All these things run through my mind as I watch him demonstrating a layering technique to Cameron Gibbs, a particularly mouthy twelve-year-old with a penchant for stealing. For some reason Cameron—whose widowed father has a deep and meaningful relationship with prescription drugs—seems to have taken a shine to Niall. He watches intently as Niall’s long, paint-stained fingers pick up the brush and feather watercolour paint onto the paper. Niall says something to him that I can’t hear, and Cameron’s response is equally quiet. Whatever he says, it makes Niall’s usually smooth forehead crinkle, his lips pulling down with a frown.
Then he looks up at me and beckons me over. My heart beats a little faster as I walk toward them, trying to swallow the memories down as I remember that action so well. The curled fingers, the come-hither stare. I do exactly what I always did—I obey.
Niall starts to talk as soon as I reach the table. “Cameron says he’s never been to an art gallery.”
I don’t know why he looks so surprised. These are deprived inner-city kids whose parents’ priorities include finding drugs, taking drugs, stealing money to afford drugs and very occasionally trying to kick the drug habit. Enriching their children’s cultural knowledge doesn’t come high on their agendas.
“I don’t expect he has.” I glance over at Cameron and smile. He grimaces back. In his world, smiles are for wimps.
“What about the rest of the kids?”
Without answering, I glance around the room. Allegra is bent over her paper, splashing colour on with glorious abandon. A couple of the older kids are sitting at the back flicking paint at each other with their brushes. The rest are either chatting or drawing. “I don’t expect so, Niall. They probably haven’t had the opportunity.”
He chews on his lip. “But they live in London. We’re surrounded by art galleries and museums.”
And also drug dealers and crack dens. I widen my eyes in an attempt to get him to shut up. Cameron watches us interestedly.
“What can I tell you?” I say.
He pauses for a moment, thinking things through. Then his face lights up and a grin slowly forms on his lips. “We can take them.”
“What?” I wasn’t expecting that.
“You and I. We can take them all on an outing. We can go to the Tate Modern. I know some people there.” He looks so young and enthusiastic it makes me smile.
“You want to take fifteen kids on a day trip to a gallery? How are we going to get there?”
He has an answer for everything. “I’ll hire a coach. It can pick us up here at four; we can spend a couple of hours in the gallery, and then come back. I’ll even stump up for a McDonald’s for them all.”
I notice Cameron’s expression out of the corner of my eye. He looks almost excited. It would be amazing to show them real art, to have Niall talk them through the exhibitions, demonstrating how paint can bring a canvas alive. But these aren’t just any kids. They aren’t used to having to behave in an art gallery, and the older ones can be almost impossible to control. It’d be like herding cats.
“Can we talk over there?” I gesture to the empty desk in the corner of the room and wrap my fingers around his bicep to lure him over. The warmth of his skin leaches through his shirt, the hardness of his biceps through his flesh. He glances down to where my fingers hold him, then looks right into my eyes.
“Sure.”
When we get there I release him. He absentmindedly rubs the spot where I was touching him. “Is there a problem?”
“This isn’t going to work. We can’t take them to a gallery. They’ll end up destroying the place. Cameron will probably try to nick an installation and George will graffiti over some Dali with his spray paint. We’re asking for trouble.”
“You don’t think these kids deserve to see some real paintings?”
He baits and I bite. “Of course I do. They deserve everything and most of them don’t get it. But if something goes wrong and it ends up at the door of the clinic we’ll all be in trouble.”
Niall starts to pull at the paint coating his fingers. I notice it’s oil-based, and as we are only using watercolours he must have come here with them like that. I feel curiosity overtake me, and I’m desperate to know what he was doing, what he was painting.
“I’ll cover us. Let me speak with the Tate and set something up for next Thursday.” He reaches out with jade-stained fingers. “Come on, Beth. Please?”
Next Thursday. I’m meant to be going out with Simon to a party that night, but it won’t start until nine. I figure I’ll be able to do both—take the kids to the gallery then go to the ball. Niall’s so very irresistible, with those pouty lips and ocean-coloured eyes that in spite of my fears, of my misgivings, I find myself nodding in agreement.
My reward is a squeeze of my wrist and an excited grin which practically splits his face in two. Like the Niall-addict I used to be, I take it all in and let him set my pulse on fire.
Feel the burn.
I’m still feeling it when we finish for the day. The kids help clear up in their noisy, haphazard way, washing pots in the Belfast sink and managing to spill dirty grey water onto the floor below. It sprays over the white tiles surrounding the sink area.
When they’re gone I clean up again, wiping down the white porcelain. Niall picks up the paintings and hangs them up on the string I’ve wired across the ceiling for just that purpose, securing them with clothes pegs.
“I’m sorry if I pushed you into a corner.”