Traquair Hall has a diaphanous nave, with studios on each side separated by glass walls. It reminds me a little of Ikea, if Ikea also sold abstract art that goes way over my head. “I’m at the very end,” Julia says as we walk past installations and sculptures. Stephan stops every now and then, distracted by what he sees. The hall is surprisingly quiet. The finished projects won’t be appraised until later tonight, so most artists are trying to get a few hours of sleep.
“Oh, Julia!” Ife exclaims as we reach the end of the hall. “These are amazing!”
Julia’s murals cover every available inch of her studio, including the floor, as well as an added ceiling, much lower than the real one. “The floor is dry,” she says, handing us plastic coverings for our shoes before we walk onit.
Each wall contains a different scene, bustling with people. On the left wall, the glass one, is a beach, sky filled with paragliders and hot-air balloons, while the sea and the sand are clustered with people, and one girl in particular, who looks quite a bit like Julia, is carrying a jellyfish.
The photorealistic style she keeps in her sketchbook is missing here, replaced by stylized figures. And there’s something off about every person, either too tall or too short, their proportions not making sense, yet when squashed together in a crowd of vibrant brushstrokes, they work.
I look towards the opposite wall. This one is of a party, just as busy as the coastal scene. The stench of turpentine nips at my nostrils. The party looks like it’s in a hotel, and as I stare at it, I realise it’s familiar. It’s the Radstone, where I had my prom. A light prickling sensation crawls across the back of my head.
There must be a thousand hotels with an identical interior.
But the longer I stare at the scene, the more familiar it gets.
Not just the hotel, but thepeople:The faces of my old classmates, slightly distorted by Julia’s heavy brushstrokes, fill every inch of the mural as they pass around a smuggled bottle of vodka. And standing by the stage, with a mop of green hair and thick, cartoon tears falling down her cheeks, is my ex-girlfriend, Vicki.
Julia is explaining the beach scene to Stephan and Ife, telling them about a trip to Blackpool, and how that was the last time she ever got sunburnt. The sound of her voice fades, replaced by a shrill ringing. I’m in the painting, too. I’m right at the centre of the mural, looking up at the stage, holding out my hand to a scrawny man with pale blond hair. While everyone else has that slightly uncanny look to them, this man is immortalised with delicate lines, as though he’s in a Renaissance painting.
“Huh,” Ife says beside me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “That guy looks a little like Professor Gustavsson, doesn’t he?”
She’s pointing at the man on the stage. She doesn’t recogniseme,of course, because I’m facing away, but I’m in a sparkly green dress that I wore to match Vicki’s hair, and I’d recognise it anywhere.
“Gustavsson?” I say, voice small. Ever so slowly, the painting starts to move, and I hear the music in the back of my head. A bad Arctic Monkeys cover. Blue and red lights on the ceiling, a disco ball casting glitter onto the petite dance floor.
“The bassist,” Ife adds.
I hear Vicki’s nasal voice in my ear, louder than the ringing.Everyone saw you.
An accusation of something I still can’t remember.
Because prom was a blur, even though I didn’t drink. I never understood why I forgot that night.
I focus on the painting as the ringing in my ears gets louder. Julia has painted the band with oversized fangs, blood dripping from their mouths. I vaguely remember our religion teacher telling us the band had offered him a discount if they could start playing after sunset. So prom had started late.
“Who’s Gustavsson?” Julia asks, standing next to Ife, and suddenly that night, over four years ago, sharpens, things I’d forgotten come back to life.
Vicki and I kissing in the photo booth, feather boas around our necks. A classmate throwing up on her table after four shots. A teacher screaming at her. The bassist, who everyone thought was so hot, smiling at me from the stage. A long inhale as he sniffed my neck. Fear, unlike anything I’d felt before, running up my spine, when his red eyes bored into mine.
“That’s one of our professors,” Ife says. “Did he pose for this?”
“No one posed,” Julia says. “This scene just came to me on our first day of class.”
“It came to you? Like Snowy?” Ife asks, and Julia nods.
Julia said she could paint things people had forgotten. Memories hidden by trauma.
Bile burns the back of my throat, and I finally tear my eyes away from the grotesque painting, but I can’t get it out of my head. The music, loud enough to hide screams. Gustavsson taking my hand, and then—
“Cassie?” Ife says, hands squeezing my shoulder. “You all right?”
No.
I nod, my mouth too dry to speak. It can’t be him. It doesn’t make sense. I want to smash the mural to pieces, but an old fear has started to wrap cold scales around my chest.
“And this one?” Stephan asks, staring up at the ceiling, the mural depicting a birthday party.
“I’m running late,” I say, though I don’t specify for what. I’m not sure if they replied, but I don’t turn back, walking, and then running out of Traquair Hall, goosebumps crawling over my skin.
