When I started a painting evening class at my local college, I was hoping to escape the loneliness of an empty house. I never imagined someone might use it to escape their life. That was before I met Jackie Brownlow.
We were thrown together as the two singletons on the course. I remember arriving early for the first class and taking my place at the centre of an arc of easels. I picked that spot because I thought it would be easier to paint our subject head on. Other students arrived, and we introduced ourselves. There were two older couples and a trio of young women. Jackie arrived just as the tutor started and took the only vacant seat next to me. She looked flustered, so I gave her a reassuring smile.
I put Jackie in her early forties, married with kids. She was English, of medium build, with dull brown hair. She exuded nervous energy, like a cat scoping out unfamiliar territory.
The course assumed no previous knowledge, so the tutor got us doing ice breaker drawing exercises to loosen up. Afterwards, we walked around, looking at each other's attempts to reproduce the still-life objects on the table. Everyone laughed nervously, relieved we were all equally bad except for Jackie whose efforts were several levels above the rest of us. She definitely had an artist's eye. I joked we had a ringer in the class and she blushed at our spontaneous round of applause. Her smile changed an ordinary face into something special. Her hazel eyes shone. I was not the only one to notice. I hoped we might chat after the class but everyone left sharpish. Jackie was first out of the door.
Over the next two weeks, Jackie relaxed. I'd watch how she did something and try to copy her. She'd stifle a gentle laugh at my efforts.
"It's easy when you've got a magic pencil Jackie."
"Then let's swap Don."
Our hands got in a tangle over the exchange, which embarrassed both of us. `No holding hands in class,' someone joked, and we sat like two awkward school kids. We'd got as far as confessing I was a widower and she was divorced with teenage kids. But the art studio was not the place for more intimate disclosures.
I was hopeful we might go for a coffee. I had no ulterior motive. The age difference between us made any liaison remote, and I think Jackie was relieved I was not an eligible man. I sensed issues with her male relationships.
When she did not turn up for the fourth lesson, I asked the tutor if he'd heard from her and he said she had problems with her car that were too expensive for her to repair at the moment. I asked him to give her my number if she would like a lift to class. She called the next day.
"It was very kind of you to offer Don, but things are awkward for me at the moment." She sounded genuinely disappointed at missing out.
"Jackie, I've got no idea what's going on in your life, and I don't need to know. But this class is important to you. I see how you come in stressed and flustered and how that all flows out of you by the end. You go home a different person. You need this safety valve."
She went quiet, and I realised she was crying. "You noticed that, did you Don? The course has been an escape from my life. I miss it."
"Then don't give up. I'll collect you from wherever you want and drop you back there afterwards. No one needs to see me."
I'd guessed right. "Thank you, Don. I'm a single woman again. I should be able to have a life of my own, but It's a struggle."
I picked her up at a bus stop the following week.
"What are you smiling about Don?"
"You tell me first Jackie?"
She looked in the vanity mirror and reddened at her image. It was suddenly difficult to look at each other. We spent the journey talking about anything to avoid discussing the feelings that meeting again had evoked. I broke on our way back and broached the subject.
"I thought I'd never see you again Jackie. It was not a nice thought."
"Don, you are a very nice man. I wish there was a place in my life for a friend like you, but that would draw you into my chaos, and I wouldn't want that to happen to you."
That seemed to be the end of it. We'd lapsed into conversational noise to fill the silence. Jackie noticed a large supermarket ahead.
"Do you want something from there Jackie? They are open 24 hours."
"I couldn't ask you Don. Not now I've let you down."
I pulled into their car park to end the discussion, and soon we were pushing two trollies. She was grateful. Her grocery deliveries missed lots of things, and her kids complained. She'd soon filled a small trolley. I had a bag full in mine.
"Look at me. Out with a woman after 9pm and we are not going to A&E. That counts as a date at my age."
