted back to me?’ she said, finally, as she leaned over the desk and peeled away a sheet of paper, her book on Renaissance sculpture open underneath. The girl stared down, turning pale. ‘Though other members of the faculty may enjoy it when their students mindlessly repeat phrases they do not believe, the point of this class,’ she said, turning her back on the girl, ‘is not to give me the answer you think is right. It is to tell me what you really think. I already know what I believe, and I don’t need you to remind me.’ She looked around the room, eyes cast on each of us in turn. I felt my stomach lurch as she settled her gaze on me.
‘Violet.’
‘Yes, Miss.’ My breath caught a little, nerves shaking through. It was the first time she’d spoken to me directly in either class. There was some brightness to her, that seemed almost to glow from within; as though her blood ran