Jackie laughed. "We are not on a date Don. Anyway, what age is that?" We swapped numbers. She said I was five years younger than her father. I said she was two years older than my daughter. She scowled at my smile and declined my high five.
Her shopping filled several bags. "I can't carry all this. You'll have to come to the house with this frozen stuff, Don." The prospect unnerved her. Jackie's whole body seized up. Whatever was at home was a source of worry.
"You get in the back before we turn into your street and we'll pretend I'm a mini cab." She smiled at my subterfuge and relaxed. Her good mood lasted until we parked opposite her street to change seats.
"Oh god. That's Ryan's truck. He's not supposed to make unannounced visits, but he thinks he can check up on my life whenever he likes. I don't care what he does with his bimbo hairdresser. Why can't he just leave me alone?" She was getting in a state. "Let me out, Don. Just take the food if you can use it."
She reached for my door as her front door opened. A man came out and shouted something we could not hear to a boy who had followed him down the path. The man was in his early forties, tight tee shirt to show off his overdeveloped arms. He had a dyed blond haircut that would look stupid on a man half his age.
Jackie scrunched down in her seat even though there was no risk of her being seen. "Ryan is a builder when he's not in the gym trying to look like a pound store hulk. With the stuff he takes, he's got the Hulks' anger. I bet he's wound the kids up again and left me to deal with it. Josie has had enough, but Sean is his spy."
I understood the daily stress Jackie lived under.
Ryan stalked towards his pickup. I saw a violent man, an angry man, an abuser. She'd divorced him, but he still made her life a nightmare. I knew what Jackie escaped for a few hours each week at our art class. We watched him drive off and waited a while before I pulled up outside her house. She shouted for her kids to give a hand with the bags.
Sean was a mini me version of his dad. Same stupid haircut, but his skinny frame in his wife beater had not yet benefit ted from steroid enhancement. Give it time, I thought. Josie was thirteen, going on 25 with an attitude and trollop make-up that compensated for a lack of self-esteem. Jackie read the pity in my face and wiped away a tear. The kids trudged off with all the bags from the boot, including mine. I could hardly ask for it back.
Sean came back to give me the third degree. "Where are you from, mate? Most cab companies won't come around here."
I had to think on my feet. "We don't anymore, but there's an old card by the supermarket payphone. The lady said she had frozen food. What was I supposed to do?"
His dad had briefed Sean to note all comings and goings. "Okay mate. Why don't you let me have a card? We'll ask for you next time."
"Sorry son, I'm out of them. Hang on I may have one left." I opened my wallet and gave him a cab card for a company that went out of business during Covid. He studied it, furrowing his mono brow. To seal the deal, I pressed my phone in my jacket pocket and made it ring. I answered an imaginary call.
"No Col, I'm just leaving the badlands. Station ETA ten minutes. Don't give the job to Sean, he's a wanker." The boy's eyes went up at the coincidental mention of his name. "Right, I'm offski. Don't let that food defrost."
Jackie watched my performance. First in fear, and then trying to stifle a laugh. I waited until Sean turned around, gave her a wink, and drove off.
#
I thought we'd weathered the storm, but the next week Jackie phoned me to say she was giving up the class. Something had spooked her, and she didn't want to talk about it. She was in tears. "Please Don. This is hard. I like you. We could have been... I'm sorry, I have to go."
That was that. The following week I didn't even get a call. It helped when they removed her place in the class. Then I got the call that changed everything.
"Don. It's Jackie. I'd understand if you just tell me to fuck off, but I had to take the chance. I've tried to call you three times before and I chickened out."
"Are you ok Jackie? Has Ryan done something to you and the kids?"
"Bless you Don, we're fine, but Ryan isn't. It turns out Ryan's tart was not divorced, as she claimed. She's still married to a man doing time. He got an early release and thought he'd surprise his wife. He got more of a surprise than he bargained for, walking in on Ryan's hairy arse bouncing on her."
"Is the man ok?"
Jackie laughed. It took her three attempts to get the words out.
